Review on Shop Fox D3031 18-Inch Full Ext Drawer Slide 100-Pound Capacity Side Mount, Pair by Michael Tarlue

I read the reviews before I ordered these. I was worried because it seemed many of those reviews were written by professional cabinet makers . it is my experience over many years that people doing things for money have different priorities than someone working on their own home, which is me.And, for the record, I am an accomplished DIY'er and once owned a cabinet shop.1. These things are incredibly unforgiving. I mean, a 1/16" off means they won't work worth a damn. For DIY'ers retrofitting existing cabinetry that has been used and abused for years and years (my situation), a 1/16" tolerance is damn difficult. Hell, I bet installing these one most new cabinetry would require shimming one's brains out.2. Even when precisely installed (and by precisely, I mean re-building the sides of the cabinets to exactly meet drawer width plus slide width as opposed to cheap ass shimming), these things require more than a little effort to slide. Now, perhaps the effort required to open and close will lessen over time but I like my cabinets to work with a touch of a hand and I seriously doubt these will ever meet that criteria . possibly a necessary trade off to get 100# capacity, or perhaps a cost issue, but I haven't worked with other brands so I don't know.Bottom line, if I had it to do again, I'd live with the worn out slides I had or I'd try another brand or a different type of slide . I just don't like the way these go in nor the way they work once in.Edit 11/12/13: Had these a while now, use the drawers several times every day. Still don't like them. In retrospect, I think these are designed for industrial applications for oversized and heavily loaded drawers. As such, they don't belong in the normal kitchen. By way of comparison, I installed two new pull out pantry slides from another manufacturer with a load capacity of 300# per. They slide, when loaded, more easily and more evenly than the slides being reviewed when installed on small, single drawers. In other words, my new pull outs, which are 3 times the size of a normal kitchen cabinet drawer, operate more smoothly than do these single drawer slides. Both installed by me. Both installed in existing cabinetry. Bottom line the same, I don't like these.