'Reeds'

Another bamboo serving board. The picture is pretty poor, a quick grab shot before we took it to a friend, Anna.
I started off with a piece of laminated bamboo panel left over from a kitchen cabinet job we did recently.
(The doors and drawer fronts were bamboo giving the kitchen a simple elegant look.)

I took the panel ( about 12” x 16” ) and cut in two up the middle in a sweeping ‘S’ shape, moving quickly, but smoothly. Just keep the blade moving, dont try and correct for the line or you will get little jags in the cut which will show up later.
Next I placed a thin strip of mahogany between the halves and clamped it together making sure the ends lined up and that the board remained very flat or else you get a twisted board when dry and no amount of planing will level that out.
Then I recut the entire board into strips of varying widths and flipped them around to suit my eye and reglued it all back together. On the edges I added a few strips of wenge and mahogany alternating with the bamboo rips.
I then took a large forstener bit a punched a finger hole in one corner. I used a smaller forstener bit for the plugs and only drilled in about half the thickness of the board, about 3/8”. The sweeping arc for the plugs as well as the arched ends and sides was done by simply bending a thin strip of wood and marking the line with a pencil. I then ran the board back through the planer to smooth out all the inlays and plugs, hand sanded and rubbed on some food grade oil.
Here is a link to who made this panel stock.
http://www.plyboo.com/contact-us.html
Thats about it, very easy.
Now go make a few and give them to someone that needs a lift,
Andy

-- If I can do it, so can you. www.artboxesbyandy.com