Walnut/Oak end grain cutting board

[Art Mulder]

Just finished this off this morning. It's going to be a christmas present.

I made a few long-grain boards out of wood strips back in February, after seeing some of Vaughn's work on his website. Now I wanted to see how tough it would be to do an end-grain cutting board.

Dimensions: about 7"x13" x 1-1/4" thick.
Walnut and Red Oak cut into 1x1" squares.
Used the LVT Beeswax+Mineral oil finish.
I love the smell of honey when working that into the board!

[Ralph Okonieski]

Very nice !

[Helen Gee]

wow, i love how you arranged the end grain :) they look so awesome with the alternating end grain patterns :)

[Vaughn McMillan]

Looks great, Art, and it'll make a very nice gift.

Now you are talking about Christmas of last year, right? There's no way you can actually be getting ahead of the Christmas rush. It's in the Guy's Book of Rules, Chapter 3 Section 21.4. :p

- Vaughn

[John Timberlake]

Great looking cutting board. Nice contrast between the oak and walnut. I usually start on Christmas gifts after Thanksgiving, if I'm lucky.

[Jerry Strojny]

Looks great Art! Oak and walnut are always great paired together. Christmas.....if I were to finished something now I'd forget that it was done and then make another gift for them!! You must have better organization....you lucky dog.:D

[Art Mulder]

There's no way you can actually be getting ahead of the Christmas rush. It's in the Guy's Book of Rules, Chapter 3 Section 21.4.
Well, I do have to make up for the fact that our anniversary was a little, er, undercelebrated this year... :eek:

But in more seriousness, this is mostly a case of being keen to try out the idea soon after having it, and also being keen to play with the wood, soon after getting it. And really, it was only about 2hrs of shop work.

[Art Mulder]

wow, i love how you arranged the end grain :) they look so awesome with the alternating end grain patterns :)
Thanks Helen. I'll let you in on the "secret"... The way to make this, is to glue up long strips of wood (1x1" strips, about 15" long). Then you turn it ninety degrees, and cut it into 1" strips again. Finally, you flip every other piece end-for-end, to give you the checkerboard effect.

(Vaughn has a tutorial on his website for a "3d-effect" cutting board, which is basically the same idea.)

So the top row, and the bottom row, of walnut squares, is actually from one long continuous board. And the 2nd and 4th rows -- the ones with that nice wave of black-ish grain in it -- is also from the same piece of wood.
(actually, all the walnut was from the same board, but these were contiguous strips)

[Don Dean]

Really Nice! I like how you finished the hole, very pleasing.

[Corey Hallagan]

That is nice, I love the wood combo!

Corey