Years ago, we spotted an old Kennedy 520 tool chest for a great price at an estate sale, and in our haste to add it to the collection, we didn’t even notice the missing top left drawer. One saved search on eBay and a few patient years later, an exact match for the drawer finally came up for sale, so there was just the small issue of removing the old drawer rails to make room for the replacement.
This particular tool chest doesn’t have the standard drawer slides with tabs you simply depress to free the drawer. The older drawers have small tabs fixed on the outside of the slide that catch on the body of the tool chest when a drawer is opened, preventing the drawer from being removed. The problem is, those tabs are almost invisible and very hard to access while the drawer is installed.
According to Kennedy, the original slide design was replaced sometime in the 1930s, so any older toolboxes will likely have this rage-inducing slide. After a lot of trial and error and a few choice words for the designer of the older cabinet slides, we were able to remove the old slides still installed on this box in order to install the replacement.
To remove a drawer, the small tab on each side of the drawer must be compressed against the rail to allow it to clear a small built-in tab on the body of the tool chest that prevents the drawer from being fully removed.
Using a couple of strategically placed homemade tools, it’s possible to remove the older slides, so we’ve outlined the steps below to help save others the trouble.
Step 1:
Fashion a custom tool to fit between the rail slide and the body of the tool chest. We found a heavy gauge wire worked the best, with a small loop for a handle and the end flattened into a shape that can slide past the tab when inserted and also hold the tab down when pulling the drawer out.
Step 2:
Pull out the drawer so that the slide is visible, but don’t extend the drawer to the point where the tab catches on the tool chest wall. Insert the tool between the slide and the tool chest, feeling for when the end of the tool goes past the tab (this can take several tries).
Step 3:
With the tool in place behind the tab, slowly pull the drawer outwards, and when the slide tab nears the edge of the tool chest catch, compress the slide tab against the slide rail to help it clear the tab on the body of the tool chest. A second small, pointed tool may be needed to help compress the tab while pulling out the drawer, which can be challenging if you’re working alone.
Step 4:
With one side of the drawer tabs removed, be careful to keep the drawer slide extended so it doesn’t slide back in place while repeating the same process with the slide on the other side of the drawer. Once both slides are removed the drawer will easily pull completely out of the cabinet.
Alternative Methods
Rehabbed Furniture Lab also has a great video on this process using the same approach but with the metal strip from the inside of a hanging file folder. However, we weren’t able to get our drawers to remove using this tool, likely because newer file folders are made with thinner and weaker metal.
