Archive for the ‘Cherry’ Tag
One last batch of cutting boards finished before the 4th quarter craft fairs begin. These, and many others, will be at Mrs M’s booth this weekend.
If you’re out and about in Santa Clarita on Saturday, please join Mrs Ms Handmade at the LA Sheriff’s Department’s Annual Fun In The Sun Chili Cook-Off at the Equestrian Center in Castaic. The address is 26983 Tapia Canyon Road.
If you’re not so fortunate as to be out in the heat with us on Saturday, then write me on the Contact Us form and tell me what you would like!
Two Hard Maple boards. Cutting boards for your RV? Cheese boards? Bar boards? You choose. One is 12-1/2″ x 8″ x 1-1/2″. The other is 13″ x 7-1/4″ x 1-1/2″. End grain.
# 63 Cutting Board, $125. Edge grain cutting board. Hard Maple, Black Walnut, Cherry and Yellowheart.
# 62 Cutting Board, $150. Hard Maple, Walnut, Yellowheart and Cherry. 22-1/8″ x 14-3/8″ x 1-5/8″. Edge grain.
# 68 Cutting Board, $150. Black Walnut, Yellowheart, Cherry and Hard Maple. 18-3/8″ x 14-1/2″ x 1-1/2″. End grain.
# 66 Cutting Board, $150. Black Walnut, Jatoba, Padauk, Yellowheart and Hard Maple. 18″ x 16″ x 1-1/2″. End grain.
# 69 Cutting Board, $125. Black Walnut, Hard Maple, Padauk and Yellowheart. 15-1/4″ x 12-1/4″ x 1-1/8″. End grain.
# 64 Cutting Board, $125. Black Walnut, Cherry and Hard Maple. 19-1/4″ x 12-1/2″ x 1-1/2″. End grain.
# 67 Cutting Board, $125. Black Walnut, Hard Maple and Cherry. 20″ x 12-1/2″ x 1-1/2″. End grain.
# 65 Cutting Board, $125. Hard Maple, Cherry & Black Walnut. 16″ x 12-1/2″ x 1-1/4″. End Grain.
# 61 Cutting Board, $100 – $150, depending on size. Hard Maple end grain.
Hard Maple. 20-3/4″ x 12-3/8″ x 1-1/2″. End grain.
Commissioned restoration project. This 20-year old board was presented to me in two pieces: a glue joint had failed. The pieces were squared up, re-glued, sanded and re-finished. Purpleheart and maple.
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Mrs Ms Handmade
Cutting Boards: What Kind Do You Want?
Cutting Boards: Care & Cleaning
Cutting Boards: Restoration
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Hard maple boards, destined for glue up, and, eventually, a cutting board and a cheese board.
Here’s the cutting board after glue up # 1, and then slicing into 1-1/2″ strips
Glue-up # 2, where the strips are rotated into an end-grain cutting board.
# 60 Cutting Board, $60. Hard Maple, 12″ diameter.
An end grain cheese board was made from the left over hard maple.
Next cutting board was hard maple, cherry and walnut.
After the first glue up, the board is cut into 1-1/2″ strips.
You have to be very careful to number every piece and mark the orientation, or you’ll end up with a piece glued on the wrong way.
I didn’t like the design as this board was sliced … so I offset every other piece by 3/8″ to make a better pattern.
# 78 Cutting Board, $125. Hard Maple, Cherry and Black Walnut. End grain.
Next cutting board is hard maple, walnut, canarywood and cherry. Notice the asymetrical layout of the wood.
Careful numbering of each strip.
When it was cut into strips to make it an end-grain cutting board, one piece of hard maple was revealed to have spalting in the middle of the board … the little dots in the middle of the board. The grain pattern was no longer symetrical, so I moved 4 strips from one end to the other in order to center the unique grain pattern in the hard maple.
The adjusted pattern with the grain pattern centered on the board.
Glue-up in progress.
The glue needs to have sufficient “open time” so I can apply the glue to all 13 strips, and then still have time to spread the glue before placing the strips into final position.
You can never have too many clamps.
Excess glue is wiped off, and then the wet assembly sits and dries for 24 hours.
Look closely at the end strip closest to you … and you’ll see the number on the end is oriented differently than the other strips. Ooops! This strip, which was oriented the wrong way, got cut off before finishing.
All of these cutting boards are finished with mineral oil and our wood butter topcoat, which is a combination of mineral oil and locally harvested beeswax.
Next board is hard maple, walnut, cherry and canarywood.
This board stayed as a “long grain” cutting board: the grain runs the length of the board. Some prefer the checker board patterns of end grain cutting boards (which many butcher blocks have); others prefer long grain cutting boards.
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Who Doesn’t Love Cheese & Crackers?
I Had To Mention Cutting Boards
The Cutting Board
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I was finishing up the 2nd round of routed bowls, and I mentioned that the process used to make the bowl blanks … building up the wood by gluing together several boards to get to the bowl dimensions … was the same as used to make cutting boards.
So, of course, I was asked to make a cutting board. And another. I ended up making 5 cutting boards and 3 cheese boards. Velda’s cutting board and cheese boards are discussed separately (link below). Here are the details on these 6x boards.
Alley and Christopher asked that their board be made in brown tones, so it is made from Walnut, Jatoba, Honey Locust, Tigerwood and Cherry. That board is 21″ long x 15-3/8″ wide x 1-1/16″ thick.
MrsMowry asked that her board be very red, so it is made from Purpleheart, Canarywood, Cherry and Hard Maple. That board is 14″ long x 12-1/4″ wide x 1-1/8″ thick.
I made two end grain cutting boards, as made famous by The Wood Whisperer. Fun project, though it’s definitely challenging to work on end grain like this. One is made from Walnut and Hard Maple; the other is Walnut and Yellowheart.
Finally, there’s a cheese board (PERFECT for the scraps that were left over!) which is 10-1/4″ long x 8-3/4″ wide and 1″ thick. The woods used are Cherry, Teak, Canarywood and Mahogany.
Selecting and arranging the boards is done with an eye towards grain, color and balance. This is also the time to inspect each board individually for any defects that might arise as the boards are planed down. Applying mineral spirits to the boards will give you a great look at the finished color of the boards.
Once the layout of the board is done, I taped the individual boards together until I was ready for the glue-up.
When you’re doing multiple projects simultaneously – the only way to be efficient! – organization is key.
The router table is the only way to get smooth & consistent handholds in place.
I did a 3/8″ roundover on each edge, as well.
After a great deal of sanding, it’s time to apply the finish.
I started with a double coat of mineral oil, and then did a topcoat of mineral oil and 25% beeswax. This topcoat will need to be re-applied regularly to keep the cutting boards water-resistant.
This is an end-grain cutting board: each board has been turned on end, so the knife will cut down on the grain, instead of across the grain. This design was made famous by The Wood Whisperer.
The photo doesn’t show much difference, but the upright board is Hard Maple and Walnut. The bottom board is Yellowheart and Walnut.
This colorful board was requested by MrsMowry. Canarywood, Hard Maple, Purpleheart and Cherry.
This cheese board is Mahogany, Cherry and Walnut.
As requested by Alley. Tigerwood, Walnut, Jatoba, Cherry and Honey Locust.
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The Cutting Board
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In round 3, I created a few patterns for personalized bowls … in this case, Velda drew the pattern for her “perfect sourdough loaf” bread bowl.
After hogging out the waste on the drill press, the routing begins.
Here the routing is about half done; I’m through the top layer of Red Oak and just beginning to route the Walnut.
I made two versions. The bottom one was from a single White Oak board, and the other was made from two pieces of 4/4 Red Oak sandwiching a piece of 1/2″ thick Walnut.
This blank is two glue-ups of 4/4 Black Walnut sandwiched around a glue-up of a wonderful old piece of 8/4 Black Walnut.
The perfect snack companion for a football game!
One of my favorite pieces, made from Yellowheart, Teak and Walnut. I was able to piece this together out of scrap, and the results were very unique.
Here’s the same pattern made from two very different wood combinations. On the left, 4/4 Purpleheart and 8/4 Red Oak gives a very different result from the yellowheart/walnut/teak version.
This large square server was fun to make from Hard Maple and Purpleheart. The problem is always that Purpleheart burns SO EASILY when you are sanding or routing. These pieces were still wet (they hadn’t dried out in the workshop for a few months before I machined them), so I believe that made the problem worse.
I made two of these small, shallow bowls. Woods are Koa (in the middle), Cherry (next to the Koa) and Tigerwood. Rather spectacular, and the Koa changes colors as you rotate it in the light.
This simple bowl is made from Honey Locust (on top), Walnut and Cherry. The color variation in the Honey Locust is due to sapwood in the piece that I used … that’s a feature, not a defect!
Same blanks were used for all three: 8/4 Hard Maple with 4/4 Purpleheart. The one on top shows more of the passionate color when filled with candy. Your preference?
I found some wonderful Padauk on sale at the Pasadena Rockler store for just $5.99/board foot. This large bowl is a sandwich of two glue-ups of 4/4 Padauk surrounding a third White Oak glue-up, planed to 1/2″ thick. This bowl used 3 board feet of Padauk and 1-1/2 board feet of White Oak (most of which became sawdust, unfortunately!).
The color is not re-touched. It’s really that orange.
Walnut oil was used to finish all of these bowls. And, oh my, does the color pop on this one!
Padauk is photo-reactive. Over time, UV light will change the bright orange to a warm brown. Better keep it in the dark until Hallowe’en!
This multi-wood blank is destined to be a pretty bowl. After I glued up Jatoba, Cherry, Walnut and Tigerwood, I ran it through the planer to get what will become the bottom of the bowl absolutely flat on both sides.
With the bottom of the bowl flat, I can attach it to a second glue-up of Honey Locust, that will be the rim of the bowl. I used cauls across the top of the bowl to ensure the Honey Locust was glued to the bottom blank at all points.
Colorful shavings when you drill out the not-a-bowl.
You begin to see the ultimate look of the bowl as it is routed out.
All of the bowls got their bottom edge rounded on the router table.
Some got a smooth bottom edge, but this bowl got a relieved bottom, making the bowl appear to float above the table.
The wonderful grain pattern on the outside of the bowl is a piece of Jatoba.
This brand goes on every piece … but Velda has claimed this one!
This bowl has different sections routed to different depths. The blank is two pieces of 4/4 Hard Maple sandwiched around Purpleheart, that I planed down to just 1/4″ in thickness.
All of those scallops were a challenge to get clean and pretty, I assure you!
Now that’s a bowl ready for Christmas!
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Round Three: The Bowl Adventure
A Day Of Finishing
I Was Working Too Hard….
Round Two: The Bowl Adventure
Football Snack Bowl
Making A Snowman
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