Drawer Slide Feature Guide

3/4 extension slides will leave a small portion of the back of your drawer inside the cabinet when it is fully extended. They are often chosen for purely economic reasons as they are usually much cheaper than their full extension counterparts, while achieving nearly all of the same functionality.

Full extension slides, like the name implies, allow your drawer to extend the full distance out of the cabinet, giving you access to the entire drawer. These are often used in interior rollout drawers, toolboxes, or pullout organizers tucked into your base cabinet.

Side mount drawer slides will attach directly to the side of your drawer box. If you check in your kitchen right now, chances are you have side mounted drawer slides. The nylon roller variety is a very popular budget option for side mount slides, but more and more cabinet shops are moving to the more robust steel ball bearing variety, like one we have pictured here. Check your side clearance carefully before purchasing new side mount drawer slides.

Undermount drawer slides are quickly becoming the most popular type of drawer slide (the Blum Tandem undermounts are by far our best selling product). You might have guessed, but these types of slides will sit underneath your drawer box. There is a small learning curve when it comes to construction of the box if you're more used to installing other types of slides, but the ease of use and installation once you get it down are second to none.

When you close a drawer equipped with soft close, the very last inch or so gets pulled in automatically and dampened by some sort of mechanism. There are many drawer slides today with integrated soft close and they are only growing in popularity. You can also retrofit old drawers with add on devices like the one pictured, which you can find here.

When full extension just isn't long enough for your application, overtravel is the feature you will want to look for. They work just like full extension slides, but they extend some additional amount. Generally the extra travel you get is 1 inch, but you can find them as low as 3/4 inch, or as high as 1-1/4 inches. Your mileage may very there depending on the model.

There are a few series of slides out there that have the drawer box sides built in. Pictured here, we have the Blum Legrabox system. For the Legrabox system you only need to build the bottom, the back, and the front of the drawer box.

Hold out is a feature that will keep your drawer or pullout in the open position. Typically you would find these on a pullout keyboard tray on a computer desk.

These days many homeowners are opting to not have handles on their cabinets at all. This trend is especially popular in Europe. Or maybe you do have handles, but you've got a pullout trash can concealed in your lower cabinets. In these cases, having the option to push on the drawer front to have it pop open is ideal. Most commonly this is achieved with add on devices like the Tip-On or Servo Drive systems from Blum as one example. You can also find drawer slides with integrated push to open mechanisms, like the one we have pictured here.

Slides specially designed for keyboard rollout trays on computer desks. They can be mounted to either the sides of your opening, or the top with included L brackets. They typically have the hold out feature we discussed above so your keyboard isn't sliding in and out while you try to type. Some varieties even have a hinged portion at the front so you can conceal your keyboard when it's not in use.

Pivot door slides are very unique, because they aren't used for drawers at all. Notice the hinges attached to the end of the slide. These slides allow you to open up a door and slide it inside the cabinet, tucking the door out of the way. You might find these concealing a TV and entertainment center in the living room, or maybe a bar in a lounge.

These super duty slides are used to support very large concealed pantries. The large slide supports from the bottom. The slightly smaller slide supports from the top.

These slides are used in tables that have removable sections called leaves. These will connect the two far ends, and when you want to increase your surface area you just pull the two sections apart and drop the table leaf in the middle.

Tandems can seem complex to someone who's never used them before. Take a look at our full tutorial on how to use Blum Tandem slides or check out our growing library of video tutorials for using Blum Tandems below.