A slide mechanism includes at least two telescoping channel shaped slide members or supports having confronting race defining grooves formed in their side legs, ball bearings being retained between the races. The outer channel has a longitudinal slot at the rear end of its cross web and a screw extends between the outer channel side legs to contract these legs on opposite sides of the slot with the tightening of the screw, so that with the telescoping closing of the slide members,some of the ball bearings are tightly embraced by the correspondingly contracted races to lock the slide member against shock and vibration. A rubber sleeve on the screw extends between the side legs and functions as a bumper.
A drawer guide has a runner rail and a guide rail in the form of a channel, which can be displaced relative to one another by rolling on at least one wheel journaled at the drawer-front end of the guide rail and at least one wheel journaled on the rearward end of the runner rail, the wheels running each on a flange of their companion rail. The guide rail is of a channel-like configuration in which the flanges overreach the runner rail wheel and curl slightly around it. The free margin of the flange forming the track for the runner rail overreaches the guide rail wheel and curls slightly around it. As the fully extended position is approached, the width of the space between the web and at least one, preferably both, of the flanges of the guide rail narrows gradually over the length traveled by the runner rail wheel.
A guide for drawers comprises two elongated metal parts, mutually slidable along each other. One of said two parts has a wall conveniently bent to define a raceway (15) with play for a wheel (13) rotatably fastened to the other part. In the raceway (15) a wall region (17) is deformed to define a passage (d) having a predetermined interference for the wheel. A method of manufacturing the guide comprises the steps of bending a wall of a first one of said two parts to define the raceway (15) with play for the wheel (13), inserting a gauged template (21) into a predetermined raceway region, deforming the raceway from the outside against the template to obtain the passage with a predetermined interference for the wheel in the predetermined region (17). Also described is a guide manufacturing machine.
The specification discloses a one-piece polymeric bumper to be installed on the forward end of a drawer slide to prevent the slide from marking the door of a cabinet in which the slide is mounted. The bumper includes a body abutting the end of a drawer rail, a pair of legs telescoped over the rail, and an arm telescoped into the rail and secured therein.
