Barrister Bookcase Door Slides

Since my cabinet wasn't made exclusively for the barrister bookcase door slides I had to do a slight modification on the cabinet but slides worked out perfectly.

I read reviews and watched videos, all were helpful but actually installing my first one taught me the most. If I had one piece of advice it would be to back cut the top face frame of the cabinet above the door at a 45 degree cut, starting 1/8 inch back. this allows the door to clear when opening, and keeps the reveal from the front looking consistent.

Like other reviewers, I found this to be an excellent, well-made product - solid, painted well, works perfectly. If I ever have another project requiring barrister hinges, I will definitely buy these.Also like other reviewers, I found the instructions to not be very helpful, especially given my lack of wood working experience. But my dad, who does have experience, was able to figure out how to install the hinges without much trouble. Thanks to the reviewer who gave the tidbit about installing the removing the doors.

I had read reviews of the product before buying, so I was alert to the challenge of following the instructions. The product is high quality. The instructions are not. They need to be in 3-D, not plan & profile. As it turned out, the photos of the installed glides were more useful than the drawings. Also, pay attention to the reviewer who described installing the door on the tracks once everything's mounted.

they worked fine..

While they may seem a little tricky at first, they go together easily and run smooth. I tried to minimize the gap at the top of each door by angling each doors top to close the gap, but also mimic the hinging action. It went together quite well. I decided to use these hinges and enclose a new tv stand to keep out dust and clean up the look, while also being able to access the electronics inside without having the doors take up space and be in the way like normal cabinet doors. They also give it a better look than pocket flipper hinges in my opinion, which would have been my choice had I not found these.

A little pricey but worth it for the time saved. You have to rabbet the back of the door, and I chiseled a notch for the track tab, but it all worked just fine.

About a year ago, I wrote a review of the Rockler barrister door slides. Since that time I have installed them several times and can comment from a bit more experience. I was concerned with the look of the door when the gap between the top of the door and the top lip of the cabinet is as large as 1/4", which is the size of the opening given in the specification for the slides. The size of the gap arises from the need for clearance between the bottom 30-degree chamfered edge of the cabinet top and the top of the door as it is opened. I found that the clearance can be improved by dishing in the bottom chamfered edge with a round router bit. Also, the attention the gap commands visually can be reduced by chamfering the top edge of the door by 30 degrees to match the chamfer in the cabinet. By implementing these changes, it is possible to reduce the gap to 1/8", which is visually quite appealing, and is also equal to the gaps I specified for the other sides of the door. It is important to comment on the method used to install the doors so that they fit correctly. The vertical position of the slides fastened to the cabinet members CL and CR controls the gap between the door and the upper lip in the cabinet opening as the door slides into the cabinet. There is no adjustment available for this once the holes are drilled. The holes are best positioned by placing a spacer between the top of the slide and the cabinet top. I discussed this in my last review. What is more critical is the positioning of the holes in the door. The members that attach to the door DL and DR are designed for some side to side horizontal adjustment, but no vertical adjustment. The horizontal adjustment is necessary to get a fit without excessive play in the door during opening and closing. To get the vertical adjustment right, which is very important in getting the correct vertical position of the door when it is closed, I first made a jig that would allow the holes to be drilled in the doors repeatably. However, the result was very disappointing. This turned out to be caused by variation in excess of +/-1/16" in the position of the slots in the slider brackets with respect to the roller. In other words, there are small dimensional variations in the DL and DR hardware. Because of this, I would recommend positioning the door correctly in the opening and marking the hole positions from the back, using the hardware, before the back of the cabinet is installed. After this, it is important to track which member belongs to which door.

Worked very well for my project.

Barrister doors are of the inset type-that is, they fit within the cabinet opening. The barrister door slides upward and under the cabinet top. In so doing, the door occupies about 1 5/16 of vertical space for 3/4 thick doors. So if the cabinet is used for books, the maximum height of the books needs to be at least 1 5/16 shorter than the inside height of the opening. The hardware is very robust and works perfectly. The installation is a bit tricky, and the instructions are too brief.

With all due respect to some of the other reviewers of this product -- this is a fine product, and I've given it a Very Good rating. The materials are of good quality and well crafted, and the nylon rollers slide smoothly and silently. The metal portions were exceptionally well painted. I had this product out of the package, installed, and working in under an hour.Probably 15 minutes of that time was looking at the included drawing and manipulating the sliders and tracks until I had a clear idea of how everything fit together. If you aren't big on 3-dimensional thinking, it could be a challenge. The drawing is also available on the More Info tab for this product.I decided to cut and rabbet a dummy door from a piece of 3/4 scrap plywood, just to make sure. That took about 20 mins. I was retrofitting these into a piece of furniture owned by someone else, and I didn't want to mess up the door. But, everything went together as advertised. I didn't pay much attention to the dimensions in the drawing, I just mounted the tracks based on observation and some relative measurements.In this case, since I was retrofitting, I couldn't provide any relief in the existing cabinet for the rotation of the door, so instead I cut a 3/8" x 45 degree angle across the top front of the door, and that did the trick.One other tidbit: you will likely find, as I did, after you mount the sliders to the door, you can't fit them into the tracks. Solution: each slider is attached to the door with two screws. Simply unscrew the top screw on one of the sliders and pivot it slightly towards the center of the door. Now bring the door to its open/flipped up position, insert the opposite roller into the track, and then pivot the slider back into the opposite track. Re-insert the screw and you're done. Remove the door the same way.I was very satisfied with this product, and would use it again without hesitation.

The directions are a little difficult to figure out and they are not totally accurate with the dimensions. After a little work with a dummy piece I was able to make them work just fine. I like the way they act as a door support as well. I plan on using them in the future for projects.

You would think after all these years of comments and concerns about the instructions they would have created better ones. The instructions are terrible! As with others it took too much time and the creation of a dummy model to figure out how to mount the slides. I found the picture Rockler used with it's description to be more helpful. The product is very well made and once installed works smoothly without effort. ROCKLER, REWRITE THE INSTRUCTIONS!

Once you set up the slide as shown the gap between the door and and the inside of the cabinet is too great as some of the other reviews have pointed out. to fix this you can increase the banding trim size from 3/4 to 1 1/4 or you can recess the door 1/2 inch all the way around. You will still need to add a 1/2" trim piece as the drawing shows but at least your shelves are not extending out. The other important task is not to position the door guides which attach to the door as shown in the picture. The front guide wheel should be back 1/4" from the edge of the door. This will help you eliminate the gap. Good Luck!!!!!

The only problems that I had are those that others have stated. Dimension varied from the drawing and the bill of materials, and some instruction were incomplete.

This unit is well made but poorly designed and the instructions are very poor. I fooled around with this unit for a couple of hours and I couldn't get it to work properly. I finally turned the cabinet upside down and inserted the door then aligned the slides and everything works very well, but I lost the capability to remove the door without taking out the screws, which is really not much of a problem as I don't anticipate removing the door anyway.I think a better design might be to eliminate the crimp at the end of the slide, which is designed to keep the door from going too far in and then replace it by putting a small screw at the end. this way the door can be inserted from the back side before the screw is put in.

I have to say first, that the fair rating was based entirely on the quality construction of the product. The instructions were extremely hard to follow. After much aggrevation and time, I returned them.

The slides are of good quality--heavy metal with sturdy nylon rollers. Using them, however, presents some serious problems.Download the "instructions" (just a diagram, really) before you order. What comes with the slides is that same diagram, printed in miniature on the back of the staple-on label that closes the plastic bag the slides come in. No text. No template. No clues about door design or measurement. Just that poor diagram and some (maybe) dubious measurements. See if you make sense of it.You will need to a good deal of work with a dummy piece to make these work. You will be working with precise measurements (lots of 1/16s), tiny screws, and a slide design with no lateral stops on the rollers. The last issue is not a problem in use, but a real problem when trying fiddle with them. They rely on the door's stiffness to hold the rollers in the tracks. If you are fidgeting with them or using a narrow dummy piece, you will need to hold them in place yourself. To play around with these things, you will need to climb into your shelf unit with your perfect eyesight, good lighting, a precise ruler, and roughly 4 or 5 hands plus a few extra fingers to do the job.Note--from the diagram--that the slides are designed for a particular profile on the top shelf, with a lip coming down with a 45 degree bevel on its inside edge. That detail does a pretty good job of concealing everything, but steals about 1 additional inch of height from your shelf besides the 1 or so needed for the door and clearance. (Look at the instructions for Rockler's other barrister door slide model--part 18235--for other door/top shelf treatments. You can--as I naively assumed--put a 45 degree bevel on the top of your door and dispense with the upper-shelf lip, as is shown with 18235, but the top of the door-rabbet and the nylon wheel will show.I am still debating whether I'm going to keep these. The reviews on the other Rockler style (18235) are so poor, it doesn't appear to offer a clearly better alternative.

I'm not a novice, but I was not able to figure out the instructions. After a few hours, I thought I had it figured out, but I failed again. If the instructions were clearer, I'm sure I could do it. I was not able to find a video to help.

Received the slides. First set had a broken weld on the slide, had to put a counter sunk bolt and nut on it(a very small one). For the money they are just not worth what they do.
Just my opinion.

They came with no directions. we have worked on installing one set for several hours, and still not succeeded. I cannot figure out what we are missing--except the common sense to announce defeat.

I found these slides to be poorly designed and constructed. I returned them and made my own slide system.