A few cutting boards

[mreza Salav]

Here are four end-grain cutting boards I finished today, out of maple, cherry, and walnut. The first picture shows the blank after the glue-up and before cutting them on the bandsaw (there was one round of glue-up after that to glue half-boards).
The second picture shows them unfinished, and the rest are after applying mineral oil. Each is about 18"x11"x1.5"

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[gary Zimmel]

Great job on the cutting boards Mreza

I like the pattern...

[Brent Smith]

Hi Mo,

Excellent work as usual!!!

[Jim Becker]

Those are really nice!

[Russ Massery]

Very nice! well done I really like the patterns.

[Bill Huber]

Great looking boards, that pattern is awesome.

I noticed there is no juice groove, I found that after I made a few and used one to cut some tomatoes I started adding the juice groove, it sure keeps the counter form getting messed up.

[Jeff Heil]

I like the pattern. Do you have different blanks to make the pattern or multiple glue ups to get the pattern?

[Tom Hamilton]

Hi Mezra: Your cutting boards are stunning. Thanks for the pics.

Thre are probably a "few" Creekers who would like to see a tutorial on how you did that. If you are comfortable sharing you expertise I know I would be grateful.

Thanks, Tom, in Houston, thinking about the upcoming Christmas gift season.

[mreza Salav]

Thanks folks for the comments.


Hi Mezra: Your cutting boards are stunning. Thanks for the pics.

Thre are probably a "few" Creekers who would like to see a tutorial on how you did that. If you are comfortable sharing you expertise I know I would be grateful.

Thanks, Tom, in Houston, thinking about the upcoming Christmas gift season.

I have built a few other ones with different patterns.
Once you decide on the pattern you know how many pieces of each wood you need. This pattern is 13 rows and is symmetric and this helps.

Here, for each piece of the pattern I cut a 1.5"x7/8"x13" board. Then built the blank (in the first picture), it contains the first 6 rows of the pattern. I did the glue up in two rounds, 3 rows each round (because of time issue, I couldn't put the pieces faster before the first few start drying!). You enough clamps to make sure you won't have any voids.

Once you get the 6 rows, you'll have a blank as in the first picture. Then I cross-cut it into 2" pieces (note that the blank is about 5.5" thick). Each of these pieces gives you (almost) half of a cutting-board (6 rows). I don't cut all the 8 pieces, instead I cut only 4. Then glued up one more row to the blank. to build up 7 rows. This will be the center row of the pattern. Then cut the blank into 4 more pieces of 2" thick. Now you have 8 half boards, 4 of them 6 rows and 4 of them 7 rows. The final glue-up is to glue the pairs.

To smooth them, you can use a drum sander but you can use a planer (and it's much faster). However, you gotta round over the edges first (or you'll get tear out). Also, take *very light* passes.. A bit of sanding at the end should do it.

I hope this helps.

[John Thompson]

I love the design you created Mreza. Very nicely done!

Sarge..