Your's is much like the one I made and was able to use for the last 3 cheeses I made. I bought 6 inch PVC and cut a wooden follower, then use a soup can to "chase" the follower with a board on the top. I did not glue or affix the dowels in any way.
I was previously going the cheap route (not sure if cheesemaking was going to be my thing so didn't want to spend money on it). I used an old deep fryer basket as my cheese mold, cut several followers from ice cream pail lids, and used a combination of coffee cans full of sand and water, plus dumbbell weights as my weight system. The cheeses turned out okay, but were wide across and shallow in depth, which made for dryer cheese after the ageing process.
I still use the weights I used before, but now they are quite stable on a wider platform above the cheese. I hope to find more and bigger dumbbell weights to add to my collection, as they are easier to keep stable than the coffee cans, etc.
Once you get a cheese out of your press, please post pictures!