Making a Condiment Tote from Scratch - part 2

In the previous post (part 1) I showed how to prepare the wood for the four totes I am making.

After the wood was resawn and cut apart with the handsaw it will have a slight ridge down the middle (and often a few scratches from the saw).

You can remove the ridges, if you like, with a hand plane, but it's not necessary. The wood is put through the planer until it reaches the desired thickness, which in my case, is 1/2"

6 pieces are needed for each tote, two sides, two ends, a bottom and a handle. The handle is wider than the wood I have so I have to glue two pieces together to make the width I need. This is done with clamps and wood glue, I don't use biscuits or anything else to align the wood, just glue.

The end pieces and side pieces are the same width, so they are cut to width on the table saw. I use my rabbit push stick which I blogged about previously here

The tote is designed with a plywood bottom that sits in a groove in the sides and ends. I leave the pieces I prepared for the sides and ends uncut so that I can put a groove in the whole length of wood and then cut it apart after. The groove height is approximately half the thickness of the wood, so about 1/4" deep. I just sit the wood beside the saw blade and eyeball the height I need. The bottoms are not cut yet, until I know exactly what size I need for them to be after the grooves are cut.

I use my table saw blade and keep the groove around 1/2" from the bottom by running the wood against the fence set at the proper measurement for that.

The plywood I have is just slightly thicker than the width of my blade so I move the fence just a little and re-run the groove to widen it. I always practise first on a piece of scrap to get the measurements precise.