Design cutting boards with excel.

So like everyone else at Lumberjocks I’ve started making some cutting boards. I wanted to come up with a way to quickly see how a design might turn out and here are some screen shots. You can go to www.newcalshop.com to download a copy of the file.

It helps to think in terms of rows and columns, each row being the same color/pattern, and each column being a cross section of the rows. Use the rectangle tool from the drawing toolbar to make a horizontal stripe. By double clicking on that object or by right clicking on it you can view a window from which you can set the exact width and length, and you can even fill it in with patterns and colors. You can use Ctrl.+ Left Click to drag a copy to another location. After you make a bunch of stripes you then select each one, just Ctrl+Click on each and, here’s the trick, choose paste special as picture in an empty part of the sheet. You then resize that picture like a column. The new column should be a cross section or checkerboard-type pattern of your rows. Then all you have to do is make some copies of that column and line them up against each other using the same technique as the rows.

Here’s the fun part, all you have to do is click on any of the columns, grab the rotate handle and flip it around just like you would if you were assembling a real board. It sounds like a lot of work but it only takes about five minutes to design a cutting board.

-- tim hill www.newcalshop.com