[Tom Bottiglieri]

Wood bases are a totally viable option. Many teams have done them successfully in the past (173, 61, 195 jump to mind).

From my experience, the holes tend to "stretch" over time. We used T-nuts to anchor everything to the base to help with this. Therefore, pressing bearings into the side plates seems pretty risky.

What type of wood are you planning on using? We used 1/2" (9 ply) Baltic birch.