B190 Enthusiasts

Two of my kitchen drawers had an annoying tendency to slide open while I was driving. The problem turned out to be that the metal stoppers on the drawer slides were gone. I emailed the company to see about getting new slides, but they never responded, and their website doesn't list them, which makes me think the slides are discontinued (ours are only about 16" long; the shortest one on that page is 21").

Time to fabricate something! You've probably noticed that I do sort of enjoy doing this kind of stuff, if you've read my other articles on this site.

This one was cheap - less than $2 for the angle iron - and fairly easy, involving perhaps an hour of labor.

Required materials:

Angle iron. I used the smallest, cheapest I could find at Lowes. They were under $2 for a pack of four.
Phillips screwdriver.
A way to cut the angle iron. I used my beloved Dremel tool, but a hacksaw would work as well.
I used Vice-Grips to hold the angle iron while cutting. It gets hot from the Dremel tool.
I also suggest a way to sand down the cuts just for a bit more safety, though it's probably not necessary.
Some sort of adhesive. I used JB Weld; Gorilla Glue probably would've also worked; soldering would work, I think... the sky's the limit, and this isn't a high-strength application, so whatever you have that will work on metal should be fine. (And if the glue fails, you're no worse off than you are now, right?)

Directions:

Remove the drawer slides. Hopefully you have one undamaged slide you can use as a template; if not you'll have to guess (or send me a message and I'll measure mine - I meant to do that anyway but forgot).
Use a good slide as a template for where to cut the angle iron and make a mark on it.
(Click on any image to see larger view)
Also, mark the other leg of the angle iron to cut it shorter. If you don't, that leg might be long enough to prevent you from putting the slide back in flush against the counter (i.e., where you put the screw in will be lifted up).
Cut the angle iron.
File the angle iron and file a little bit of paint off the slide where you'll glue it.
Glue it.
Stack some weight atop the slides and let the glue set and dry. I waited about 24 hours.
Just a little weight. :-)

Sharp-eyed readers familiar with JB Weld will note that I didn't mix it evenly - it should be much more gray than that. However, it didn't seem to be in danger of popping off, so I let it go.
Reinstall and test!

Which ones is the original and which are the new ones? (The drawer to the right of the sink is the original, not that it really matters.)

Tip:

When I was doing this, the two angle irons came out at different heights. I was afraid the shorter one would be too short, but in the end it was the taller one that made it harder to reinstall the drawer. However, it's easier to go a little too tall and sand down if you have to, rather than being a little too short.

Update 2/15/2009:

One of the angle iron pieces fell off. I think it was because I didn't mix the JB Weld well enough. Oops.

Written by RJ Marquette, 12/1/2008.

Updated 2/15/2009.

Published on: 2008-12-01 (673 reads)

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