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I've been 'sitting' on these for a year now due to a silly mistake!

These are about 16"x 10", major woods are Walnut and Cherry, the white wood is Maple. Finished with mineral oil.

The construction is straight forward. Basically remove the wood along an arc with a router bit, then replace it with thin strips equal in thickness to the bit. This allows all the lines to remain continuous after multiple cuts. This is a fairly well established method, here is a short FWW video of the process (don't watch if you get vertigo!).

I used the table saw to make undercuts for lifting with the same method for making cove moulding. This was done with the boards still rectangular, the oval shape was done later. Even with a FTG blade, there is a lot of sanding involved to clean these up (especially with the end grain).


My big mistake was to leave the boards out in the (hot) sun so the UV rays would redden the Cherry. This caused a lot of stress on the wood from the heat, making some of the joints split near the edges. I could hear them cracking as soon as I brought them inside.

I decided to set them aside until I decide what to do about it (aside from burning!). The cracks have not spread and are not very visible, so I decided I'd just sell them as 'seconds' to recover the materials cost.

Thanks for looking!

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They look great.
 

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Those are beautiful! I love the pattern. Can you inject glue in the joint, clamp them and refinish to restore them?

Thank you very much for that video!!!!! I see how it was done so accurately by following the first router cut. i'll have to incorporate that into something in the future.

Jim
 

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Briliant work. Those bottom side handles looks fantastic as well as curves. The dark one is my favourite.
 

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Those are beautiful! I love the pattern. Can you inject glue in the joint, clamp them and refinish to restore them?
Thanks Jim. That was one of my thoughts back when it happened. I figured it would be too much work at the time and would require another round of sanding (this is after I had spend the better part of a day sanding, mostly by hand). The clamping would be tricky.
Thank you very much for that video!!!!! I see how it was done so accurately by following the first router cut. i ll have to incorporate that into something in the future.

Jim

- Jim Jakosh
I saw it as another 'tool' for my bag of tricks!
 

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Splinter, the boards look great. I especially like the design.
 

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Very smooth.Big like.
 

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Great design on the boards. Very elegant.
 

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My big mistake was to leave the boards out in the (hot) sun so the UV rays would redden the Cherry. This caused a lot of stress on the wood from the heat, making some of the joints split near the edges. I could hear them cracking as soon as I brought them inside.
I just made this EXACT same mistake with a walnut and purple heart cutting board I made. I was trying to get the purple heart more purple, but instead resulted in the purple heart cracking. The walnut seemed to hold up ok.

Anyway - the boards look great!
 

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These are awesome…...
 

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Thanks guys!
I just made this EXACT same mistake …
- lumberjuniorvarsity
Yep! Your post and story made me remember these boards and got me moving to 'finish' them!

I guess when we cut down a tree, dry it out, cut it into tiny little pieces, and then for the final indignity leave it out in the sun to make it prettier, it finally gets upset and fights back 8^)

I've been thinking more about what I could do to fix it (I'm not actually going to try, past is past…)

The cracks are essentially just that, cracks, not gaps. These are difficult to get glue into, but since they are on the ends, there is a way.

Basically my thought was to drill a tiny hole, the same side as a largish hypodermic syringe needle. The hole would come in from the end of the crack on the board edge, then go as deep into the crack as needed. This would all be centered in the thickness of the board. Think of it as a root canal for wood.

Since the board is well curved, any clamping to close the gap would get quite involved, therefore I'd just use epoxy, mixed up and injected with the syringe. Some tape to keep the epoxy from running back out and some time to cure…..
 

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I have seen the video before and thought it was very cool. Yours turned out great! Have to add these to my long list of future projects!
 
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