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Andrew Peterson
03-15-2012, 9:11 PM
Greetings!
I made an end grain cutting board a few months back, and it's now splitting apart. Where did I go wrong? I used TB2 on it, but perhaps not enough?

The wood is mostly hard maple with some cherry and purpleheart flecks tossed in.

It was made in NC and now lives in OH. Could the humidity difference be an issue?

Photos here to see what it looks like now. http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/21956028_Fhq2Qb

What should I do differently next time?
Michael Peet
03-15-2012, 9:33 PM
Looks to me as if the long grain banding is the culprit. The field wanted to shrink, probably due to a humidity change as you noted, but the edge didn't let it. Leave the edge off next time.

I like the board, BTW. Very MOMA-ish.

Cheers,

Mike
Pat Barry
03-15-2012, 9:39 PM
Thats too bad Andrew it was a very nice looking project before that happened. Is there anything under the pieces we can see, for example is there a substrate the end grain parts are attached to or does it look the same fro underneath as it does in the views you have pictured?
Paul Grothouse
03-15-2012, 9:45 PM
As Michael said, you can't mix long grain with end grain that way. Most times it would fail the other way and force the border apart. In addition your wood was obviously very wet, those are significant cracks for that size of block. Check out this end grain, I specialize in this on a very large scale.
Clint Olver
03-16-2012, 12:11 AM
The design is the culprit. You can't fight wood movement, you have to work with it, especially with something that is going to get wet. Your border is a no-no on an end grain board.

C
Andrew Peterson
03-16-2012, 8:53 AM
Looks to me as if the long grain banding is the culprit. The field wanted to shrink, probably due to a humidity change as you noted, but the edge didn't let it. Leave the edge off next time.

I like the board, BTW. Very MOMA-ish.

Cheers,

Mike

Yep, seems about right to me. Picture of what inspired this one:
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/21956028_Fhq2Qb#!i=1751797817&k=t9hct4z

The difference is the round one looks to also be end grain banding. (The photo was sent to me with a "can you make one like this?) Should've picked up on that.

Back to the drawing..cutting.. Board :)