Many cabinets, particularly those found in kitchens, include drawers for storing various items. Often, drawers are mounted to the cabinet with elongate slide members that are fixed to the drawer. Each slide member slidably engages a second elongate slide member that is fixed to the walls of the cabinet (often one of the slide members includes a small wheel that facilitates sliding motion). Some of such cabinets include multiple drawers, which can be disposed in vertically stacked fashion, side-by-side fashion, or both.
One of the simplest versions of a drawer slide is the so-called “epoxy-coated” drawer slide, which includes a channel that receives a wheel attached to the slide member that is fixed to the drawer. Typically, epoxy-coated drawer slides are mounted with brackets that are received on one end of the slide and that are fixed (typically with screws) to the rear wall of the cabinet.
Another popular drawer slide style is a “ball-bearing” drawer slide, which, as the name suggests, utilizes drawer slides mounted to the sides of the drawer that include ball bearings to augment relative movement. Ball bearing drawer slides are typically mounted directly to the front and rear walls of the cabinet.
Some drawers have slides that are mounted on the underside of the drawer (so-called “undermounted” drawer slides). These drawer slides may be preferred in some environments because they are less exposed than side-mounted drawer slides (and therefore may be less exposed to damage) and may avoid taking up space on either side of the drawer. In some embodiments, undermounted slides may have mechanisms that cause the drawer to close automatically without slamming. An exemplary undermounted drawer slide is the TANDEM slide, available from Blum, Inc. (Lincolnton, N.C.); another is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 6,854,817, to Simon.
When a drawer slide is to be mounted to the front or rear wall, often the wall will include mounting holes for receiving screws or other fasteners inserted through a mounting bracket that connects to the slide. However, the tolerances of cabinets and drawer slides are typically insufficiently precise to consistently position the holes in the mounting bracket for easy mounting of the drawer slide. Also, some currently popular cabinets have drawers that are configured such that, when the drawer is closed, the front face of the drawer is substantially flush with the front face of the cabinet. In such instances, it is typically desirable that the drawer be mounted precisely to ensure the flush relationship of the drawer face and cabinet face. However, achieving a flush relationship may be difficult due to inconsistencies in the thickness of the drawer face, the length of the cabinet and drawer slides, and the thickness of the front wall of the cabinet. In view of the foregoing, it may be desirable to provide a mounting technique that addresses these difficulties. It may also be desirable to provide a mounting system that allows the mounting of different drawer slide types.