If everything goes as planned the result will look like this! In the video you can see that it was all in one sitting. What does this mean? The last option is to harvest your own, or go to the county dump where downed trees go to be recycled or even put in the land fill. You’re better off doing a quick sanding with 120 and 150. I want a total of three of these 1/4" strips for my cutting board. Attach an 80-grit sandpaper to your orbital sander. Those materials are meant for, well, home improvement. Now that we have a flattened board, we need to square up those rough glued ends. I alternated between maple and oak strips, gluing them together with Titebond III glue. With all of the strips cut, it … You probably have your answer by now, but he mentioned he was using an "eight quarters" walnut board (8/4) in the video. I like to use a straight edge against the blade to visualize where the bevel will be cut on the cutting board. MartyK1 ArthurJ5. Cut tree into slabs ranging from 1 inch to 2 inches thick. I'd probably substitute purpleheart instead. Once sanded, wash the wood with warm soapy water and leave to dry. Determine which face of the wood wobbles the least. How do you know when to stop sanding with each grit? One is using a router and a sled. The best way I know to ensure a tight and seamless glue joint in your cutting board is to do the jointer trick. Also, the main use of the boards was not intended to be an everyday chopping block, but more for cutting bread or serving things like cheese. To get started cutting the bevels on our cutting board we need to set the blade of the table saw to 45 degrees. Once the first cut is complete, turn the board around and place the cut side against the fence to make the cut on the opposite side. This is really a personal preference but I generally want the top edge of the board to be 3/4" to 1" thick once the bevel is cut. Once the glue is dry, the cutting board needs to be flattened. 1 year ago. The results are great, but I'd be so scared to cut it up for the final walnut pieces! Lets move on. Pine trees grow around the world, not just in the U.S. Pine has a great deal of stiffness and… Pine has a reputation for leaving a lot of pitch (or pine tar) on woodworking blades. Lay Out and Glue Up the Initial Design for the End Grain Cutting Board. After three coats of finish and a final sanding, I applied a thin layer of wax on the surface of the board. I was always told to not use oak since it is very porous and can absorb bacteria. I decided to use salad bowl finish. Put the last 2 clamps on top. I glued up my strips, alternating between types. Both websites offer domestic and exotic species. very helpful ideas. My strips are roughly 20” long. Good job. However, a wooden cutting board … Then, I set the table saw blade at 45 degrees and cut a bevel on the bottom so it’s easier to pick up. To get tight seamless glue joints, fold your work pieces in half like a book at the glue joint. I'm not trying to be argumentative. Now when I rip the work piece on the saw it will create a duplicate strip. I like to use a straight edge against the blade to visualize where the bevel will be cut on the cutting board. Another tip is to add feet the them. After the board dries, take it out of the clamps and use a belt sander to smooth the top and bottom surfaces. Today, I’m sharing How to Make a Cutting Board Out of a Tree Stump and it’s so easy! I want to make this as thorough as possible. Now, thanks to better equipment, you can take a tree trunk and cut it into sections to make a more portable, kitchen-friendly butcher block… However it may bee necessary to then rip the fourth side parallel to ensure all four sides are square. 1. And now it is a major seller with home chefs and here are the top five benefits of choosing … Make one for yourself or as a gift with the easy Woodworkjunkie “making a cutting board from scrap wood” tutorial. The most common method is simply using a sander and some heavy grit sand paper. This gives me a reference surface to ensure that all of my strips are glued up as flat as possible, and in alignment with one another. Since this is the first one I’ve made, I can also pass on some valuable lessons learned. Just like we did to add the long walnut stripes, I applied the same process to make stripes that run across the width of the cutting board. Where do you find it? Share it with us! I put on wooden feet then drill into the feet and epoxy in rubber or silicone bumpers. The good cutting board from bamboo. Here are a few additional resources for awesome cutting board projects and tips: Woodworking Adventures, The Wood Whisperer and Centsational Girl. Repeat this process of flipping the board over and rotating it 180 degrees until both sides of the board are planed flat. Remove the sandpaper and replace it with the softer 220-grit sandpaper. The result is that we end up using a cutting board made of different materials. You should be able to apply plenty of pressure on the board without it becoming marked easily. It can easily be produced with a few power tools and a little know-how. My YouTube channel link is in the last step of this article. The practical reason is that it gives the user a place to grab the board on all sides making it convenient to pick up and move. on Step 1, Question Thanks again for a great tutorial. Tips for Making a Great Cutting Board: If you have followed me on Instagram over the last few years you've seen a LOT of cutting board pictures and videos. Just like the thickness, the heavier the cutting board is, the better it will be. If you're using long pieces of rough lumber, be sure to cut carefully at the chop saw because any bow in the wood can create a gap between the wood and the fence which when you complete the cut can cause pinching of the blade and KICKBACK! Maple. If you have to, switch to the smallest sander you have or even think about using a sanding block! It's 100% safe for consumption and is dead simple to apply. When you said for finish you "added enough until I saw it bleeding through the bottom", do you mean you kept applying to the top until it came out the bottom of the board? Back then, it was merely a section of a tree trunk set on legs. Good job! Just don't know how thick I should buy it. I used Mahoney’s walnut oil to finish my cutting board. You only need to change the dimensions or number of strips that you use if you want a different size cutting board. Aesthetically, it gives a thicker board a very light, almost floating look. Oh, and don’t ever make a cutting board out of pine! on Step 13. When you sand, you tear and abrade the fibers of the wood making tons of tiny broken fibers all over the surface of the cutting board. You finally cut down that old, drought-blighted pine tree. Those can be sharp and you don't want to poke yourself like that using the cutting board. This is the last glue-up. You don't need a ton of pressure here, just enough to get good even squeeze out along each joint. Apparently, it was planted all along … By following the below steps, you’ll end up with a beautiful cutting board that people will gawk over! It will make the board feel very rough again, like you never sanded it. Cutting boards that are made of the end grain tend to resist marks and cuts especially well. See all my projects and more at mwawoodworks.com, Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing). I chose to use my CNC, mainly because it’s a new tool and I wanted to play with it! There are a few things you want to consider when you buy wood for a cutting board. Very well done. 5. Now comes the very very very best part of making a cutting board. Use a clean, soft cloth to rub food-safe butcher block conditioner into wood. While shopping at IKEA, I also picked up a bottle of Mineral Oil so I could treat not only my new wood cutting board, but also my existing boards. Reply I specialize in DIY woodworking, building custom items for clients, friends, and family, showing a variety of woodworking tools…, 15 strips of oak – approximately 20”L x 7/8”W x 7/8”T, 8 strips of cherry – approximately 20”L x 7/8”W x 7/8”T, 7 strips of maple – approximately 20”L x 7/8”W x 7/8”T, Walnut (amount depends on the size of your cutting board). Then run these pieces across the jointer at the same time. Apply pressure. Spread glue on the "smooth" edge of every joint, (do not glue your boards to your metal clamps) ^_^. Trim off one end of the board and then flip the board over, keeping the same long side against the fence. I generally wait overnight to let the cutting board fully cure in the clamps before I move on. There are only a few parts and I've definitely tackled way more complicated board glue-ups than this one. Here in Florida there is lot's of mold spores in the air and when you leave a wet board on the counter for just a few days, it gets moldy. Well done. Don't press too hard or you'll leave an impression in the wood. I sliced the board into sections, cutting in the middle of each maple/oak strip. When you select your wood board, make sure it's free of warping, has a flat surface and doesn't have any blemishes or excessive knots on the surface. In no way is this an exhaustive list of woods you can use or avoid, but it covers the one's I … A lot of people like to display cutting boards and not use them. Thick cutting boards are less likely to split or warp over time. Face and edge joint the boards. 1. Answer Pine trees are considered a softwood tree, which means the wood is softer than hardwood varieties. I have friends who like to do that. Great easy to follow instructions! Next we will do a technique called "skip planing" in which we put the flattest side of the work piece down on the bed of the planer and take a very light pass. Great write up and lovely boards! It turns out that there are many factors to consider when choosing the most suitable raw materials for cutting boards: Learn how to make a cutting board from a reclaimed piece of butcher-block countertop with help from the experts at Blog Cabin 2012. 25 days ago Pass. The spirits evaporates, leaving the item food safe. End grain is like a series of straws running up and down. It’s made from easy to obtain domestic wood species. You can try the usual tool dealers, Woodcr@ft and R0ckler. You get to apply the finish and watch that grain come to life! If you need to cut food, you need a cutting board. Lovely job, I'm always surprised how many steps there are in creating one of these patterned boards.I am after a project to use up some offcuts, I might give something like this a go. Step 3 - Finish the Cutting Board. But, since it's exposed end grain, and wood is naturally self-healing, most light scuffs will be invisible with a fresh coat of mineral oil. Advice on Making a Cutting Board Hey guys, I’m new here and am trying to make a cutting board for my father for Christmas. Helped me make these, this past weekend. In a cutting board you can have the knots in it for show, but it may cause trouble down the line when that board gets wet and dries several times. Please check out the tutorial and if you still have questions be sure to leave them in the comments below. Once you reach that distance, make the cut. If your board is narrow enough to cut in one downward cut, then you should be fine. This will allow the board time to soak in all that mineral oil and leave the wax behind to solidify on the surface. It doesn't take long, but it's not instant. Make sure it's on a sturdy surface and level. Want a cutting board that is as much of a show piece as it is functional? To get the step-by-step tutorial, pop on over to eHow where I’ve explained the whole process. Pick one long side of your board and place it against the cross cut sled fence. I also glued together a panel of alternating strips of cherry and oak. 26 days ago. My two cherry accent strips already happened to be flat and square (sometimes I get lucky). I added enough until I saw it bleeding through the bottom, at which point, I set the board on its edge and let it dry. Just three to four passes with the sandpaper will remove the rough edge. Cutting boards are in constant contact with your food and kitchen knives, making it important to choose just the right wood for the job. Great project! Using the table saw, I crosscut my panels into 1-3/4” strips. Seriously, just walk away.... for several hours if you can. Make sure the board is clean and dirt free. What this means is that even if your jointer fence is slightly off square, the resulting angles will add up to 180 degrees (flat) and this will match up to one another perfectly. I hope you found these instructions helpful! Pretty easy! Making your own one-of-a-kind charcuterie wood board is easier than you think! Doing this will cause you to cut supplementary angles on the edges of your work pieces. Basically a paint-grade hardwood one step up from pine unless you get real knotty or colorful purple poplar. I just made one this past weekend with cherry and walnut. Take a quick moment to make sure you have rough cuts of all the woods going into your board now. and see if they have wood that could be used (even enough scraps could work) or where to find some. 1 year ago If your board was squared, the bevel on the end will perfectly intersect the bevels on each side and you'll have a nice point! Both soft and hard maple make for excellent cutting surfaces. I set my table saw to 1-7/8″ (a little wider than the smallest piece of maple) and ripped all the boards down to that size. This is just good planning before we move on to the next step! I hope that you enjoyed this Instructable and that you give this project a try. Pine might impart a resinous taste, and it’s soft so will show cutting scars from knives more easily than a harder wood like maple. I like to lay out my parts on the clamps so I don't accidentally glue the wrong parts together. If making a cutting board completely of one species of solid wood, I would probably choose something with similar characteristics to the most common domestic … That will cause a glue joint that can fail in the future, so we want to take care of that. Check out the video above to see it in action. *Oh, and a special thanks to my Dad for giving me a hand with the chainsaw. I have a small band saw and a small planer. 1 year ago If you have followed me on Instagram over the last few years you've seen a LOT of cutting board pictures and videos. This gives me a bit more material thickness that will help me in step 2. Hi, love your content. Now stand back and admire that you just did that! The fence is a piece of wood attached to the miter gauge. I glued together the wood strips into two panels. This gives you a chance to change things up or add other accent strips if you like before you go to the glue-up stage. Tropical hardwoods (usually used for accent coloring): Purple heart, yellow heart, canary wood, paduak, bloodwood, zebrawood, bubinga, Now here are a few hardwoods you may be familiar with that I would personally avoid using (with my biases opinions sprinkled throughout), Red Oak, grain is too porous for cutting boards (also ugly as sin and smelly when wet and basically good for firewood or cabinetry in a 1990's built home), White Oak, while it is used to make my favorite whiskey (bourbon) and I tip my hat to it for that reason alone, it is also too porous to use in cutting boards. GenealogistWoodworker MartyK1. You can get butcher block conditioner from the big box store. Once you're done sanding through all your grits, spritz the surface of the board with water, just enough to cover the surface. Thanks, I think that's what happens to most of the oak trees down after a hurricane. First person on the scene with a chainsaw takes it home for firewood. Just liberally coat all side of the board with this pasty mixture. You want good positive registration on all the angles to make sure you don't round over any of those sweet edges. You can see here that this edge I ripped at the saw is kind of gappy on one end. And, I look forward to making many more. Pass. Dense hardwood lumber with a closed grain is the best wood for cutting boards. Be careful sanding all the facets of the edges of the cutting board. After I cut the first strip, I can line it up against the outside of the blade and move the fence and my work piece until the edge is flush with the outside of the strip. Make sure that the board has been previously sanded. Just a quick question. I made sure that the strips had the thicker side facing up. Now, sometimes on the end grain, the block plane can leave a fuzzy surface on the edges. To do is flatten one face of our stock at the same quantity of solvent in a cutting board long! 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Using in a block plane not recomend using pine in a cutting board in future.