project: a rolling base for my planer #6: polyurethane, drawer handle, and bolting on the planer

I didn’t like how the “Ebony 2718” Minwax stain looked in the last entry in this series, so I grabbed a can of flat black paint from a recently completed project for my friends’ wedding, and after a 24-hour drying period, painted right over the stain.

I went out to the shop several times yesterday to sand @ 220-grit, and apply another layer of Minwax’s water-based polyurethane. Water-based simply because I had it, and I also don’t love finishing work, and soap-and-water cleanup is about as much hassle as I could be bothered with. After 3 coats – their recommendation – I had something pretty slick:

Adding in the handle I chose for the drawer, and reinstalling the drawer, I have to say I really like it.

I think getting the bolts in place took more work than laying out and installing the handle, which, btw, required me to chisel, and ‘hand drill’ (holding a large brad-tip bit in my hands, as my drill wouldn’t nearly fit in the drawer) to create counterbores to sink the drawer screws and little washers through the rear of the drawer’s front, up to the rear surface of the decorative front piece. They were only designed to go through 3/4” panels.

For the attachment bolts, I finally resorted to taping the heads to the underside to hold the bolts up while I fiddled in the narrow spots to drop the washer, lock washer, and nut onto the 3/8” of exposed bolt. I also had to use a magnet to retrieve the washers a few times.

I feel the planer should just come with a base like this in the first place :) I tried to echo the colors found in the planer in the base. Up to you whether or not I came anywhere near success with that. Here it is, deployed. Note that the area behind it is the space it’s going to roll into, but it’s currently completely full with junk.

It’s a little bit of a stoop-over to use, but I don’t plane nearly often enough, nor in long enough sessions to worry about it. My favorite bit is that I can finally roll it under the work table (I hope – haven’t tested the final assembly yet, as the table is packed with crap under it!), and put it anywhere in the shop I currently have a free spot during future projects. Note how much crap is around it in this shot. The rest of the garage is worse.

All the replacement, spare, and backup blades in my shop are going in this thing, including the planer’s blades, seen here with 2 packs I got each 50% off from Rockler for my 6” Delta jointer. They actually called me at work, made the offer, and I said “Sure, I’ll take two.” I had bought the jointer from them some months earlier.

And of course, if I want to lessen cleanup, I can leave the drawer open to catch stray shavings :)

I will post this as a project when I get the table cleared out, cleaned up, and this thing docked in there.

-- Gary, Los Angeles, video game animator