Rolling Planer Stand

Well, here is my planer stand that I just finished. As you can tell from the last photo there were some learning experiences involved in this one.
After quite a bit of time having to move my planer from storage on the floor to its operating position on another part of the floor and back again, I decided to build a rolling stand. This is the first time I have made any type of cabinet out of plywood. I started with some pretty decent plywood then built the carcase using screwed and glued dados and a groove for the back. This part really turned out pretty well. I got the casters from Woodcraft on sale. I painted it, put it together, and mounted the planer. So far so good…...then was time for the drawers (queue insidious music).
Never having made a drawer before, I took my time, decided on the heights for each one. I made a story stick showing the layout of all the inner drawer parts, false fronts, slides, etc. This was a good idea and worked very well. Unfortunately, my cabinet is 15” deep and all drawer slides at the big box stores are 16” or longer. My choice then was to mail order 14” slides or make my own from wood and put grooves in the drawer sides to run on. I decided to go this route. That part actually turned out pretty good, I just hope they are strong enough. My problems were around measurements and precision. For the drawer grooves for the back and bottom I set my dado blade to within .004” of the thickness of the plywood (using calipers). The fit was TIGHT. I thought this would be a good thing. Not so much, because once glue is added the pieces basically refused to go together without serious clamping pressure. Then for the width I wanted a snug fit in the case for the wooden runers so I measured very precisely. Well it fit, but wouldn’t slide. The slightest amount of side to side racking would seize it up. So, I had to sand the sides of the drawers down a pretty good bit to get a good fit. They work fine now, but I destoryed the outer faces of the plywood drawers.
All in all it turned out very well and looks good from the outside, so I am very happy, especially that I don’t have to pick my planer up to move it all the time now. It is actually suprisingly stable as well. I think the little in/outfeed tables would suffer damage from excessive weight before it actually tipped over.

-- "Never measure......cut as many times as necessary." - PeteMoss