End Grain Butcher Block Style Boards

They are all very nice looking butcher boards. I like the way you combined the small & long pices brought together. Neat glue up and smooth finish.

-- masrol, kuala lumpur, MY.

We can thank mother nature for all that… I am just am along for the ride.

-- Anne Curtis, Wooden Wonders, Grand Rapids MI, WoodenWonders.ifp3.com

These are all beautiful boards. Of the three my personal favorite would be the first cutting board. If you have the time I would think that your technique would make for an interesting construction blog.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

I am in the middle of getting ready for a big show, but when things calm down a bit I’d be happy to write more about the process of buildinig them. Since I’m new to Lumberjocks, I will wait a bit so I can get a feeling for what people are interested in and get more familiar with the technical aspects of how to post articles.

Most of my more intricate pieces of have been glued up and then sanded between each step many times (15-30 times). The key is learning how to do it so everything lines up, is perfectly smooth and does not slip in the gluing process. Additionally, learning how to anticipate what mother nature has hid inside the wood by studying each piece individually helps.

Some of my students pick up on the technique right away, and others struggle with it. I suppose one’s success or failure has a lot to do the way your brain is hardwired. For some it may take some rewiring. Either way plan on lots of dust.

-- Anne Curtis, Wooden Wonders, Grand Rapids MI, WoodenWonders.ifp3.com

Very nice work! I checked out your website, also very nice! You make some wonderful things

-- http://www.grandprairiewoodworks.com http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6453794

Very imaginative designs.

Welcome to Lumberjocks!

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Very nice. I would love to see how you have built these. They are beautiful and I would definitely make one or more. Welcome to lumberjocks.

-- The view only changes for the leading dog.

Thank you. I have only been a member for two hours … and WOW… so much interest. This site is much easier to navigate through than most! Nice job guys… hats off to whomever designed this site!

-- Anne Curtis, Wooden Wonders, Grand Rapids MI, WoodenWonders.ifp3.com

Way to read the grain. These are the nicest end-grain cutting boards I’ve ever seen. I will be favoriting these!
Welcome to Lumberjocks. I believe you’ve just wandered into a great neighborhood. Our SysOP/Founder is Martin Sojka, a fine young gentleman from Slovkia, who is very responsive to our members needs and a “Ruby on Rails” genius!

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Very nice. I especially like the tray.

Welcome to LJ.

-- "A goal without a plan is a wish."

Welcome to LumberJocks.

Your work is striking and visually interesting. Very interested in your technique and blog.

Best Wishes with the Show.

Dalec

Lovely, very nice…looking forward to seeing more. Welcome to Lumberjocks.

-- robbi-Yadahooty!

Anne-
Welcome to Lumberjocks.
Your cutting boards are truely a work of art. And I along with others will be looking out for your blog.

If you and maybe some others that have built these style end grain cutting boards could provide us with some feedback from customers who have purchased the cutting boards, it would be appreciated.

I know I built 4 or 5 of them, nothing too fancy, gave them out as presents, but when I ask the recipients how they liked them, they all said the same thing, “they are much too pretty to use”.

Thanks for posting

-- MISSION FURNITURE-My mission is to build furniture

By far the most common comment I hear as people visit or just pass by my art show booths is “they are too pretty to use.” I had one customer come up to me and said that she had purchased my boards as Christmas gifts. She gave one of my boards to a friend or relative who normally shows no emotion when she receives a gift.. her friend/relative cried when she got it .. because it moved her. Mother nature helps a lot, so we can compliment her.

I normally sand these boards to 500 grit and coat the boards with my special Beeswax Butcher Block conditioners, so upon completion they are super smooth… so I can completely understand their reluctance to cut on them. I’m ok with that because too often people abuse their cutting boards by exposing them to too much moisture. So I consider it a compliment if they just put them on display in their kitchen or dining area.

-- Anne Curtis, Wooden Wonders, Grand Rapids MI, WoodenWonders.ifp3.com

Very nice !
Definitely for display only .

Thanks for sharing with us and welcome to Lumberjocks community.

-- My woodwork blog : http://www.isetehtud.pri.ee/blog/

Welcome to LJs…Your boards are fantastic !

-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .

Those are fantastic for end grain!! Welcome aboard. Your web site is nice too. You’re going on the buddy list so I don’t miss yoiur tutorials:-)

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

Welcome to lumber jocks. Incredible workmanship and beautiful design.
Thanks for sharing

Anne. Welcome to LJ. You do a beautiful job with these. I like how you use the grain, and the combination of heart/sap wood to accentuate the patterns. Excellent work.

Thanks for posting these…looking forward to more.

-- Martin, Kansas

Thanks Woodhacker. I always set aside pieces that contain flecks of color as represented by the transition from sap to heart wood. Mother nature sometimes blesses us with pieces such as these that uniformly make the transition throughout the entire run of the board. And, ocassionally she will produce a board that has radical changes from one end to the other so images come through that are completely unexpected. I have not finished it yet but I have a piece for example that glued up looks a lot like a long eared puppy dog, and I sold one two summers ago with batman and robin like motifs. And, believe it or not I have another one that looks like a series of deer butting antlers… It’s a tray. But the most exciting bit about this tray is I discovered what appears to be an ancient bullet lodged in the wood that the tree had healed itself around many years ago. When I get a chance I will try to finish up these pieces and post the pictures here. Time to head back out to the workshop.

-- Anne Curtis, Wooden Wonders, Grand Rapids MI, WoodenWonders.ifp3.com

Cool boards. I really like your grain pattern selections.

-- I don't make mistakes, only design changes....www.dgmwoodworks.com

I uploaded a few more pictures.

-- Anne Curtis, Wooden Wonders, Grand Rapids MI, WoodenWonders.ifp3.com

WOW! Very impressive workmanship. I would LOVE to know how you manage to do this kind of work. It must take hours and hours. I look forward to seeing more of your work. I can only imagine that each piece must be unique and impossible to reproduce. You have a TRUE eye for design.

I would never be able to actually USE one of those fantastic boards!
Or maybe I’d try to make shapes out of the wild end grain pattern, and
forget all about what I was going to originally do!!!

Well done Anne!

-- " I am making a mental list of those who are snickering, and even as I speak, I'm preparing appropriate retribution." -Leo McGarry

Thanks. I started with cutting boards, but after experimenting a bit with the bookended effects, I graduated into trays.. largely because people were saying they’d never actually my board and thus the guilt factor made them less inclined to buy. At least with the trays, people are less likely to abuse them. However, a note of caution, I learned the hard way that you have to be careful how you engineer the trays. The end grain surface really needs to be able to float to allow for expansion and/or contraction. I get one or two service calls each year (normally just on the early trays I built) and it’s always late February or early March. It’s because humidity levels vary from house to house and when the furnace is running things tend to dry out in houses that do not have humidifiers running and people routinely oiling them. So, I always recommend people routinely apply my butcher block conditioners each month and keep a humidifier running in their house in the winter. The humidifier is not onl good for wood, but I have read that humidifiers are good for your skin and general health, the same is true of beeswax butcher block conditioners since they keep your skin from drying out.

-- Anne Curtis, Wooden Wonders, Grand Rapids MI, WoodenWonders.ifp3.com