Pull out drawers under workbench

On top of the hardwood runners I glued 1-inch wide strips of high density plastic for the drawer bottom to ride on. This product is tuff. It is used on the bottom walls of freight trailers. Designed to take abuse from pallets, towmotor forks and freight rubbing against it. And it is only about 1/8 " thick. If you have a trailer repair shop they probably have scrap pieces you can have cheap. Works good for the amount of time I get to spend in the shop.

And the BIG pull out bins for wood/iron scraps etc. I bolted a set of $9 casters used for refrigerators to the bottom. They are good for 1000 lbs and pull straight.

BALL BEARING DRAWER GUIDE
Rated load capacity of 175 lb. Two stage extension. see link below. I live in lincoln and can go check them out if you want me to. Have always kept them back in my head waiting for a project to come along.

Link

Surplus Center's a great place and that's a great price. But it's a single piece undermount, and you notice they don't say who made it. Difficult to use, particularly in a shop situation. Even though it's a full extension, it's still extremely short.

Side mounts, where you buy a pair are much simpler as they only require sides for mounting, no carcase bottom under each drawer.

I routed a slot into my 36" wide x 30" deep drawers. The drawers ride on hardboard runners attached to the carcase sides. These drawers are accessible from both sides so needed to open both ways. Been working well for the last 14 yrs.

You've gotta have some pretty sturdy drawers if you want large ones. I generally use oak or hickory sides, dovetailed, with a captured plywood bottom. If dovetailing sounds exotic, it isn't. A small router and a commercial dovetail jig make it almost foolproof. It was the first operation I taught new help in the cabinet shop.

If you're trying to get a full extension opening, without buying commercial guides, you're best off with sliding dovetails, one inside the other. Considerably more difficult to cut, but work well if you do it right.

Let me know if a picture would help.

Anyhow, there're pix of both sides of that crude bench. Then there're 2 pix of slightly more civilized drawers in the house here showing (or not [G]) different guides.

Hope Community Album was the proper place. Alternate Forums, whatever that is, isn't working.