A guide rail assembly for slidably opening and closing a drawer within an
enclosure is disclosed. The assembly comprises a mounting bracket (10)
for fixing the assembly to the enclosure, a fixed rail (20) on the
mounting bracket for receiving an intermediate rail (30), an intermediate
rail capable of sliding back and forth relative to the fixed rail, an
outer pull out guide (40) for attachment to the drawer and being capable
of sliding back and forth on the intermediate rail relative to the
intermediate rail and the fixed rail, a protrusion (43) on the bottom
surface of the outer pull out guide, a damping device (80) and a channel
guide (60) disposed along the mounting bracket adjacent the fixed rail.
The damping device is resiliently compressible in a lengthwise direction
and the channel guide is provided with a sliding member (70). The sliding
member includes an inner portion (71) that travels within the guide and
an outer portion (72) that extends outwardly from the guide so as to be
contactable by the pull out guide protrusion. The inner portion of the
sliding member locates an end (82) of the damping device that can be
pushed inwardly to provide damping. During a closing action of the
assembly, the outer pull out guide is caused to slide in a drawer-closing
direction and when the protrusion reaches and contacts the sliding member
outer portion, the sliding member travels within the channel guide
against the resilience of the damping device and causes deceleration of
the drawer-closing motion.