Day Eight-o-eight: hamper lid

Having taken a few diversions on the road to Hamper-ville, we got back on track this weekend by making most of the lid. We measured the finished dimensions of the hamper and it came to slightly less than 18 inches square. No problem, we used the miter saw to get the proper length and used the table saw to get uniform 1.5-inch wide strips, like so.

We wanted to make things a little more uniform because the boards came slightly thicker than 1 inch, so we ran these pieces sideways through the table saw to make them exactly 1 inch high. This also served to remove one rough layer and gave us smooth surfaces for the top of the box. Then we mitered them at 45 degrees.

Next we dug out a .5-inch channel using the table saw in the same way that we did before.

We gave ourselves a little wiggle room by making the .5-inch plywood top a little less than 16 inches square and fitted everything together to see if we got the pieces and measurements right. Fortunately we did, so we added a little wood glue and this is ready for finishing.

Now we need to figure out how to transform these leftover blocks from when we made the legs into a handle for the lid.

Postscript. We spent a few minutes with the table saw and turned one of the blocks above into a handle. First we made sure that the block was square. Then we ran it over the saw set to .375 inches and cut along all four sides, like so.

Do that about a dozen times, on each pass moving the saw guard over the width of the blade and you get this.

It's not attached yet but here's what we're thinking of for the final.

As a bonus, we glued the first side together because they're all stained. Only three more to go.