The Cutting Board

henrymowry

12 years ago

For Christmas, I made Velda a large, long grain cutting board made of both domestic and exotic hardwoods. Here’s what I used:

Honey Locust – because as nice as she is … she definitely has thorns

Cherry – because she can be sweet

Jatoba – because sometimes I have no idea what she means

Walnut – because she’s definitely nutty

Tigerwood – because I’ve seen her angry

The cutting board measures 1′-9″ long x 1′-3-7/8″ wide x 1-1/4″ thick. That’s a very large cutting board … but that’s what she wanted. To finish, I gave it an initial coat of mineral oil, wiped it off when it was dry, and then added a Velda-made mineral oil and beeswax combination: 25% beeswax by volume. It has rubber feet so it won’t slide around; I expect it to get some use in her kitchen!

The companion small boards are made of the same woods, and are intended as cheese servers. They each measure 9-1/2″ long x 9-1/2″ wide x 7/8″ thick.

I bought Tigerwood for this project; caught it on sale and ended up using these pieces in 7 of the projects I made.

First step: lay out the boards in a pattern that is pleasing to the eye.

To make sure the boards stayed in order, I used 3 techniques. Each board was numbered in order, 1 – 17. I drew a chevron across the face of the board so you could tell at a glance if they were in order. Finally, I used blue painters tape to hold each half of the board together until I was ready to start glue-ups … I was taking 25 projects through the production process at the same time!

I assembled the board in two halves … it’s easier to only glue up that many at one time, and half of the project would fit into my planer; the whole project would not.

Break the tape, lay the boards out, and then rotate all but the last board 90 degrees to expose the glue face.

Cover every bit of the exposed boards with glue. No dry joints allowed!

Carefully begin clamping the boards together.

I wasn’t overly concerned with keeping the top surface flat, as this glue-up would go through the planer to flatten it out.

There are many techniques to remove squeeze out (excess glue) … I use wet paper towels to wipe most of the glue off.

Both sides have to be cleaned!

Let set 24 hours.

Plane the left and right halves at the same time to ensure they are exactly the same thickness … and then glue up the two halves, making sure the project is flat and smooth.