Plane or Belt Sander to trim drawer??

[Tim Sproul]

For a belt sander, a stationary sander will be much more controllable than a hand-held belt sander. But a hand plane is really fantastic for fitting drawers. With a hand plane, you can even match a bowed case opening so that you have an even amount of reveal around the entire drawer. One possible drawback to using a hand plane is the blowout you can experience at the ends of the cut. To help avoid/control this, bevel the edges of the drawers first and then hand plane the drawer front to fit. Watch the amount of bevel remaining as you plane the drawer front edge. Add more bevel as needed.

[Rich Engelhardt]

The table saw suggestion would work on the design but the amount of material that needs to be removed is at most the thickness of the saw blade and I won't have access to a table saw there anyway.

That's ~ two passes across each top w/this:

http://www.amazon.com/Dremel-PL400-X...ion/B0002QZ1PQ

Fantastic little attachment for a Dremel 400. I can't begin to tell you how often I use mine.

[John Fieldstadt]

Thanks John. I'm looking at low angle block planes. I knew they were a lot but I'm still choking on the prices....they definitely weren't in the budget for this project! I know they'll be worth it in the long run though so I'll see what I can manage.

Chip, that would probably work for me but my table saw will be 220 miles away when I fix this!

Tim, I like your thoughts on the hand plane, the reveal and the bowed case (how'd you know I had an issue with a bowed panel?? :-)

Rich, thanks for the link. I was totally unaware of that attachment, looks very interesting. I'm going to look into that too.

Another 3 wks until I head back down there so I've got time to prepare. I'm very thankful for everyone's suggestions!