1/4" MDF Vinyl Coated Bottom No particle board here. The bottom of our slide out kitchen shelves is 1/4" MDF or Medium Density Fiberboard. MDF is both stronger and more stable than less expensive particle board. The vinyl covering is textured to provide a grip to keep your items from sliding on it. It is also more durable than a cold rolled melamine. Sliding shelves over 24" wide are reinforced with a 3/8" strip glued and nailed under the MDF bottom. Blum drawer slides The best shelf is worthless if it is not mounted on quality hardware. We only use Blum drawer slides for our kitchen cabinet pull out shelves. Since we starting making pull out shelves over ten years ago we have only used one brand of drawer slides and that brand is Blum. After ten years and tens of thousands of slides we have stayed with Blum for one reason, quality. Blum is respected worldwide as the producer of top quality cabinet hardware. One of the easiest ways to cut the cost of manufacturing sliding shelves would be to use a cheaper "knock off" drawer slide. To the average person Blum slides look very similar to the cheaper "knock offs". It is only upon closer inspection that you may notice that the other slides are made of a thinner gauge steel or they use a smaller diameter axle for the rollers to mount on. Blum refuses to lower their quality as we refuse to lower ours. Blum backs their slides with a lifetime guarantee and we know why. In ten years and through tens of thousands of slides we have had less than five slides that have been defective and none that have failed in service of our kitchen shelves. Steel "L" brackets The steel brackets that we use for the standard full shelf installation are not some skimpy L brackets that are designed for some other purpose like the ones that other sliding shelf companies use. These are heavy gauge steel that measure 2 1/2" wide by 2 1/2" tall with a base that is 2 1/2" wide and 2 1/2" long. These brackets were made for pull out shelves and thanks to a second higher set of mounting holes they can be used with full extension slides as well. You can even use the second set of hole to lift the pull out shelf above a lip on the front of the cabinet that is common in RV use as well as manufactured housing. Or mount them upside down and create a pencil drawer under a desk top or if used with a flat economy shelf they work great for keyboard trays and printers.

Grass door protectors When it comes to door protectors we had to change brands. Arizona is very tough on plastics and we found the Blum door protectors only lasted a couple of years. About eight years ago we switched the Grass version of this product. Grass is another hardware company that is word renowned. We like Blum's slides better than the ones from Grass but we definitely prefer the Grass door protectors over Blum's. So what is a door protector anyway? Door protectors are small plastic bumpers that attach to the side of the shelf and help prevent door scratches that can occur if the cabinet door is not fully open when you start to slide out the sliding shelf. Some companies don't even mention them, they know it is not until after the scratches appear on your doors that you will think of them.

Pull Out Shelf Construction The quality of material used in making kitchen cabinet shelves that slide is only half the battle. The construction technique is as important as the material used. We put as much thought into the construction of our sliding shelves as we did the material. Shelf design Rabbet corner joints. Bottom dado joint hand sanded Protected with lacquer bottom wrapped slides screwed from the side Pull out shelf design We designed our pull out shelves to be just that, pull out shelves. We know that that may be heavily loaded and that they will be opened and closed thousands of times, they are kitchen shelves. We also know that we can not guarantee them to last without designing them to. We know that a shelf without sides will not hold items in place and sliding shelves in most cases should have sides. We also know that the shelf sides cannot be too tall or you will not be able to see what is in it. The design of our kitchen shelves has been proven to last. The design of our shelves utilizes the sides and front / back for the structural integrity of the shelf. A flat piece of particle board or even birch or other plywood's may warp over time and this will cause alignment problems as well as the possibility of sagging so badly the the shelf cannot slide. With the Baltic Birch plywood used vertically as we do the full potential of wood's strength is realized. For over ten years know we have not changed the design of our standard shelf because it works so well. Other companies see our ideas and try to copy them, in fact we repeatedly find our pictures on other companies web sites. They do not have the experience that we do and many of them offer inferior designs because they simply do not know any better. Of course some offer cheaper designs just so they can make a little more money from unsuspecting customers. We offer a design that is proven and is guaranteed to last. Rabbet joints Unlike weaker butt or mitered joints, a rabbet joint gives extra surface area for gluing and the shape of joint adds to it's strength. It may not be quite as pretty as a mitered joint but our shelves are built for function over looks. After all they do spend most of their life behind a closed door. The rabbet joint also allows us to nail the shelf together from the side so repeated pulling on the front to slide it open will not pull the joint apart. Dado joint The 1/4" bottom of our shelves is not just stapled or even worse hot glued to the bottom of the sides. We take the time to cut in a dado joint (a 1/4" slot) into the front, back and sides of our sliding shelves. During assembly we glue the bottom into the dado joints to create a strong joint that will handle many years of daily use. The space below the dado joint allows us to add extra reinforcement for extra wide shelves to stiffen the bottom. Hand Sanded After the pieces of our sliding shelves are cut to size and milled to add the rabbet and dado joints, each piece is hand sanded to round over the touched surfaces and to prepare for spraying. You can see the slight variations that is the signature of hand made quality. After they are sprayed they will be hand sanded again to smooth out imperfections in the finish and provide a surface that is smooth to the touch and easy to dust.
Protected with lacquer Unless you request differently all of our sliding shelves are sprayed with lacquer. The lacquer protects the surface from getting dirty and also seals the Baltic to prevent damage from repeated touching with wet hands and to stabilize the wood during changes in humidity. If you would rather stain your pull out shelves to match your kitchen cabinets just request the shelves unfinished and we will skip this step. We do strongly suggest that after you stain your shelves you should put on an appropriate sealer to keep the sliding shelves looking and working like new. Bottom wrapped slides Another benefit of the Blum drawer slides that we use is the metal from the slides wraps around the bottom of the shelf's sides to help reinforce them. The screws to install the slides are screwed into the sides of the shelf for maximum strength. A slide that screws into the edge of the plywood or anywhere into particle board will not have the strength that our design provides. Just another little touch that makes our shelves superior to the designs that some other companies use.