Don't laugh...Can I safely turn this cutting board?

[Nathan Conner]

I know, I know. Please don't laugh TOO much at me.

Here's the situation. Any advice is appreciated. I'm still a beginning turner. Have done very little in the way of segmented turning. I've been doing some 8/4 platters and vaguely round things recently out of fairly "junk" wood - Poplar, Alder, stuff that was thick and cheap. And pretty easy to turn.

So I made some end-grain cutting boards with my mother-in-law recently - she wanted to learn how to do it herself, and we spent some time in the shop and made several. One of them (we don't need piles of these laying around) struck me as an interesting platter/shallow bowl if I turned it on that big spinny thing in the corner of the shop. Unfortunately, IT went to the neighbor as thanks for watching me move the monster planer into the shop. (He had the morgue on speed dial in case I crushed myself)

I decided to take some of the leftover material and made a new one this weekend, but not end-grain. It's a combination of 8/4 soft maple and Padauk, laid out in 2" checkerboard pattern, and I was nervous about turning all that end-grain. So instead of flipping the pieces on end as I glued them and put them in the clamps, so I had long-grain glue joints, I just left them short. But then, last night as I was scraping glue, it occurred to me...duh. Now I have a short-grain-glued butcher block that is useful as a door stop or maybe a chock for the truck, and that's about it. Did I waste $25 worth of decent wood?

My thinking is, as soon as this thing gets touched with a gouge, it's going to shatter, separate, and otherwise send pieces flying because it's made up of nothing but a bunch of end-grain glue joints. Am I crazy, and will this thing hold up fine? Or did I make a silly mistake? I can always re-rip along all the glue lines and lay it out sensibly. But I was curious. Is this thing safe to turn as is? I hate to end up typing my latest stupid story from the hospital bed. Their wireless reception is horrible.

[Steve Mawson]

I only read this once so not sure I understand the whole thing. But if I do and there is a lot of end grain glue joints, I would be EXTREEMLY careful trying to turn. End grain glue has never held well for me.

[Dennis Peacock]

Nathan,

I love you style of writing. Very effective and personal. :D :D :D

End-grain glue joints....not good as there's really not much strength there. If you did happen to offset the next row of "blocks" by even 3/4", the you will have some long-grain glue joints in there providing extra strength at those weaker jionts. Are they offset from row to row of blocks in the cutting board?

[Nathan Conner]

Are they offset from row to row of blocks in the cutting board?

No, unfortunately, they're a checkerboard pattern. I wish I'd have taken a picture for clarity.

In essence, if you picture how I put it together, I ripped the 8/4 stock into 2" strips and glued them back together, alternating species. Then, after that was dry, I crosscut the entire thing into 2" strips, put them back together again, but when I glued, I flipped every other piece end-for-end before gluing them back together to get the checkerboard.

If I were making an end-grain cutting board, I'd have taken one extra step and turned each piece 1/4 turn as I was gluing so that the end-grain was up (and, of course, have long-grain glue joints everywhere). But I didn't, for fears of my end-grain turning experience and all those lovely tool-bending catches. But that may all be moot. It sounds like this thing may not be stable enough anyhow to get anywhere near the lathe.

Anyone need some nice coasters?

[Mike Golka]

You could always put another layer of wood on the bottom kinda like the way rings are built in segmented work. It's the long grain joints between the rings that really hold things together.

[Nathan Conner]

*facepalm*

Mike. You're a genius. I'll glue the whole thing to a chunk of 1" scrap plywood.

THANK you.

[Robert McGowen]

For your future projects, I have made several end grain cutting boards and then turned them round. Just smooth out a place for a glue block on one side and then get to turning. They come out very nice.

[curtis rosche]

i would say you should drill 1/4in holes through the ends at different angles and then insert dowl rods to make sure it stays togethere and if you were to dye them it would look neat