Personalizing A Board

Personalizing A Board Leave a comment

Any board can be engraved … indeed, I engrave my logo onto the back of everything I make.

As people have warmed to the idea, I’ve begun doing more and more personalizations on just about every kind of board that I make.

My only recommendation is that personalizations be done on light-colored wood; engraving on dark woods tends to get lost. Further, engraving across different species/colors of woods makes for poor legibility. The best engravings, in my opinion, are done on a single color of wood. Hard Maple is the lightest color and works best, but Cherry and even Yellowheart engravings work very well.

On cutting boards, engraving on the work surface is not recommended. Engraving on the very edge is possible, but any engraving on the face of the board results in a small workspace as well as a decorative element that you have to remember to avoid … because who wants to cut up their name? The better option for cutting boards, I feel, is to engrave the board on the back.

Yes, a board can be personalized after it’s oiled & waxed, though most of my engraving is done before the board is oiled. Here’s a collection of cutting boards, serving pieces and even Magic Bottle Openers that I’ve personalized for people in the past several months.