Inlaid cookbook stands

[justin byers]

I’ve been following Harvey Reams for sometime now, I’ve always liked his style of cutting boards with the nifty inlays. Took me a while to figure out how he does it, but I got er nailed. That being said, the last thing I need is more cutting boards, so I made a couple recipe stands. Anyone interested in the process I’m happy to delve into it, but in the interim here’s the outcome. Base woods are birdeye maple, curly maple, and pommele sapele. All finished in blond shellac and satin polished nitro lacquer. 822E403E-4C6E-4D7F-B1AC-08E73D680D61.jpg971F14EC-3E7B-4126-B07C-FA5DDE939047.jpg01A189F7-B8C3-4DF1-B7CA-F7A378414A41.jpgB7B2B1C6-963E-4BBA-A6D7-8282140B472E.jpg8E4DA7B4-0C39-41B9-8FBF-CD3157CDD08C.jpg65389FD7-62D4-4DBA-84A0-6B768B7BF678.jpg

[Jeff Monson]

Justin those are very nice!! Well done, they look complicated to make?

[Phil Mueller]

Well done, Justin. Inlay looks great. Wouldn’t mind a general idea of how it’s done.

[justin byers]

Alright. Coles notes. Appropriately sized base wood, in my case I was shooting for a board that was 10x12”. Make a bunch of small sacrificial boards in various patterns.
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double sided tape a sacrificial board to the main board and draw a curved line to some effect. Cut along line with bandsaw (smooth as you can, I used a 3/8” blade for the smoothest finished cut). Gently sand cuts, careful not to change curve at all. You’ll have 4 cut edges at this point. Put the positives and negatives of each together with a strip of wood that matches the kerf of whatever blade you chose. Clamp them together and have a beer. Rinse and repeat until you have a pattern you like. Once you’re happy with the pattern take the offcuts that you glued from the first go and tape it to your patterned board, draw curvy line and make the last joint as you have the past few. Bob’s your uncle.

[justin byers]

The offcuts from each round can be joined the same way to give you a small patterned board. This makes it much easier to make further boards as there’s already pattern there to work with. In this way it’s easier to make a few of these rather than one. I managed to make the Birdseye on with only a couple glue ups.

[Mike Null]

I'd say you "got er nailed". Beautiful work.

[Phil Mueller]

Thank you, Justin. Now all I’d need is a bandsaw or far better skills with my bowsaw!