Stopping a drawer from opening too far

[Martin-IT]

Hi,

I did a 2  vertical drawers furniture with no separator between the 2 drawers.

I used dovetail runners for the drawer.

Normally, I set a lever in the back of the drawer, which catch on the cross member of the case in the front. 

You can reach and flip it down to take the drawer out.

This would work on the top drawer, there is a cross piece in the case above it.

The bottom piece does not have a cross piece above it, it is the top drawer directly above it.

There is a cross piece below it, but the drawer's bottom is only 1/6 above it, preventing someone from reaching it.

Both sides are 1/4 inches plywood, with a case around it and the legs as vertical frame.

Again, the case's part are below where I could locate a stop for the upper part of the bottom drawer.

Any suggestion ?

How do you stop from being open too far ?

[riqmar]

When faced with a similar situation, a workable solution was developed as follows: on the underside of the top drawer's bottom secure a small piece of 1/4 inch ply  that corresponds to a small section of the crosspiece of the carcass above the top drawer.  Then proceed to install the movable lever in the appropriate place in the bottom drawer.  Trying then to remove the bottom drawer will not easily happen unless the top drawer is advanced; this will provide sufficient warning to forestall pulling the bottom drawer all the way out and spilling the contents...........I have done this well over a hundred times--There is at least one other solution, but I think this is the simplest. 

As an addendum: depending on the height of the back of the bottom drawer, you may well find that it will require a small notch to clear the piece of ply when the drawer is reinserted............

 

[G Ragatz]

On 10/11/2019 at 9:45 PM, Martin-IT said:

 

 

There is a cross piece below it, but the drawer's bottom is only 1/6 above it, preventing someone from reaching it.

 

I assume this means that there is a bottom on the carcase - otherwise, you could reach up under the cross piece to reach the lever.

Another approach would be to insert a loose dowel through the side of the drawer, near the back, that would catch on the back of the leg to keep the drawer from being pulled completely out.  It would be best if you could figure out a way that the dowel could be pulled into the drawer far enough to release the drawer, without having the dowel come all the way out - spring-loaded would be cool, but I don't know how you'd do that.

Edited to add:

Something like this might work, attached to the back side of the drawer, with the pin extending through the side:

https://www.amazon.com/WorldPac-Spring-Assembly-Utility-Trailer/dp/B014GC55PC