Solid Carcase Design Recommendation?

[Chester Bean]

I am designing and building a 48" x 36" x 18" chest of drawers -- no biggie. This time I'm using 4/4 hard maple for the sides, top, and drawers. I have a 2" face frame and a 1/4" plywood back. Instead of legs, decorative moulding will sit flush with the floor along the bottom 3 edges (the two sides and the bottom rails, which are 4", are what will support the unit).

Question: How should I design the bottom of the carcase? That is, does something additional have to hold the 2 sides and 2 bottom rails together to solidify the structure? A sheet of ply would be nice, but I'm concerned about the differences in expansion. Could go solid, but is this overkill? In either of those cases, the solid panel would be off the floor a few inches.

Any ideas? What is typical? (here come 1000 different versions of "typical" :-)

Thanks!

Chester

[charlie b]

Maybe double panel with sliding dovetails in the sides of the unit - pulls things together nicely. Glue front, leave back to float.

Sorry about the ASCII art but it illustrates the idea

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[Chester Bean]

Thanks, Charlie. So, the panel would be solid, same as everything else. Would ply work?