Pass. And do you prefer side grain or end grain? EASY, just use the pencil trick! I then apply a water resistant wood glue using a foam brush. After the glue was dry, it was time to flatten the board. In the early nineteenth century a butcher block was almost a necessity in every kitchen. *Oh, and a special thanks to my Dad for giving me a hand with the chainsaw. Like JudyP93 said it does remind me of some quilting technique. Make sure the board is clean and dirt free. Now with the glue cured and the board out of the clamps, I use a scraper to get any of the left over hardened glue off the surface. The knot could pop out. In no way is this an exhaustive list of woods you can use or avoid, but it covers the one's I … on the larger bookends of the walnut what with did you do? 1 year ago. Lay Out and Glue Up the Initial Design for the End Grain Cutting Board. Good looking cutting boards always deliver a great presentation, and add a casual rustic touch to any table top. End grain forever :-), Tip I buy from a specialty lumber store for my exotic woods but for domestics like those in the Instructable, 98% comes from private sawmill guys! There are a few things you want to consider when you buy wood for a cutting board. 1 year ago. Over the years this has become my go-to way to spread the glue evenly without a fancy applicator. Good presentation and writeup. The next step is the easiest. Try Craigslist or if you are in Canada try Kijiji. In fact, it is one of the first projects I would generally advise woodworking hobbyist to try out due to its simplicity. This results in those squares staying the same size when I glue everything back together. I've also received literally hundreds of questions about how I make them and so I've decided to document the whole process from start to finish to use as a reference for new woodworkers who have questions. The cutting boards we make are made basically the same way as a rosette or binding, so the possibities for geometries are endless really. Maybe another poster out there could verify that. I want a total of three of these 1/4" strips for my cutting board. A lot of people like to display cutting boards and not use them. You can get butcher block conditioner from the big box store. I like to use a mixture of food grade mineral oil and beeswax. Probably the easiest method is to simply order it online. First your cutting board isn't going to be very big and so every square inch counts for beauty. You don't need a ton of pressure here, just enough to get good even squeeze out along each joint. It also goes against a lot of the conventional wisdom in the woodworking world, so I don't anticipate it being widely adapted in the community. Both soft and hard maple make for excellent cutting surfaces. You want good positive registration on all the angles to make sure you don't round over any of those sweet edges. Both soft and hard maple make for excellent cutting surfaces. Thanks, I think that's what happens to most of the oak trees down after a hurricane. I alternated between maple and oak strips, gluing them together with Titebond III glue. Also, you may have to drive to a bigger city to find a good selection of hard wood. Next we will do a technique called "skip planing" in which we put the flattest side of the work piece down on the bed of the planer and take a very light pass. Make sure to cover the entire surface of the cutting board so there are no gaps in the finish. Mark just firmly enough to leave a nice dark line. 5. Maple. My YouTube channel link is in the last step of this article. Then we flip and rotate the board and send it through again taking a shallow skim cut. You can see here what the squeeze out looks like. My strips are roughly 20” long. This gives you a chance to change things up or add other accent strips if you like before you go to the glue-up stage. Pass. I added enough until I saw it bleeding through the bottom, at which point, I set the board on its edge and let it dry. Pine might impart a resinous taste, and it’s soft so will show cutting scars from knives more easily than a harder wood like maple. Use a table saw to trim the weathered wood from either side of each board. Repeat this process of flipping the board over and rotating it 180 degrees until both sides of the board are planed flat. or 2 tbsp) of Tung Oil and the same quantity of solvent in a clean recipient. In no way is this an exhaustive list of woods you can use or avoid, but it covers the one's I know best. Check out Bell Forest Products or Woodworkers Source. The most common method is simply using a sander and some heavy grit sand paper. Nothing wrong with that either! ... Basically a paint-grade hardwood one step up from pine unless you get real knotty or colorful purple poplar. So, instead the block plane can do this work in like 5 minutes and if you do the long edges of the board before you do the ends you wont get any blowout. Poplar, not hard enough nor pretty enough. If you just want a standard cutting board, you can skip down to sanding the board. Let wood dry out for approximately one month. I used to use a chamfer bit on the router table for this operation but way too often the bit tore a small chunk out of the top edge right where you don't want a chunk to be missing!! End grain is like a series of straws running up and down. Try making a plaid end grain cutting board. Now stand back and admire that you just did that! Rub entire cutting board with several coats of a food-safe finish like mineral oil, walnut oil or beeswax, allowing oil to fully absorb into the wood. The knot could pop out. Why don’t you use end grain or side grain for this board? Please check out the tutorial and if you still have questions be sure to leave them in the comments below. In a cutting board you can have the knots in it for show, but it may cause trouble down the line when that board gets wet and dries several times. Tips for Making a Great Cutting Board: If you have followed me on Instagram over the last few years you've seen a LOT of cutting board pictures and videos. Okay, I can check this one off my project bucket list, but I thoroughly enjoyed making my first wooden cutting board. The spirits evaporates, leaving the item food safe. My goal was to get the board to soak up as much finish as possible, but not leave a film at the top. Well done. Just three to four passes with the sandpaper will remove the rough edge. It's right in view of the user of the cutting board every time they use it. Because you aren’t looking for a perfect shape or fine woodworking, even a beginner can make an authentic looking board. Plus, I kinda like a bit of knife … I'd contact a local woodworking shop, etc. The fourth side can be take care of by ripping it at the table saw (well, most of the time it can). You finally cut down that old, drought-blighted pine tree. Once these two panels were dry, I planed them down to 7/8” thick, giving me perfect squares when I look at the ends. Too complicate things further, Oak is a hardwood that is plenty dense for using in a cutting board. I like to lay out my parts on the clamps so I don't accidentally glue the wrong parts together. Oh, and don’t ever make a cutting board out of pine! Some examples of dense hardwoods are maple, walnut and cherry. Visit DIY Network to get step-by-step instructions and to read the how-to cutting-board project. I welcome your input, of course. Tung Oil Finishing: For a total of 4 coats (recommended) on a medium sized cutting board, mix 30ml (1 fl oz. Cutting thin strips with just the fence is dangerous and leads to bad cuts. I hope you found these instructions helpful! Pine definitely a no. Sometimes doing all this cutting can relieve stresses in the wood causing warping. These DIY Wood Slice Cutting Boards are easy to make! I thinned my finish with mineral spirits. Using a face grain cutting board, will ruin knives and get horrible knife scratches in it. Now your inner crafter keeps chiding you about wasting the wood. You probably have your answer by now, but he mentioned he was using an "eight quarters" walnut board (8/4) in the video. Its also a good idea now to check to see if the board is still flat and hasn't moved on you. The final step is to grab a clean cotton cloth and buff the surface of the cutting board until it has a nice buttery smooth sheen to it. This resulted in cutting board that is approximately 16” long x 12” wide x 1-3/4” thick. I learned this tree originates in Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean and was first brought to America by Captain Cook. Lay 3 bar clamps on the cardboard. Put on a mask and sand the cutting board. You absolutely want to use hardwoods over softwoods and the harder/denser the better for durability. Dec 25, 2015 - Make use of an old tree stump by turning it into a beautiful, functional cutting board in under ten steps. Thanks for posting. Edge grain boards are the next strongest option, while the face grain is the weakest of the three. The best way I know to ensure a tight and seamless glue joint in your cutting board is to do the jointer trick. Attach an 80-grit sandpaper to your orbital sander. I'm Matt and you can follow along as I [Build] new projects [Learn] new skills and [Repeat] the process. Face and edge joint the boards. To get started cutting the bevels on our cutting board we need to set the blade of the table saw to 45 degrees. Hickory may be even cheaper. You will work upward to finer sandpaper. You could also use this stain technique for a faux reclaimed look on new boards, ... Next, I clamped my board and used my jigsaw to cut out the shape. This will square up that edge to the flattened face. I just read a few of the scientific papers on using various hardwoods in cutting boards and it was super interesting (one even talked about using pine!). There should be no reason to move the fence here since you already found the correct distance on the previous cut. Cheers. 5 months ago. Tools you’ll need. 4 months ago. Then I need to make a series of 1/4" strips for the cutting board. Trim off one end of the board and then flip the board over, keeping the same long side against the fence. Just walk away! But don't worry, this is called "raising the grain". 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