I'm repairing a silverware drawer. It's the kind with a track above the box to guide the drawer squarely about the pitch and yaw axes into the cabinet. A section of the original track came off causing the drawer to derail. I have a replacement track but there's a twist -

The original track is held at the far end against a vertical support. The track is dead center, the vertical support is just off center. The track is nailed sideways into the support.

To replicate the original attachment, I'll need some way to nail the new track to the vertical support with 9" of clearance. I don't have a nail gun (are they less than 9" tall?) and I'd have to haul a compressor to the kitchen. I don't have a drill less than 9" long (plus screw length) and with a rotating axis a half inch from the top of the drill. The alternative is to attach the far end support to the back of the cabinet but the track won't be perfectly centered because of the vertical support, whether I attach the new track to the vertical support or the frame behind that. I will align the front end accordingly, of course.

Will the drawer not slide properly if the track is up to an inch off center? It seems most of the weight is borne by sides of the box as they slide over the front face of the cabinet. It's a silverware drawer so it holds a bit of weight but the weight isn't centered to begin with. I'm guessing an offset track might even help.

Thoughts?

No, Mistress, I will not be taking pictures of this project

Thanks,
Sixto
87 300D

I'm assuming the track is wood? If it sits above the drawer, is there some sort of mechanical attachment of the drawer to hang from the track, or is there a framework inside the cabinet that the sides of the drawer ride on?

If the drawer sits on a frame and the track is just to keep it moving in a straight line, and if the track is wood and you can get the remnants of the old track completely out

Try gorilla (or other brands) polyurathane (sp?) glue. Sticks like nobody's business to almost anything. Dampen one of the pieces, as the glue is cures in the presence of moisture. Get the track into place and clamp it somehow - best at the glue point. Maybe a small C clamp or spring clamp?

You must clamp the wood in place, as the glue foams slightly during curing and the foaming action will push the gluing surfaces apart. Don't need much pressure - just enough to hold the parts firmly together.

If there's no stress on the track in the vertical plane, this solution should work just fine.

You could also try attaching a corner iron (in the gate hardware section of your local hardware store or big box store) to the track and the corner iron to the cabinet back. That way your screw installation direction is parallel to the drawer travel direction - that is to say you can get a screwdriver on it straight in from the front.

Bosch makes a tiny but powerful Lithium Ion powered screw driver that's shaped like a drill for better control. Reasonably priced (or at least I remembered them being reasonable - checking now they seem pretty pricey for a cabinet repair - Bosch ps10-2, ps20-2 and ps40-2). Of course, you could always use this repair to JUSTIFY the purchase of a new tool.... I've got an entire workshop full of tools, each of which had a very solid justification for its purchase (at least at the time of purchase, the justification was solid - 20-20 vision tends to desolidify logic at a distance).

Hope these ideas prove useful.

Good luck.

Thanks!

The track is in one piece but part of the ledge the slider rides on wore down to where the slider slips off. I suppose I could use putty to reform the track. A replacement track is almost drop-in that it hardly seems worth the tax on my [lack of] craftsmanship.

Sixto
87 300D

I'm a little unsure of what you have. Is it a regular drawer, with the slides mounted on the sides at the top? Or do you have something like a spice rack, with slides on the bottom, a solid top (w/top mounted guide), and access from the sides?

It sounds like you have a drawer that basically hangs from a single slide in the middle, above the drawer, but that would put the track of the slide in your way of access.
If that's what you have, what kind of countertop do you have? If it's laminate/pressboard, just add blocking to the desired height and screw into the underside of the countertop (with screws that won't come out the top).

__________________
1984 300TD

The drawer contacts the cabinet at three points - two plastic sliding surfaces at the lower corners of the opening, and a slider attached to the aft end of the drawer that hangs on a track that runs the length of the drawer cavity above the box.

This is the kit that fixes it -

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=129421-76018-R7144&lpage=none

The red bit goes on the aft end of the drawer, the blue bit goes on the far end of the track, the angle holds the near end of the track to the back side of the cabinet face. The kit also comes with screws and plasting sliding surfaces for the lower corners of the cabinet opening.

Sixto
87 300D

Jeez. Any chance you can just replace all that with some slides?

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1984 300TD

It's actually a simple fix. It got complicated in my mind. Wood does that to me

Sixto
87 300D

Glad you got it figured out. Next time, I suggest replacing it with a better setup.

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1984 300TD

I the cabinets start falling apart like this it's time for new cabinets

Sixto
87 300D