Pullout shelf Construction

Materials   Construction   Economy shelf   NewLine shelf

Top quality made in the USA
Pull-Out Shelving

Shelves That Slide uses only the top quality material and construction methods for our kitchen pull out shelves. Our kitchen storage accessories are carefully chosen to assure you that you are getting the highest quality available for the money. Our premier sliding shelves are carefully designed to make the best use of the material used while providing the most useable product for your end use. We could cut corners and use lower quality components to such as cheaper knock off slides to save a few dollars but we know in the long run it is quality that matters and the bottom line is our name is on every pull out shelf we make. When we started our kitchen rolling shelving business over nineteen years ago we knew we wanted to be a kitchen pull out shelf company that would be respected for the quality of its work as well as its people. We are proud to tell you that we use Knape Vogt and Wurth slides and although you may know the name as KV or may not know of the brand any cabinet maker does. If a pull out shelf company does not tell you who makes the slides they use ask yourself or better yet ask them what are they hiding?

Premium Pull out shelf material

The premium shelf line includes of course our premium 2 3/8" tall shelves along with the 3 1/2" kitchen drawer replacement shelf, the medium high 4 7/8" tall pullouts, the slanted sided pull-out shelf, the bread drawer and our tall boy 9 7/8" tall shelving

• sliding shelf front, back and sides of or pull out shelf are 9 ply 1/2" Baltic Birch Grade B/B

• bottom of pull out shelf is 1/4" MDF with a white vinyl laminate

• All material used is CARB II compliant.

• 100 pound capacity Knape Vogt (KV) self closing drawer 3/4 extension slides come standard on all of our pull out shelving

• Steel "L" brackets specifically designed for sliding shelf use

• Grass plastic door protectors to help prevent damage to cabinet doors when opening pull out shelves

9 Ply Baltic Birch B/B

• Baltic Birch is perfect for building rolling kitchen shelving, sliding shelves and pullout drawers. There are 9 layers of birch sandwiched together in this 1/2" thick material. Each layer is rotated 90 degrees and the strength that this provides is incredible. We have taken a piece of Baltic that was 2 3/8" tall (the same as our standard height shelves) and 15" to 20" long and laid it down flat supported up off the ground. Our at that time very much overweight founder stood on this piece of wood on one foot and all of his weight (at that time close to 300 pounds). Sure there was a little sagging (the wood not him, well maybe him too) but it held his weight while laying flat. When used in our sliding shelving this material is in the vertical position so it is 2 3/8" thick, not 1/2" like it is when laying flat. Regular 3/4: thick cabinet grade plywood such as Oak or Maple are only three to five layers in 3/4" and this not only provides less strength but being thicker there is more wasted space and the shelf itself weighs more. The more the shelf weighs the less you can put in it as the slide hardware is the lowest rated part of the shelf. Solid wood has no where near the same strength and is prone to warping and splitting. Some woods such as poplar are soft and have even less strength and should never be used in pullout shelf construction.

1/4" MDF Vinyl Coated Bottom

• No particle board here. The bottom of our slide out kitchen shelves is 1/4" MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard). MDF is both stronger and more stable than the less expensive particle board. The white 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. This 1/4" material that we use for our pull out shelf bottoms is strong enough to hold your heaviest items without being so heavy as to limit the shelf's capacity. We refuse to use a 1/2" for the bottoms like some pull-out shelf companies do. While the heavier shelf may feel more solid due to the extra weight the truth is it is just heavier and this extra weight is reducing the shelf capacity. Some shelves rely on this bottom for all of the shelf's strength. as the shelf design is not sufficient enough to provide the support needed. On those shelves the wood sidewalls are not actually part of the shelf structure. That is why some companies feel comfortable providing a shelf with half of the material removed for a sliding dovetail joint. There is no concern about the weakening of the sides or fronts and backs as they are really just for mounting the drawers slides and holding items in the shelves. They are simply trimming the pull out shelf out with the Baltic Birch fronts and sides and the best part of the shelf is not providing the strength or structure.

Drawer slides

• The best pull out shelf is worthless if it is not mounted on top quality hardware. We only use top quality drawer slides for our kitchen cabinet pull out shelves. One of the easiest ways to cut the cost of manufacturing sliding shelves would be to use a cheaper "knock off" drawer slide. In all these years and well over one hundred thousand pairs of slides we have had less than a handful of slides that have been defective and none that have failed in regular service of our kitchen pull out shelves. We now offer ball bearing full extension slides with soft close for our premium shelves. Some companies charge you extra for cheap Chinese ball bearing full extension slides even though the actual cost of those cheap knock off slides is often less than the high quality 3/4 extension slides that we use standard. The negative to ball bearing slides is they mount to the side of the shelf and do not wrap around the shelf bottom providing support like the our slides do, that is why we do not offer them on the NewLine shelves

Steel "L" brackets

• The steel brackets that we use for the standard full shelf installation of our pull out shelves are not some skimpy L brackets that are designed for some other purpose like the ones that some other sliding shelf companies use. These brackets 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

• Door protectors are small plastic bumpers that attach to the side of the pull out 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 as they are an added cost so leaving them out saves a little money. They know it is not until after the scratches appear on your doors that you will think of if there was anything that could have been done to prevent the scratches. We think of it for you. One thing to note is that on our 2 3/8" tall shelves if you order the full extension slides you will not receive door protectors. The full extension slides are too tall and there is no room for the door protectors on the short sided shelves when using the full extension slides

Premium Pull Out Shelf Construction

The quality of material used in making kitchen cabinet pull out 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.   

• Pull out 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, after all they are kitchen shelves. We also know that we can not guarantee them to last without designing them to do just that. We know that a shelf without sides will not hold items in place and sliding shelves should have sides unless they are being used as a keyboard tray or to support a computer printer etc. in which case our economy shelves are just the the right product for the job. 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 pull out shelves has been proven to last. The design of our pull out shelves utilizes the sides and front / back for the structural integrity of the rolling shelf. A flat piece of particle board or even birch or other plywood may warp over time and this will cause alignment problems as well as the possibility of sagging so badly the the shelf cannot slide. Particle board does not have the screw holding ability of Baltic Birch. With the Baltic Birch plywood used vertically as we do the full potential of wood's strength is realized. In over all these many years now we have not changed the design of our pull out shelf because they just  work so well. Other companies see our ideas and try to copy them, in fact we repeatedly find our pictures on other company's 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, they usually offer a discount when you buy more than one shelf. Don't they feel comfortable enough with their product to trust that you will come back after seeing the first pull out shelf? We offer a design that is proven and is guaranteed to last.

Rabbet joints

• A rabbet joint gives extra surface area for gluing and the shape of joint adds to it's strength. All of our premium shelves use rabbet joints for the corners while our newline shelves use a simpler butt joint. While the rabbet joint may not be quite as pretty as a mitered joint our shelves are built for form and function over just looks. Remember they do spend most of their life behind a closed door.  The rabbet joint 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.  Unfortunately the average consumer does not know what a rabbet joint is. They have been told all their life that a dovetail joint is the thing to look for. Dovetail joints were important during the 19th century and before when building techniques and glues were not as advanced as what we have available today. This is especially true when dealing with solid hardwoods that wood split if you put a nail or screw into them. A finely crafted dovetail joint allowed a solid piece of wood to be assembled without glue or mechanical attachments such as nails. If you have ever tried to hammer a nail in close to the edge of a piece of solid wood you know that it can split and how little strength it can provide. We don't use solid woods for our slide out shelves and we now have 21st century materials such as the nine ply birch and some amazing quality glues.

Dado joint

• On our premium kitchen organizing sliding shelves the 1/4" bottom is not just stapled or hot glued and then screwed to the bottom of the shelf sides. We cut a dado joint (a 1/4" slot) into the front, back and sides of our premium sliding shelves and the bottom then sits into this slot. During assembly we glue the bottom into the dado joints to create a strong joint that will handle many years of daily use. The 3/8" space below the dado joint allows us to add extra reinforcement for extra wide pull out shelves to stiffen the bottom. Our newline shelves have the bottom nailed to the shelf sides and then further held in place by the wrap around slide hardware. While this does not provide the strength of our premium shelving it does allow us to offer a less expensive shelf for smaller shelves. We do not expect that the newline shelves will last quite as long as our premium shelving but we have no problems with the for shelves that are two feet wide or less

Hand Sanded

• After the pieces of our premium kitchen organizing sliding shelves are cut to size and milled to add the rabbet and dado joints in the case each piece is then hand sanded to round over the touched surfaces and to prepare for spraying with the protective lacquer coats.  We sand between coats as well for a quality finish that we be protected and easy to clean. Our newline shelves are hand sanded but are then left unfinished

Protected with lacquer

• Unless you request differently all of our premium 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. The new line shelves are not lacquered which is one of the reasons we can offer them for a lower cost

Bottom wrapped slides 

• One key benefit of the Euro drawer slides that we use is the metal from the slides wraps around the bottom of the shelf's sides to provide the support needed. The screws to install the slides are screwed into the sides of the premium shelf for maximum strength. Just another little touch that makes our shelves superior to the designs that some other companies use. 

Turn around 

• Our premium shelves run one to two weeks from order to ship. We make those shelves in batches of up to 600 shelves to make the bet use of the material. Even though the birch we use is considered to be a green product we feel the responsible thing to do is to make the most out of this fine quality material and building the shelve in batches allows us to use computerize optimization programs to get the most out of the wood

NewLine Slide Out Shelves

We started offering the NewLine shelves over ten years ago (not so new any more) as an answer to lower quality shelves that were being sold online. We found that as long as the size was limited to a 26" wide cabinet opening the shelves hold up very well. In fact in the 10+ years that we have offered the shelves we have not had a single in use failure (or any other failure).

• sliding shelf front, back and sides of or pull out shelf are 9 ply 1/2" Baltic Birch

• bottom of pull out shelf is 1/4" Birch Plywood

• All material used is CARB II compliant.

• 100 pound capacity Knape Vogt self closing drawer slides on all of our pull out shelving

• Steel "L" brackets specifically designed for sliding shelf use

• Grass plastic door protectors to help prevent damage to cabinet doors when opening pull out shelves

The NewLine shelves use the same 1/2" nine ply Baltic Birch as our premium shelves but uses a 1/4" birch plywood bottom. It also uses the same great Knape slides as our premium line. The difference is the shelf construction. The NewLine shelves utilize butt joints for the corners and the bottom is attached to the shelf sides with nails and then secured by the wrap around slides. There is no lacquer on the newline shelves so they are easy to stain or paint to match your cabinets. We save time which means money and we pass the savings on to you. We do limit the size of the NewLine shelves but if you are looking for a low cost quality pull out shelf the NewLine shelves fit the bill

Economy Sliding Shelves

• Low cost alternative to standard sliding shelves
•  Faster delivery than our standard sliding shelves 
• 5/8" Industrial grade melamine 
• Choice of Solid Oak or Maple 3/4" front hardwood trim
• 1 1/2" tall 1/4" thick Baltic Birch rear stiffener
• Same great KV hardware as our standard pull out shelf
• Perfect for home office use

Low Cost Alternative to our standard pull out shelves

• We are happy to introduce the economy sliding shelf. These are a lower cost alternative to our premium sliding shelving. The economy shelf has no sides and it has a short 5/8" tall back. Although they are not what we recommend for your kitchen cabinets this shelf is perfect for the home office as a keyboard tray or printer shelf. Reverse the brackets and this shelf will hang from your desk top to make a great keyboard shelf. Installed normally they work great as a pull out shelf for your printer or other home office computer components. It is an excellent choice for your stereo or home entertainment center components. Now you can pull out your DVD, VCR, Amp etc. to get easy access to the wiring

Fast Delivery

• Unlike our premium shelves, our economy and newline shelves have no lacquer to spray, no dados to cut so we can have these shelves ready to ship within one week of ordering. Of course they are still custom made for your order. Available for cabinet openings from 4" to 24" wide and from 12" to 22" deep.

5/8" Industrial Grade Melamine

• When it comes to our economy shelves we only use the best junk available. Well OK it's not really junk, but it is particle board and when you get used to using the finest material such as the 9 ply Baltic birch you tend to think of particle board as junk. But we do not just use  any particle board. The material used in our economy shelves  is 5/8" thick industrial grade particle board with a cold rolled Melamine finish on one side. Available in White only with your choice of hardwood trim

Choice of Solid Oak or Maple front trim

• To add class to this otherwise plain sliding shelf we have added a piece of 1/2" thick hardwood to the front of this pull out shelf. The hardwood comes unfinished (so you can stain it to match your location if you choose) and in your choice of Oak or Maple. This front trim not only looks great but it also increase the strength of the shelf and reduces the sagging that is common with particle board shelves. We have extended the front of this shelf just beyond the slides so there is no need for a door protector on these shelves.

1/4" Plywood Rear panel

• We have added a 1/4" thick rear panel to the rear of the shelf to help prevent items slipping off the back of the shelf. The panel is 5/8" taller than the shelf and like the front trim reduces the likelihood of the particle board sagging. The panel is low enough to allow clearance for wires. 

Same great KV hardware as our premium pull out shelves

• We use the same great quality Knape Vogt drawer slides as our premium shelf. These 3/4 extension drawer slides are guaranteed by the manufacturer for a lifetime of work. We recommend no more than 75 pounds on the economy slider due to the particle board construction. It works great for home office use such as a keyboard tray or printer drawer. If you want to use this shelf for a kitchen or bathroom pullout we suggest the use of no slip padding to keep items in place. The lack of sides on this shelf make the non slip pad a necessity. There is a benefit to the lack of sides, the shelf area is 1" wider than our standard shelf for the same size opening.

Take a look at our on-line store for other great kitchen cabinet accessories such as trash and recycle systems from rev-a-shelf. Lazy Susan's and tip out tray  cabinet accessories from rev a shelf. TV slide out and swivel systems (not from rev a shelf). We are always adding more items to our store if you cannot find the kitchen accessories or home storage item you are looking for just drop us a note and if we can get it we will add it.