Filing Cabinet

Overview

The filing cabinet is a steel cabinet that stores hanging file folders in drawers which pull fully out on ball-bearing slides. Its load path is the welded Cabinet Body, a wrapped cold-rolled-steel case that carries every drawer and transfers weight through Leveling Glide feet to the floor. Each File Drawer rides on a pair of full-extension slides and carries hanging-file rails, fronted by a finished Drawer Front.

Two systems make the cabinet safe and secure. A Central Lock System latches all four drawers from one key, and a Anti-Tip Interlock combines a base counterweight with a one-drawer-at-a-time interlock so a fully loaded cabinet cannot tip forward when a drawer is pulled out.

How it works

A drawer extends on the Full-Extension Slide, a three-member telescoping slide whose two caged Ball Bearing races let the Drawer Box roll out until it clears the case, with a detent stopping it at full extension. Inside, Hanging-File Rail rails along each side suspend folders by their hooks, and a Follower Block slides forward to keep partly filled files upright.

Security comes from the Central Lock System: turning the key at the top moves a full-height Gang Bar whose cutouts either clear or block a catch on every drawer at once, so one lock secures the whole cabinet.

Stability is the job of the Anti-Tip Interlock. A cast-iron counterweight in the base lowers the center of gravity, and an interlock bar runs the cabinet's height: pulling any drawer drives a cam against this bar, which then blocks the catches on the other drawers. Only one drawer can be open at a time, so the cantilevered weight of a loaded drawer is never multiplied by several open at once, the condition that would otherwise tip the cabinet over.