Thoughts on drawer methods and systems

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Mark McCallum
Guru Member
Posts: 507
Joined: Thu, Jun 16 2005, 7:53PM
Location: Sydney Aust

Thoughts on drawer methods and systems

Postby Mark McCallum » Sun, Oct 23 2022, 8:32AM

I would be interested in other users thoughts on how you handle the multitude of drawer systems .

We have had supply issues with different drawers so we have been flipping and changing to what we can get. And also with better quality no name brands of runnerers at almost half the price of some brand name systems unless the customers really care we offer them the cheaper ones. This has been keeping us busy adjusting orders and such.

With all the metal sided and soft close drawer runners available today you can have 4 drawer side heights and lengths 50mm incrementally from 250 to 600 all with different settings and product codes, and available in black or white just to add another variable.

The problems for us start when, We load a cabinet with a selected drawer box to suit a brand or type, say blum, and we forget to check whats loaded, but the settings (inset left and right) could be for a hettich drawer.
And the hole patterns are for a hettich drawer. So unless it gets picked up which drawer is loaded the drawer boxes need to be re-cut. Of course if the runners are wrong the hole for the drawer fronts are wrong.
(We are trying to keep the correct product numbers associated to the drawers so that order from the buy list is correct.
We have been a bit lazy and just setting the drawer runner hole pattern and getting caught out because we haven't ordered special heights or depths, causing more problems. because you know,..... shortages )

Seems to be we overlook something quite a bit.

Keeping track of the different settings for various brands is another thing to watch out for, I know its easier to only stick to the one system but things have been a bit challenging.
We are trying a system with little cheat sheets that get loaded when the hardware is selected (as in the picture above, but it is time consuming to set up for every brand and drawer size)

At the moment you can have a drawer bank loaded with an old hole pattern, select a different hole pattern, exit the door drawer editor with that showing as the selected drawer runner but it isn't used on the cabinet at all.

I'm not sure if there is a simple way to do this already or if other users think this would be a useful feature.
In picture1 when you click on a drawer in the drawer / door editor the windows would reflect the settings and hardware that have been applied to that drawer,
or as in picture 2 show the loaded drawer box when hovering over the drawer front.
Jumping out to the main, wire framing an end, Hovering over a drawer box to see what it seems a bit of a convoluted way to see which draw box is in a cabinet.

I do recall a few years ago requests were made to be able to inspect or spin the cabinet in the drawer door editor as per the way it behaves in the main window and I think reasons were given but I can't recall what the reasoning was for not being able to do it. (could have been were were running Pentiums with out graphic cards and it was locking up the system or something)

I think it has been suggested elsewhere that adding a fixed drawer box with associated runners and fixed settings and maximum and minimum drawer front heights could be a good option.

It was a huge upgrade at the time when Thermwood added the ability to add drawer front hole patterns, but It seems to have just increased the diversity of drawer systems available, solve one problem, create another. :lol:

Anyway, interested in if its just us that needs to sharpen up our system and how do you guys handle or workaround the whole drawer setup.

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Kerry Fullington
Wizard Member
Posts: 4718
Joined: Mon, May 09 2005, 7:33PM
Company Name: Double E Cabinets
Country: UNITED STATES
Location: Amarillo, TX

Re: Thoughts on drawer methods and systems

Postby Kerry Fullington » Wed, Oct 26 2022, 6:56AM

Mark,

Our cabinet libraries have generic door and drawer fronts, drawer boxes and hardware. I load those into the design and when the design is complete and ready to nest, I change to the correct doors, drawer fronts, drawer boxes and hardware. using Global Item Modification.
This is the only way I could find to be sure everything is correct. It gets a little complicated because some of the jobs use different hardware (full extension ball bearing, soft close undermount) which require different settings in different rooms in the same job.

Mark McCallum
Guru Member
Posts: 507
Joined: Thu, Jun 16 2005, 7:53PM
Location: Sydney Aust

Re: Thoughts on drawer methods and systems

Postby Mark McCallum » Thu, Oct 27 2022, 4:37PM

Hi Kerry.
Thanks for your reply. :)
That is pretty much how we do it as well.
Its those hardware bits that you are referring to that take all the time. Pareto's 80/20rule.
Like you say the drawers are the fiddliest bit and always require the most checking and sorting.
A few little tweaks around the drawer adding and swapping area could make a big difference to work flow and error reduction and give us some time saving.


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