Patent Application
20060001337
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to drawer slides, useful on tall cupboard pull-outs from cabinets, to impart enhanced lateral stability, particularly such drawer slides as impart sufficient stability as to permit omission of any top drawer guide.
2. Background Information
Most drawers typically consist of a bottom surrounded by four upright members defining a back wall, two side walls, and a drawer front. The contents of the drawer can be accessed through an open horizontal plane defined generally by the upper margins of the back wall and two side walls. To facilitate such access, a drawer slide can be coupled to each side of the drawer and to each side of the drawer receiving opening in the cabinet holding the drawer. Each drawer slide consists generally of a first rail that is designed to be fixed to the side of the drawer and a second rail that is designed to be fixed to the cabinet. The first and second rails are coupled to each other by interengaging surfaces such a glides or bearings that facilitate relative movement between the two rails. A wide variety of such drawer slides exist that are suitable for use to permit drawers to move smoothly and easily in and out of cabinetry, particularly cabinetry typically found in kitchens.
Some drawers have a much different construction from that previously described. In particular, some drawers consist of a bottom, a back wall, a drawer front and one or more shelves or racks connected between the back wall and the drawer front. Access to the shelves or racks is gained through either of two vertical planes located on either side of the drawer and defined generally by the lateral margins of the back wall and bottom. In view of the desirability of maximizing the side access to such drawers, the use of side-mounded drawer slides is undesirable. As a result, some installations involve the use of a drawer slide mounted between the bottom of the side access drawer and the drawer receiving opening in the cabinet holding the drawer. If the side access drawer is much taller than it is wide, the drawer can exhibit significant vertical instability. To enhance the vertical stability of the side access drawer, another slide or guide is typically placed between the top of the back wall and the drawer front and coupled to the top of the drawer receiving opening in the cabinet holding the drawer. Examples of this construction are to be found, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,199,966; 6,412,892; and 6,682,159. While this top slide or guide works satisfactorily to stabilize the side access drawer, it restricts access to the top shelf or rack in the drawer. If the top slide or guide could be eliminated, then access to the top shelf or rack is such a side access drawer could be through either vertical side plane as described before, or through the same horizontal plane as described previously.
Thus, there remains a need for a drawer supporting arrangement that will provide the desired access and stability to a side access drawer, and particularly to such side access drawers as have a vertical dimension that is much greater than the width of the drawer.
A drawer slide system that will provide the desired access and stability for a side access drawer can have a base that includes an outside pair of vertical webs and a centrally situated portion that is elevated with respect to lower margins of the outside pair of vertical webs. Vertically oriented drawer slides can be coupled to each of the vertical webs and a horizontally oriented drawer slide can be coupled to the centrally situated portion of the base. The vertically oriented drawer slides can be coupled to outside margins of a side access drawer adjacent to a bottom of the drawer. The horizontally oriented drawer slide can be coupled to a central portion of the bottom of the drawer. The base can be fixed to a bottom surface of a cabinet to position the side access drawer within a suitable drawer receiving opening in the cabinet.
The outside pair of vertical webs of the base can be separated from each other by a distance that is greater than the width of the drawer. The separation distance between the outside pair of vertical webs can be about the width of the opening in a cabinet intended to receive the side access drawer. The lower margins of the outside pair of vertical webs of the base can define a plane representing the supporting surface of the base. The vertically oriented drawer slides can be coupled to inside surfaces of the vertical webs. The centrally situated portion of the base can be elevated above the supporting surface by a distance sufficient to ensure that the horizontally oriented drawer slide can be brought into contact with and coupled to the bottom surface of the side access drawer. The base can have any convenient longitudinal dimension. A plurality of bases can be used together in a single installation to suitably position and support a single side access drawer within a cabinet opening.
Adapting elements of various designs can be used to couple the drawer slides to various surfaces of the side access drawer. For example, two longitudinal supports can be fixed to the bottom surface of the side access drawer. The two longitudinal supports can be spaced from each other by a spacer having a width exceeding the width of the horizontally oriented drawer slide so that a movable portion of the horizontally oriented drawer slide can be fixed to the bottom of the side access drawer between the two longitudinal supports. Movable portions of the vertically oriented drawer slides can be fixed to outside surfaces of the longitudinal supports.
The vertically oriented drawer slides of this system should be selected to provide the necessary load-carrying capacity for the side access drawer and any expected contents thereof. The horizontally oriented drawer slide can be similar in size to the vertically oriented drawer slides. The horizontally oriented drawer slide can be selected to provide optimum lateral stability to the side access drawer. One advantage of a drawer slide system of the present invention is that the system provides sufficient strength and stability to the side access drawer to permit omission of any top guide, which enhances the access to at least the top shelf in the side access drawer. A base of the drawer slide system of the present invention assures correct placement of the vertically and horizontally oriented drawer slides to achieve the desired operation and support of the side access drawer.
Other features and advantages of the present system will be come apparent from the following description of a preferred embodiment of the present invention, which should be considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The cabinet 12 can be seen to have a bottom surface 30 and vertical partitions 32 extending upward from the bottom surface 30. The vertical partitions 32 can extend upward to an under surface 34 of the cabinet top surface 36. A cabinet front 38 defines a perimeter 40 of an opening 42 in the cabinet 12 that receives the drawer 10. In general, the drawer front or cover 28 extends laterally outward by a distance sufficient to overlap the cabinet front 38 adjacent to the perimeter 40 to provide a stop for the inward movement of the drawer 10 into the cabinet 12. It is to be noted that there is no guide or slide attached between the top of the drawer 10 and the cabinet 12 since such a structure is rendered unnecessary by the present invention.
The movement of the drawer 10 into and out of the cabinet 12 is facilitated by the drawer slide system 14 of the present invention, which has at least one base 44 that is fixed to the cabinet bottom surface 30. The number of bases 44 employed in any given installation is a matter of choice of design, but a typical installation employs two bases as shown in
One possible base 44 of the present invention can be seen in greater detail in
One coupling arrangement 76 between a side access drawer 10 having a H/W aspect ration greater than about 2 and a drawer slide system 14 of the present invention is shown in cross-section in
Other variations in dimension will become apparent to those skilled in the art that are still within the scope of the invention as defined in the following claims. The foregoing detailed description should be regarded as merely illustrative rather than limiting, and the following claims, including all equivalents, are intended to define the spirit and scope of this invention.
