Patent Application
20050127803
The present invention relates to a drawer rail structure allowing adjusting of a vertical position of a drawer front panel. With the present invention, a front panel of a drawer may be easily adjusted in vertical position and side inclination, so as to locate in a fully horizontal state. Moreover, a space between two vertically adjacent drawer front panels may also be adjusted through the present invention to give the furniture using the drawers a quality appearance.
The drawer 11 includes a front panel 18 that has a width larger than an overall width of an inlet on the furniture 10 for the drawer 11, so that the rail structure 12 could not be seen behind the front panel 18 when the drawer 11 is in a closed position. The front panel 18 also prevents the drawer 11 from being completely pushed into the inlet. Usually, the front panel 18 has a vertical position decided according to heights of outer ends of the stop plates 17 relative to the front panel 18. In the event the front panel 18 has two lateral ends located at different heights, a common solution is to dismount and remount the guide rails 13 to corrected positions. When the height difference between the two lateral ends of the front panel 18 is small, it might be neglected or ignored by a worker to save the trouble of remounting the guide rails 13. And, in the event the guide rails 13 could not be adjusted to desired height or inclination, the slide rails 14 must be dismounted and remounted to suitable positions for compensating errors in the positions of the guide rails 13.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a drawer rail structure that allows easy adjusting of a vertical position of a front panel of the drawer, so that the front panel always has two lateral ends located at the same horizontal position.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a drawer rail structure that allows easy adjusting of a vertical position of a front panel of the drawer, so that a uniform space may be produced between the front panels of two vertically adjacent drawers to give a beautiful appearance to a piece of furniture on which the drawers are mounted.
To achieve the above and other objects, the drawer rail structure of the present invention includes a pair of guide rails fixedly mounted to predetermined positions on a piece of furniture, and a pair of slide rails fixedly mounted to predetermined positions on two side panels of a drawer. Each of the guide rails is provided at a front end with a first roller, and each of the slide rails is provided at an upper edge with an inward stop plate, and at a rear end with a second roller. The second rollers are adapted to rotate along the guide rails, and the stop plates are adapted to press against tops of the first rollers, so that the drawer is guided by the guide and slide rails to slide in correct directions. An adjusting screw is downward screwed into each stop plate at an outer end thereof, and a spring plate is located below the adjusting screw to press against the top of the first roller. When the adjusting screw is screwed into the stop plate to move the spring plate to a different height, a front panel of the drawer may be adjusted to a different vertical position.
The adjusting screw may be very easily operated to achieve the purpose of adjusting the drawer front panel. Moreover, the adjusting screw may be steplessly turned to allow fine adjustment thereof, so that the front panel of the drawer may be finely adjusted for the two lateral ends thereof to locate at almost the same horizontal position.
By separately adjusting the two lateral ends of the front panel of the drawer, the space between two vertical adjacent drawers may be changed.
The structure and the technical means adopted by the present invention to achieve the above and other objects can be best understood by referring to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying drawings, wherein
Please refer to FIGS. 3, 3-1, and 4 in which a drawer rail structure 20 allowing adjusting of vertical position of a drawer front panel according to the present invention is shown. As shown, the drawer rail structure 20 is provided for guiding a drawer 30 to slide correctly and mainly includes a pair of guide rails 21 fixedly mounted to predetermined positions in a piece of furniture, such as a cabinet 40, and a pair of slide rails 22 fixedly mounted to predetermined positions on two side panels of the drawer 30. Each of the guide rails 21 is provided at a front end with a first roller 211. And, each of the slide rails 22 is provided at an upper edge with a laterally inward extended stop plate 222, and at a rear end with a second roller 221. When the drawer 30 is guided into the cabinet 40 by the guide rails 21, the second rollers 221 on the pair of slide rails 22 rotates in the guide rails 21, and the stop plates 222 on the upper edges of the two slide rails 22 are pressed against a top of the first rollers 211 at the front end of the guide rails 21, so that the drawer 30 slides in correct directions.
Please refer to
To adjust the vertical position of the front panel 31 of the drawer 30, the user needs not to remove the drawer 30 from the cabinet 40, but simply pulls out the drawer 30 by a small distance to show the outer ends of the two slide rails 22. The user may then use a suitable tool (not shown) to change the screwing depth of the adjusting screw 223 into the stop plate 222, and thereby change a vertical position of the outer end of the spring plate 224 relative to the stop plate 222. The two adjusting screws 223 may be separately turned to adjust the vertical positions of the two lateral ends of the front panel 31.
In brief, the present invention employs simple structure to enable adjusting of vertical position of the drawer front panel without the need of dismounting any part of the drawer rail structure, and is therefore very practical for use.
