Cutting Board - in progress

Here are a few in process pictures of the cutting board. It’s pretty straight forward to build. You just need to spend the time figuring out the measurements that will work for you, cutting each of the pieces and gluing each of the setup blocks and then the entire piece.

Also, spend extra time to fill in any gaps you have with glue and fine sawdust. I found the plan for this on Lumberjocks site. There’s a few examples out there.

Here are the blocks cut into small pieces.

From Cutting Board Pictures

From Cutting Board Pictures

Rough layout before glue up

From Cutting Board Pictures

Glue up process – don’t over tighten the clamps – you want the final piece to be as flat as possible.

From Cutting Board Pictures

Here’s the sanding process. I used a hand belt sander to do sanding (go on an angle and make sure not to push too hard)

From Cutting Board Pictures

See the little gaps – that is because the cut (table saw) was off a bit but I was able to fill them so you don’t see the gaps in the final product. To prevent this, make sure you check your saw to ensure it’s square to the table top.

From Cutting Board Pictures

From Cutting Board Pictures

After doing the rough sanding with a hand belt sander and palm sander, I went to my woodworking supplier (Woodsource in Phoenix) to have them run the entire piece through a large belt sander. This make the entire piece completely flat. Keeping the cutting board flat is important when you consider it will be sitting on a honed granite counter top.

From Cutting Board Pictures

Here is the final product which I also included in the completed project section.

When I showed up with this in the kitchen, my wife refused to cut on it at first, but I broke it in the other night and it worked great and still looks beautiful. I made the piece pretty thick so I can re-sand and finish the piece when the cut marks show up too much. I figure that wont be for years though.

From Cutting Board Pictures

From Cutting Board Pictures

From Cutting Board Pictures

Many thanks to Dan Walters and Tony for the instructions.

Check out Tony's blog entry for step-by-step instructions.

-- Matt, Arizona