Shoutout to the guy who showed me my drawer slides were upside down

I spent 6 months installing soft close undermount slides and kept scratching up the drawer bottoms. Could not figure out why until a older cabinetmaker walked by my shop in Denver and laughed. He flipped one over and pointed out I had the locking tabs facing the wrong way. Turns out I was putting them on backwards every single time for 40 something drawers. Now I check the little arrows on the slide before I even pull out a screw. Has anyone else had a simple flip like that fix a whole problem? It was such a dumb mistake.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_adam1mo ago

41 years building cabinets and I still put my undermount slides in backwards sometimes. Those little arrows are put there to mess with you, I swear. Its muscle memory, you do it the same way for a few months and your hands forget the arrow even exists. I stopped looking at them and just started marking the front of the drawer box with a pencil line so I dont have to think about it.

kim8191mo ago

@the_adam I swear those little arrows are reverse psychology from the hardware gods. I'm only 12 years in and I still catch myself staring at the slide trying to figure out which way the clip faces. Your pencil line trick is genius though, I might have to steal that because my brain is fried after the third drawer in a row.