According to Norm Penner, it’s better to swivel than slide, at least when it comes to the drawers in heavy duty tool storage cabinets. He should know because when the conventional cabinets in his metal fabrication shop failed, he and his father invented the pivoting drawers now used in Swivel Storage Solutions’ work benches and cabinets.
They needed to store heavy tooling and supplies but there was a lot of grinding debris in the shop—and grinding debris is the last thing you want to get into delicate ball-bearing slides. The debris settled into the slides on a regular basis causing the slides in their tool cabinets to stick and ultimately fail.
The Penners addressed the problem by devising drawers that pivot off a vertical rod that runs the full height of the cabinet. Unlike drawers with slides—which are rated to carry a given amount of weight—the taller you make a pivoting drawer, the more weight it is able to handle. That’s because the height of the drawer is proportional to the bearing it has on the rod.
It’s a very cool system—check out the video I shot at the National Hardware Show last month and see for yourself.
http://www.core77.com/posts/53917/Swivel-Storage-Shows-Us-How-to-Build-Tool-Cabinet-Drawers-that-Open-Easily-and-Support-an-Incredible-Amount-of-Weight