Project Information
It's my second woodworking project ever, an end grain cutting board made of maple, walnut, yellowheart, and padauk. (I wouldn't use padauk again for my next one, read why below).
First off, I have to give crazy amounts of credit where it's due. dewoodwork gave a lot of my inspiration for this project, and a pretty awesome step by step process for what he's done.
http://lumberjocks.com/dewoodwork/blog/2597
Next, props to Marc Spagnuolo (thewoodwhisperer.com) for some really helpful tips on making end grain cutting boards and a great discussion on his site about finishes for boards. His recommended method has held up very well under my knife for the last month!
I made a couple changes from De's process. My board was slightly larger than his, which means I couldn't use my planer after the initial planing of the boards. There was LOTS of sanding involved in order to make the layers flat…
If I were doing it again, I would definitely not cut the boards to 10 inches until after I had gotten them to the correct thickness. It felt a bit unsafe putting such short boards through the planer and you end up planing about 6 times as many boards. I also wouldn't use padauk again. It is by far the dustiest of woods I've ever worked with, so you end up with red sawdust on absolutely EVERYTHING. I would probably use something like purpleheart or bloodwood to get the second dark color if i was going to do it again.
First off, I have to give crazy amounts of credit where it's due. dewoodwork gave a lot of my inspiration for this project, and a pretty awesome step by step process for what he's done.
http://lumberjocks.com/dewoodwork/blog/2597
Next, props to Marc Spagnuolo (thewoodwhisperer.com) for some really helpful tips on making end grain cutting boards and a great discussion on his site about finishes for boards. His recommended method has held up very well under my knife for the last month!
I made a couple changes from De's process. My board was slightly larger than his, which means I couldn't use my planer after the initial planing of the boards. There was LOTS of sanding involved in order to make the layers flat…
If I were doing it again, I would definitely not cut the boards to 10 inches until after I had gotten them to the correct thickness. It felt a bit unsafe putting such short boards through the planer and you end up planing about 6 times as many boards. I also wouldn't use padauk again. It is by far the dustiest of woods I've ever worked with, so you end up with red sawdust on absolutely EVERYTHING. I would probably use something like purpleheart or bloodwood to get the second dark color if i was going to do it again.