Cabinet Door Roller for Smooth Operation and to Protect the Panel

In our house, we have a trash can located in one of the cabinets, and it sits on a slide out drawer. It is probably the most used cabinet in the kitchen. Many times, we open the door (mostly all the way open) and pull the drawer out with our foot. Too often, the rail on the bottom of the drawer catches and grinds on the cabinet door creating a groove. It gets deeper and deeper each time we don't open it all the way, so I wanted to create a way to protect the door, while making it easier for us to make sure the door opens enough to allow smooth operation.

========================================================================

This Instructable is actually two in one!

The first part is what I did to help bend the "L" bracket to provide a step shape
The second part is to apply the roller bearing to the cabinet door

========================================================================

The items listed below are what I used, or something similar. It isn't necessary to use exactly the same components that I have used.

Bill of Materials

One piece of flat "L" shaped metal bracket
One small metal plate (not totally necessary, but will further protect the door wood)
Screws to hold the "L" bracket in place
Screws to hold the metal plate in place
Round Ball Bearing (like from an old roller blade, I just had one from something else just sitting around)
Small spacer for between the bracket and the bearing
Bolt and nut to hold the bearing in place

Step 1: Bending the "L" Bracket

Because I was doing this as a quick but permanent fix, I wanted to do as little modification to the drawer and door as possible. I had on hand an "L" bracket, but where I was mounting it (see next step), I needed to put a step shaped jog in the bracket. However, I don't have any metal bending tools... other than hammers and a vice, but bends never come out as smooth or nice as desired.

To do this, I used two washers that I had and placed one on either side of the "L" bracket and offset so the point where the washers met was where the step shape jog was located. Then I just cranked the vice really tight, and as you can see in the vice picture, it bent very nicely. This allowed me to place one part of the bracket on top of the drawer rail, so the bracket and bearing wouldn't be mounted at an angle. Also, if you need a greater step shape, you can just add more washers into the setup in the vice, then keep cranking it tight. This way you don't need to rely on mangling the bracket from multiple strikes with a hammer.

Step 2: Mounting the Roller Ball Bearing and the "L" Bracket to the Drawer

I first mounted the bearing to the "L"bracket. I didn't want the bearing to rub on the bracket, so I used a small spacer as can be seen in the pictures. Then I happened to have a very low profile headed screw with no slot for any screw driver. It had grooved teeth on the beveled edge, so it would still grip when I tightened the nut on the other end. Other screw types could work, so long as there is clearance to the bottom of the cabinet frame when it is slid out.

Then I positioned the bearing so the edge of it protruded just slightly beyond the edge of the side rail to ensure it hit the door before the rail did.

Finally, I added the black flat metal plate to the point where the bearing would start to touch when the door was not opened fully. Then it happens to be just long enough so that when the door is clear of the actual drawer, the roller wouldn't touch the door, but actually has guaranteed it was open enough to provide that clearance.