Patent Publication Number: US-2005127803-A1

Title: Drawer rail structure allowing adjusting of vertical position of drawer front panel

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
      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.  
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       FIGS. 1 and 2  illustrate a conventional rail structure  12  for a drawer  11 . The rail structure  12  mainly includes a pair of guide rails  13  for fixedly mounting to predetermined positions on a piece of furniture  10 , and a pair of slide rails  14  for fixedly mounting to predetermined positions on two side panels of the drawer  11 . Each of the guide rails  13  is provided at a front end with a first roller  15 , and each of the slide rails  14  is provided at an upper edge with an inward stop plate  17 , and at a rear end with a second roller  16 . The second rollers  16  on the slide rails  14  are adapted to rotate along the guide rails  13  for the drawer  11  to move in correct directions, and the stop plates  17  are adapted to press against tops of the first rollers  15 , so that the drawer  11  may slide smoothly.  
      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 .  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      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. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      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  
       FIG. 1  is an exploded perspective view showing a conventional rail structure for drawer;  
       FIG. 2  is a sectional view of the rail structure for drawer shown in  FIG. 1 ;  
       FIG. 3  is an exploded perspective view showing a drawer rail structure allowing adjusting of vertical position of drawer front panel according to the present invention;  
       FIG. 3-1  is an enlarged view of the circled area of FIG.  3 ;  
       FIG. 4  is a sectional view of the drawer rail structure of  FIG. 3 ; and  
       FIG. 5  is a perspective view of a cabinet with drawers. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
      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  FIG. 3-1 . Each of the two stop plates  222  at the upper edges of the two slide rails  22  is provided at an outer end with a downward screwed adjusting screw  223  and a spring plate  224  below the adjusting screw  223 . The spring plate  224  has an outer end located immediately below a lower end of the adjusting screw  223  and an inner end fixedly connected to the stop plate  222 , such that the outer end of the spring plate  224  is in a freely movable state. When the drawer  30  is fully pushed into the cabinet  40  along the guide rails  21 , the spring plates  224  are pressed against tops of the first rollers  211  on the outer ends of the guide rails  21 . When the adjusting screw  223  is downward screwed, the corresponding spring plate  224  is pushed by the lower end of the adjusting screw  223  to move downward. At this point, a lateral end of a front panel  31  of the drawer  30  corresponding to the slide rail  22  having the downward pushed spring plate  224  is lifted to a higher position. Reversely, when the adjusting screw  223  is turned in an opposite direction to move upward relative to the stop plate  222 , the outer end of the spring plate  224  is allowed to spring upward, and thereby allows the front panel  31  of the drawer  30  to locate at a lower position. In this manner, a user may conveniently change the vertical position of the front panel  31  of the drawer  30  simply by screwing the adjusting screw  223  into the stop plate  222  by different depths.  
      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 .  
       FIG. 5  shows an example of cabinet  40  having more than two or more drawers  30 . A user may adjust the vertical positions of two lateral ends of each front panel  31 , so that the front panels  31  of the drawers  30  on the cabinet  40  are horizontally spaced at equal distance, giving the whole cabinet  40  a quality appearance.  
      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.