Simple drawer slips

[Jacob]

Little French bedside table to repair

Easiest and neatest drawer bottom fit is into slots in the sides and front. Unfortunately with fine stuff this is not durable because all the wear is then on the thin edge of the drawer, and, any weight inside the drawer is resting in the slot with only a few mm thickness of side supporting it. About 3mm in the case of this 5mm thick side.
So it's reserved either for cheap stuff or very small drawers. Better stuff has drawer slips instead

But turning over the drawer here reveals a really neat cheap alternative; slips of wood glued onto the bottom of the drawer against the edge. They are in short lengths and not attached to the sides, only the bottom. This means differential movement is possible and also they take the weight of the drawer plus contents to make an effective wide bearing surface; 3 times width of side alone.

The runners have to be wide enough too and you can see the wear here

:

It looks like a bodge but is quite sensible and you can see how much wear it takes by the visible wear in the drawer runner.
Quite pleased with that as I've never seen it before - except done wrongly - which I'll post about next!

 

[Woodmatt]

Interesting,I found a similar setup on a small mahogany chest of drawers I repaired for a friend recently

 

[Ollie78]

I have thought about putting in a small strip of hdpe or similar low friction material on the runner surface and/ or the drawer base.
I haven't had opportunity to try it yet but pretty sure it would work well.
Not sure traditionalists and antique enthusissts would go for it though.

Ollie