Very first cutting board

[Matt Armstrong]

I mostly stole the woodwhisperer's design but trimmed it out with some zebrawood (it looked cool at the store so I bought a chunk). The zebrawood does not like cheap router bits (lots of tearout) and I don't think I matched the grain correctly. Even still, it ended up being a 12x18x2.125 cutting board that I gave to my mom. I rounded over the tops with a 3/8" roundover bit on my crappy ryobi router and cut hand grooves on both sides near the bottom.

Thoughts? Comments? I want to understand matching the grain when choosing how to layout boards a little better.

[Brad Wood]

I think it looks nice. what about the grain don't you think you did right? it all looks ok to me
???

[Jim Kountz]

Look good to me Matt. Are you talking about trying to match the grain around the corners?? If so thats really hard to do even if you cut them sequentially out of one long board they are probably not going to line up exactly. Am I understanding you right??

[Matt Armstrong]

Look good to me Matt. Are you talking about trying to match the grain around the corners?? If so thats really hard to do even if you cut them sequentially out of one long board they are probably not going to line up exactly. Am I understanding you right??
That's right - I'm referring to the zebrawood. I guess I just hear all this talk about grain matching and people having some aesthetic rules they orient the boards with (like when making kitchen cabinets?). Who knows.

Thanks for the positive feedback!

[Rick Gifford]

I like that in between servings you can play some chess.

[Matt Armstrong]

I like that in between servings you can play some chess.

I got all enthusiastic about creating a chess board but then realized that most of the work in a chess board is in the pieces... and I'm not going to try making those. Not with my horrible skills, anyway

[Jacob Griffith]

LOL....nice work. And its functional too!!

[John Thompson]

I think you did and outstanding job Matt. I don't know who designed it but the design but I really like the way the perimeter is handled in their design. Jim K. nailed it about not always getting every piece of grain to match up.. and as he stated, that is true even with using one lenght of the same board on occasion.

Don't get too caught up in everything you read about that issue. There is idealism and there is reality. The majority of the time we have to settle for reality and occasionally get lucky with ideal. I am finishing a desk-hutch with around 140 board feet of QSWO. That relates to about $550 worth of QS.

Sure.. I could have purchased another additional 200 board feet and ended up with a better grain match in spots but... I didn't win the lottery and probably won't unless I find the winning ticket in a parking lot so.....

Bottom line on your piece is you did an excellent job of both build and matching with what you had to work with. Those are the cards you drew and you played them to the maximum the hand could be played. So... be proud as I personally think you did an outstanding job on this piece.

Regards and keep up the good work..

Sarge..

[Craig T. Smith]

Matt, I like the way your project turned out. +1 on the grain match. As for your 'horible skills" we are all learning and building skills every day, as they say practice, practice, practice. Craig

[John Keeton]

Matt, looks to me like the cutting board turned out looking great! Good design, and good contrast in the woods. When I first look at a piece, I try to not look at detail and just get a feel for whether the piece "works." This one does.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to have a good grain match without mitered corners. When you use butt joints, the end grain that shows will always interfere with the flow of the grain. I don't think that is a real issue with this piece - it looks very nice.

[Mark Valsi]

nice job !

[Matt Armstrong]

Matt, looks to me like the cutting board turned out looking great! Good design, and good contrast in the woods. When I first look at a piece, I try to not look at detail and just get a feel for whether the piece "works." This one does.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to have a good grain match without mitered corners. When you use butt joints, the end grain that shows will always interfere with the flow of the grain. I don't think that is a real issue with this piece - it looks very nice.

Thanks everyone! Truth be told, this was really one of my first woodworking projects altogether. My tools are a unisaw, a dust collector, and a ryobi router with some cheap chinese bits.

This is great encouragement. I hope I can learn more from you guys with time (and patience)

[Chris Tsutsui]

Nice Job! That cutting board is a step above the ones i've been making.

Here are some of my discoveries:

Sometimes your mom will think it's so nice she decides not to use it and puts it on her coffee table.

On the other hand, after using it a bunch, my grandma let the cutting board soak in hot water for a long period of time. I suppose she really wanted to test my glue joints... :( One of the joints cracked right down the middle. I cut it in half, jointed the edges and glued it back together.

For mine I used a running bond pattern of end grain Hard maple, Titebond 3, and Good Stuff Butcher Block Stain/sealer.

My secret to pumping these out is to make it the width that will fit in your thickness planer. haha

Initials are hammered into the boards and burned. Got the steel letter punch kit from HF.

[Don Eddard]

You did a great job. The joints between the individual squares in the board look real good, too. Getting the second glue-up aligned perfectly is harder than it looks, but it appears from the photos that you were right on target.

[John Czaplicki]

Nice job. I'm a big fan of the butcher block boards. Everyone absolutely loves to get them as gifts.

Did you put anything on the bottom....feet or bumpers?

I always have trouble finding the right product to use. In the past I've used grey rubber bumpers from Rockler, but the height and shape are not great. I attach them with stainless steel screws. I've seen and read about some adhesive silicon pads.... 3M makes some. I've read that they hold up under washing, etc....but I don't know first hand. I suppose you can always apply another if they fall off.

If you haven't put anything on the bottom you should consider it. They do several things for you including leveling, gripping to work surface and even drying after washing.

[Matt Armstrong]

Nice job. I'm a big fan of the butcher block boards. Everyone absolutely loves to get them as gifts.

Did you put anything on the bottom....feet or bumpers?

I always have trouble finding the right product to use. In the past I've used grey rubber bumpers from Rockler, but the height and shape are not great. I attach them with stainless steel screws. I've seen and read about some adhesive silicon pads.... 3M makes some. I've read that they hold up under washing, etc....but I don't know first hand. I suppose you can always apply another if they fall off.

If you haven't put anything on the bottom you should consider it. They do several things for you including leveling, gripping to work surface and even drying after washing.

I didn't put anything on the bottom but I think I will. little rubber feet? silicone blob? I'm not sure yet.

[Rob Young]

The zebrawood does not like cheap router bits

Dude, zebrawood doesn't like expensive router bits either... Sharp bit and shallow passes is about all there is to do. A final light backrouted pass may sometimes help. Might also make a much bigger mess too.

[Jerry Murray]

Matt,

That's a beautiful cutting board. I think you've inspried me for another project. What wood did you wrap up your pattern with?

I think I just answered my own questionm. You wrapped it with the zebrawood and what did you use for the 'squares?'

I have some zebrawood and like you I was impressed with it and bought a chunk...finicky stuff to work with though.

[Matt Armstrong]

Matt,

That's a beautiful cutting board. I think you've inspried me for another project. What wood did you wrap up your pattern with?

I think I just answered my own questionm. You wrapped it with the zebrawood and what did you use for the 'squares?'

I have some zebrawood and like you I was impressed with it and bought a chunk...finicky stuff to work with though.

Maple and purpleheart for the butcher block portion of it. I would definitely recommend mitering the edges of the zebrawood instead of doing a butt joint like me. Maybe a box joint would look ok? I don't know. Something other than the butt joint ;)

[David Keller NC]

"Thanks everyone! Truth be told, this was really one of my first woodworking projects altogether. My tools are a unisaw, a dust collector, and a ryobi router with some cheap chinese bits."

Matt - I can assure you that a heck of a lot of us wish we'd had the option of starting out with a Unisaw. My first method for ripping boards was a circular saw and a straight board and some clamps for a fence. It worked, but as you might imagine it was less than ideal.

I can also guarantee that everyone of us had really horrible skills to start with - and that includes luminaries like Sam Maloof and James Krenov.

A comment about grain matching and your cutting board - in general, it's not possible to grain match if you're using a butt joint at the corners. Where you read about people obsessing over grain orientation has to do with mitered joints at the corner, where the grain appears to "flow" around it. That's accomplished by cutting alternatinge 45 degree cuts in linear order along the board that will become the frame. Done carefully, you can get pretty close to an exact match.

However, I'm a bit surprised that the Wood Whisper would advise people to create an end-grain cutting board enclosed in a frame. The wood that makes up the board will expand/contract quite a bit when used around liquids in a kitchen, and that would tend to burst the frame. Time will tell - just make sure that you don't put it in the dishwasher, that will bust apart a wooden cutting board no matter how it's made (don't ask how I know that!).

One final comment - never put an end grain cutting board into a thickness planer, particularly if it's made of a hard wood! Because the wood will easily fracture along the grain, and the grain is very short in an end-grain cutting board, there is a high possibility of part of the board breaking off and getting sucked into the planer head, which will likely blow up the planer and send chunks of it all over the shop at high velocity.

[Matt Armstrong]

Matt - I can assure you that a heck of a lot of us wish we'd had the option of starting out with a Unisaw. My first method for ripping boards was a circular saw and a straight board and some clamps for a fence. It worked, but as you might imagine it was less than ideal.


I've done plenty of sawing, screwing, drilling, and gluing on MDF before - I have built dozens of subwoofer enclosures for car audio. They are easy though and I've used all the wrong tools (circular saw, just eye-balling it) to accomplish my ends. The table saw makes it infinitely better.



However, I'm a bit surprised that the Wood Whisper would advise people to create an end-grain cutting board enclosed in a frame. The wood that makes up the board will expand/contract quite a bit when used around liquids in a kitchen, and that would tend to burst the frame. Time will tell - just make sure that you don't put it in the dishwasher, that will bust apart a wooden cutting board no matter how it's made (don't ask how I know that!).
Crap. I didn't think about that. He doesn't frame his cutting boards, I just thought it might look nice. Wonderful. Well, it'll probably break but at least I can just make another one.




One final comment - never put an end grain cutting board into a thickness planer, particularly if it's made of a hard wood! Because the wood will easily fracture along the grain, and the grain is very short in an end-grain cutting board, there is a high possibility of part of the board breaking off and getting sucked into the planer head, which will likely blow up the planer and send chunks of it all over the shop at high velocity.
I considered it but it seemed like a bad idea. So I just used the ROS for an hour or so to get it reasonably flat.

[David Keller NC]

"I considered it but it seemed like a bad idea. So I just used the ROS for an hour or so to get it reasonably flat."

Matt - Yeah, I made a couple of end-grain cutting boards from maple scraps in the shop a couple of weeks ago. I was close to dead flat, but not quite. I tried the ROS with 80 grit aluminum oxide - the maple just laughed and proceeded to shatter all of the grit off of the paper (good paper, by the way - it's just that maple end grain is way too hard to sand).

After 4 circles of 80 grit paper and an hour of frustration (not to mention a tingling hand from the vibration), I gave up on the power tool approach and broke out a bevel-up plane with a shallow cutting angle.

I wet the board with denatured alcohol and planed it flat. Took all of 10 minutes, and as long as a very light cut was taken, it wasn't too much on the "grunt" scale. Lesson learned - power tools are sometimes way slower and less efficient than breaking out the "old school" method.