End Grain Cutting Board

[Bill Adamsen]

I have some large hard maple left over from a project (about 4 feet of 2-1/8" by 8-1/2" actual). It has been sitting in the shop (acclimated) for some months. I have calculated that I can produce a cutting board of 2" thick by 16" by 22". That will fit into a cabinet divider in my kitchen. It will total a little less than half a cubic foot of wood. The grain is strait plain sawn running consistently straight through the board. Must have been a big tree. Read numerous threads on building end grain cutting boards and wonder if there are any specific recommendations. Very few folks seem to be gluing up larger individual pieces like this and I'm wondering about approach (multiple glueups) and adhesive (TB3 vs epoxy). Thanks in advance!

[Scott DelPorte]

I have only made a half dozen or so endgrain boards, but I will share what I learned. There are probably more experienced builders who can add to it. I did mine in two glue ups. I ended up building them with roughly 2" blocks but the procedure would be the same for your wider blocks.

Using your dimensions, I would edge glue three boards to get a finished width of 22 inches. So the first glue up would produce a board 22" wide, by 2" thick, and long enough to get 8 slices that are 2 inches thick (so about 16 inches long plus a couple inches of waste due to saw kerf and clean up on the ends). I then crosscut the glue up into 8 strips that are 2 inches thick. These 8 strips get glued up to make the completed 16x22 endgrain board.

I use a drum sander to level the surfaces, then smooth with a random orbit sander, and finish with mineral oil and beeswax. I use TB3, and it has worked well.
Hope this is helpful
Thanks
Scott

[Bill Adamsen]

I would edge glue three boards to get a finished width of 22 inches. So the first glue up would produce a board 22" wide, by 2" thick, and long enough to get 8 slices that are 2 inches thick (so about 16 inches long plus a couple inches of waste due to saw kerf and clean up on the ends). I then crosscut the glue up into 8 strips that are 2 inches thick. These 8 strips get glued up to make the completed 16x22 endgrain board.

That reflects my thinking as well. I too have the wide-belt and was expecting to run the block through that for rough finishing and thicknessing.

[Steve Peterson]

I built one similar to that design that ended up about 14" by 20" by 1.75". Each brick was 3/4" by 1.5" with 1/8" walnut mortar. I gave it away as a gift without taking a picture. I started gluing up the 20" wide by 3/4" thick panels and drum sanding them flat. Then I glued on the 1/8" thick mortar. Cut then to 1.75" thick and stand them up for gluing. My board had a lot of surfaces that needed to be sanded. I started with 10 board feet of wood and ended up with just over 3 board feet in the final product.

Scott's advice is good. I would only add one comment to start with cuts on the original board at around 40% and 80% of the size. The remaining 20% will be ripped in half to create the narrow pieces. In your case with a 48" long board, you will end up with a 19" long by 21" wide glueup. It will probably end up around 2" thick after flattening it. You should be able to cut this into eight 2.25" lengths plus an inch of saw kerf waste. It should still be around 2" thick after flattening the final design.

Steve

[Ellery Becnel]

Bill, I approach it the same way that Scott has described. The only difference is that I have not tried using beeswax. I use TBII, only because of the possibility of a darker glue line at the lighter wood joint. An excellent approach.

Ellery Becnel

[Andy Giddings]

Generally the size of glue ups reflects on the size of planer/sander you're using to get the glue up flat and the complexity of the design. The Union Jack board (22x12) I made in the photo obviously had lots of smaller glue ups before the final one, but the overall size was dictated by the planer I use. The only tricky part of your design is making sure the brick pattern aligns. Various ways to do this, but with careful cutting and clamping on all four sides, there's nothing to stop you doing the glue up in one go. You might need to extend the open time of TB3 but that's easy to do. Of course if you don't have 16" capacity in your wide-belt then it would need multiple stages

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