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Tool box slides

Susquatch

Susquatch

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I was gifted a tool chest to hold my milling tools. It's an old Gray cabinet on big cast wheels. It's rusted and dented, but that's no worse than me.

The biggest issue is the drawer slides. Some of them are bent. I tried straightening them but they still stick.

They are not ball. The drawer rails are spot welded to the drawers and the opposite rail is spot welded to the inside of the chest and there is a sliding H-rail that holds the two in place while they slide. It's this H-Rail that is bent. I tried quite unsuccessfully to find replacements on-line.

Does anyone have any idea where I can find them?

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Ps - yes, I know I can drill out the spot welds and screw new ball rails to the cabinet. But I can buy a brand new cabinet complete with roller bearing rails for less than the cost of new ball slides. I just want to replace a few of the existing H-Rails if I can find them. If not, I'll use my crappy tire points to buy a new cabinet.
 
Plan B is to order ball slides from AliExpress and use those. Anything made in NA will be expensive crap, just like the ones you are trying to fix. Even the obscenely overpriced Kennedy chests use the cheapest of slides.
As an example I have used this style for small drawers, as in tool box type: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000458148824.html
For larger, heavier load drawers I buy from Princess Auto: https://www.princessauto.com/en/searchresults?Ntt=drawer slides pretty much look like the Snapon ones at US50 a pair.

Gerrit
 
go to your friendly neighborhood kitchen & bath renovation contractor and see if you can scrounge some drawer slides when they do the next full-tilt reno
 
gerritv said:
Plan B is to order ball slides from AliExpress and use those. Anything made in NA will be expensive crap, just like the ones you are trying to fix. Even the obscenely overpriced Kennedy chests use the cheapest of slides.
As an example I have used this style for small drawers, as in tool box type: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000458148824.html
For larger, heavier load drawers I buy from Princess Auto: https://www.princessauto.com/en/searchresults?Ntt=drawer slides pretty much look like the Snapon ones at US50 a pair.

Gerrit
Click to expand...
Snap on drawer slides are covered under warranty :D

If you could match them up with a snap on drawer slide you could likely just order them in, and exchange them on the truck for free
 
gerritv said:
Plan B is to order ball slides from AliExpress and use those. Anything made in NA will be expensive crap, just like the ones you are trying to fix. Even the obscenely overpriced Kennedy chests use the cheapest of slides.
As an example I have used this style for small drawers, as in tool box type: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000458148824.html
For larger, heavier load drawers I buy from Princess Auto: https://www.princessauto.com/en/searchresults?Ntt=drawer slides pretty much look like the Snapon ones at US50 a pair.

Gerrit
Click to expand...

OK, I guess a trip to Princess Auto is in order!
 
whydontu said:
go to your friendly neighborhood kitchen & bath renovation contractor and see if you can scrounge some drawer slides when they do the next full-tilt reno
Click to expand...

I have never seen a kitchen/bath slide that looks like these...... But there is a fellow down the road who does cabinet Reno's. I'll stop and ask him. Thanks!
 
Well, Snap-On and Princess Auto were both dead ends. My drawers have the inside and outside of the slides spot welded to the drawers and cabinet respectively with an H-Rail in between to keep them together while sliding in and out. All I want/need is the H-Rail. All of the drawer slides I found on the various web sites include all three parts. To use them, I would have to drill out all the spot welds (6 per half slide or 12 per slide or 24 per drawer or 216 for all 9 Drawers in the cabinet) locate, drill, and tap screw holes for replacement slides.

Ya, I'm thinking I will have to put more effort into repairing the existing slides.

It's either that or buy a new cabinet with my Canadian tire money.
 
I am going to make a suggestion. Cheap tools chest are a waste of money, first one I had got too small, second one collapse when loaded.

Always look at the load rating on the draw slides, it is the what gives you the idea if it last. BTW all of our tools have weight go heaviest loading you can get.
 
Degen said:
I am going to make a suggestion. Cheap tools chest are a waste of money, first one I had got too small, second one collapse when loaded.
Click to expand...

No worries. I agree with your suggestion and I'm happy to hear your advice on that. It's what I am thinking too.

But it was free. That's the very bottom of cheap...... So I fixed them (see below).

I don't plan to load it, but I'm thinking I'll buy a much better one for the mill tools.

terry_g said:
I made up metal strips that fit in the grooves in the slides.
That allowed me to camp them securely in the vice to straighten them.
Click to expand...

This is an awesome idea. It worked like a charm! I don't know how long they will last though...... They were awful easy to straighten out!
 
Dabbler said:
hey your cost-benefit ratio is off the charts! Just don't overload them, and you'll have free drawers for a long time...
Click to expand...

Yes, that is my thinking too! I fixed all the slides today. Tomorrow I will try to paint the cabinet and drawers - they are pretty rusty.

I looked at what I might put in there to get a sense of how much weight might be involved. Some of it is pretty heavy - eg dividing head, tail stock, C5 Spin Indexer, etc.

I had also thought about putting my rotary table in there too, but I think it's too heavy to easily get in and out of a drawer anyway so it will probably go on top of the cabinet. In fact, I'm not getting any younger - maybe it needs its own rolling table the same height as the mill table. I have a Ripper tooth I need to repair for a neighbour that will need a support table of some kind anyway so I can bore and bush oversized holes in it.

So right now I'm thinking of using my crappy tire money to just bite the bullet and buy a nice cabinet after all and put the old Gray to use to store other lighter tools (old spare wrenches, old spare screw drivers, tubing tools, grease gun tools, C-Clamps, etc that are cluttering up my barn.

If I do that, I'll end up with 3 really nice cabinets - one for hand tools, one for the lathe, and a new one for the mill; as well as one old Gray for odds N sods. That's probably a better all-around outcome anyway.
 
terry_g said:
Make sure and lube them, they will last a lot longer.
Click to expand...

Will do.

That said, my rails were bent from overloading not sticking for lack of lubrication

I guess it's best for me to remember that it's an old box so I need to both lube and avoid overloading.
 
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