Rolling Cabinet for Ridgid Belt Sander

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I recently purchased a Ridgid EB4424 oscillating belt/spindle sander and needed a rolling cabinet for it. I wanted it to be roughly 43″ tall since that is where my elbows end up when I am standing and seems to be a comfortable working height.

The Plan

Here are some dimensions for the cabinet and sander. The sander stands about 13 1/4″ tall and the casters were 4 1/4″ tall. So that left 25 1/2″ for the cabinet. That worked out nicely to maximize the yield for plywood when coupled with a 21″ depth.

I purchased a full sheet of 1/2″ plywood, full sheet of 3/4″ plywood, and a 2’X4′ sheet of 1/4″ MDF for drawer bottoms. The top, bottom, sides, back and middle divider are all made from 3/4″ plywood. The drawer boxes and drawer fronts are made from 1/2″ plywood.

Construction

The carcass is made with rabbet joints and the center divider sits in a dado. First, I laid out my pieces on the plywood and marked them with letters and dimensions. I cut all my pieces to length and width. Then, I set up the dado stack in the table saw to cut the dado joint which can also be used to cut rabbets. I fastened a sacrificial fence to my table saw and starting making test cuts. The plywood was undersized a bit below 3/4″ so it took 3 tries to get a good fit. The sides(A) have rabbets cut on bottom, top, and rear as well as a dado ~10″ from the bottom. The top and bottom pieces (B) have rabbets in the back.

I cut the middle support piece long (deep), so I could sneak up on an good fit between the back and the face frame. I wanted a good glue joint between both.

Cutting Back and Case Glue Up

I dry assembled the box and took measurements for the back as well to square it up. The little 90 degree brackets are a great set of extra hands. A couple cuts to sneak up on each dimension is all it took to fit the back and I was ready for glue up. Having the cabinet on its side and elevated with 2X4s worked pretty well for this. I don’t have any pictures of the glue up but most of the clamps run vertical and a few squeeze it from the sides.

Face Frame

I had some leftover birch and ash that I quickly milled and ripped into 1 1/4″ strips. I laid out the face frame directly on the cabinet for overall dimensions and cut everything to length.

I wanted to use half laps for the face frame joinery since everything was too narrow for pocket screws. After cutting them to length I laid out the half lap joints and placed my dado stack in the table saw.

The half lap for the middle divider was done last

You can kind of see the case being glued up to the right in the below picture.

I had to even out the face frame surfaces with block plane and a card scraper. A light sanding was needed and then glued up to the carcass. I always use the nail trick (head cut off finishing nail) to hold one corner in place while I position it.

The last thing I did was flush up the inside of the face frame with the cabinet in a few spots with a flush trim bit and then chisel.

Drawers

The next step was to measure and cut the drawers. I measured all the openings and reduced the width by 1″ for the drawer slides and reduced the height by 1/2″ for a 1/4″ gap on top and bottom. For this cabinet, I wanted to try out my Incra box joint jig. It took about an hour to assemble and set it up. I then made a handful of test cuts and adjusted the fit, which Incra makes very easy to do. Just follow the instructions.

One thing I learned from my practice runs is that marking the edges is critical, so you remember which edges mate up. You can kind of see the “C” in the picture below

I cut two pieces at once (front and back together, then sides together). It is a little tough to make out, but the edges are both marked in the below shot

Setting the blade height is critical, so your drawers end up the correct width. The notch made by the blade determines the overall width and length of the drawer. I was shooting for a perfectly flush joint and cut my pieces accordingly. I ended up being a little deeper than flush and my drawers were a bit too narrow, but I remedied that with a few washers between the slide and drawer during final assembly.

The next step was to dry fit and flush up the edges.

During the dry fit I marked the inside bottom surface where the groove would go for the drawer bottom. After I flushed everything up, I cut the dado/groove for the drawer bottom in all pieces.

I cut the bottoms to size and then did another dry fit. Once everything was looking good, I sanded all the pieces with 80 and 120. After the sanding, I glued them up. Probably more clamps than necessary.

After glue-up I sanded the fingers flush with the oscillating belt sander, which proved to be a little aggressive for this task, but lesson learned.

Assembling Drawer Slides

I wanted to fully assemble the drawer slides before applying finish. I started by cutting some scraps to use as spacers for the slides. This is much easier than measuring and laying out lines on the cabinet. You can see a small 2″ MDF spacer in the picture below. The slide sits on top of that while I drill and screw that mount the slide. I cut a different set to do the upper two slides since then are different sized drawers than the lower one.

OOPS, I think I forgot to reduce the lower drawer by 1/2″. I had to trim some off on the table saw.

I put a spacer in the bottom of the cabinet to raise the drawer up. Then attache the very front screws on the left and right. Pull the drawer out a bit and attach the middle screw on the left and right. Finally, do the rear most hole and the slides should be perfectly aligned.

I always use the soft close drawer slides for rolling cabinets after I built my first one without them. Upon rolling the cabinet, the drawers would open up and would cause the whole cabinet to tip. The soft-close ones have a that initial stick or friction that keeps them closed while rolling it around.

Drawer Fronts

The next step was to make the drawer fronts. I used some 1/2″ plywood that was left over from the drawers and some leftover walnut for the edge banding. I mitered the corners and just worked my way around the perimeter of each drawer front. Blue tape was the ‘clamp’. It is also used to hold it temporarily in place while I work out all four pieces.

After the fronts were done drying, I flushed up the edging with a block plane and sand paper. I sanded them with 80 and 120.

While the drawer fronts were drying I put two coats of blonde shellac on the cabinet carcass which was previously sanded. Shellac dries super fast and leaves a nice color.

Finish Time

I applied a coat of shellac to the drawer fronts for a consistent color, but didn’t do the drawer boxes. All the shellac’ed surfaces got a quick hand sand of 220 to knock off the burrs. For the finish, I am trying something new that seems to get a lot of good reviews. It sounds like this Target Coatings Emtech and also an ML Campbell water based lacquer are good. I ordered the Emtech online and then later found out I have a ML Campbell retailer nearby, so I will probably use that once this gallon runs out to avoid the 15 dollar shipping cost.

Using my Semi Pro-2 without thinning I sprayed everything. Using the viscosity cup showed that the EM6000 was the proper consistency already.

Everything received two healthy coats of lacquer. I did learn that spraying the inside of drawer boxes is a bit tricky. The very center of the drawer bottom doesn’t get hit very well and the outer perimeter of the bottom gets drenched and can pool.

Final Assembly

First step was to attach the drawers back to the slides and since I did that before finish that went very quick. The next step is attaching the drawer fronts. I have heard some people use hot glue for temporary attachment, so I figured I would give it a try. It didn’t really work for me, so I went back to my usual method. I start at the bottom. Pull the drawer out a bit and using some scraps as spacers for the vertical placement. The spacer allows me to focus on centering it left to right only. Once it is centered, I attach some spring clamps to hold it in place. Then, I drill some holes on the inside of the box and screw the front into place. Once the lowest drawer is complete, I use it as my reference surface for the next drawer front with a spacer and work my way up.

Using a Spacer and the Lower Drawer For Locating Front

I also laid out the pulls at the same time and assembled them. I laid them out on the drawer fronts and drilled the holes before they were assembled to the drawers.