Worst endgrain cutting board ever - need some tips

Try adding a second fence on your glueup platform. That would register two edges of the cb, and should prevent alignment problems.
I like to shoot a brad through small strips to align them, but I don’t think that would work in this case. Even an 18 gauge brad could split those small cubes.
Hey good luck!

-- Willie, Washington "If You Choose Not To Decide, You Still Have Made a Choice" - Rush

Oh no, the worst one was burned at my house several months ago :-)

I am sure the CB masters here can help you out!

-- Mother Nature created it, I just assemble it. - It's not ability that we often lack, but the patience to use our ability

Monte, this is headed for the burn pile as well – unless I can come up with a need for a “shop” cutting board. It’s definitely not going in my kitchen, that’s for sure.

Shooting brads is an interesting idea. I think you are right though – they may split.

-- http://www.etsy.com/shop/KandJWoodCrafts

Nothing horrific about the board – I wouldn’t be tossing it out. We are our worst critics….

-- -- Don in Ottawa, http://www.donebydon.ca

What Don said. But I can see from the pictures that your lumber was NOT quartersawn.
Best way to avoid this is to go shopping for QS lumber and align the grain over the entire board. The glue made your pieces expand a bit, and as they are different woods when drying out they contracted differently for each species.

If you really feel bad about it, why not route out a channel at the border joints to fool the eye and hide the mishap? The slight misalignment at the center looks really good to me actually.

I use the “brutal drying” method when veneering (I use a clothes iron on the veneer stock before even cutting it to dry it out as much as I can so it won’t move afterwards), as it’s even more sensitive to moisture than thick lumber. You could build yourself a small kiln of sorts to make sure all the woods are bone dry before cutting them, and use epoxy to glue them up. That way when all is said and done you won’t have any major movement.

Or for small parts, if the oven in your kitchen can be set to ~ 75°C (and the wood doesn’t stink!), when Mrs LumberJill isn’t home, well, you get the point… ;) Wood won’t burn at such a low temperature, as long as your oven is really well regulated and the lumber doesn’t touch the upper heating elements.
Beware if you try with spalted woods though, as certain colors from certain spalters may fade and die (check out here ).

-- Thomas - There is no such thing as a problem, there only are solutions.

The wood was all KD and I’m pretty sure it was nice and dry. I have never in my life seen quartersawn walnut or purpleheart, so I don’t even want to know what it costs :)

The pieces definitely shifted during glue up. I actually ran the edges through the table saw to square them up (on the cross cut sled) as they were SOO off.

-- http://www.etsy.com/shop/KandJWoodCrafts

It doesn’t look horrible to me. Hey, you can always speak to how difficult it was to create the appearance of mis-algnment : )

-- I do not have attention deficit dis,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,hey look ,it's a bunny

It looks fantastic at my end. There are times when imperfections bring out the beauty of a thing.

i think it looks pretty cool because the pieces are shifted consistently off. The sapwood is awesome too.

Or crosscut it down the middle of the second glue-up seam, and re-glue it. That should fix it perfectly.

If you really hate it, i’m sure someone would take it for free. (i would)

-- Joel -- http://diversitywoodworks.wordpress.com

Joe, this link should help ease your pain just a little. Mike was a good friend of mine and I got to see this wreck personally. He had a good sense of humor about it and learned from his mistake. You will work it out :)

David

-- There is little that is simple when it comes to making a simple box.

It doesn’t look as bad as you think. Obviously it shifted while glueing. Glue is slippery stuff when wet and the pressure between clamps can do some crazy things to a level board trying to react to the pressure. I’ve had a few of my boards do this in the past. It is also one of the main reasons I specifically design my boards to offset all of the joints. See some previous 2-3-4-3 patterns.

I wouldn’t give up so quickly. I would (and have in the past) set up your table saw fence and cut through the worst joints. Easiest would be to cut off the maple ends lengthwise and re-glue them into place. You could also make one rip right down the center where the maple meets purpleheart. With those 3 cuts and ample time spent on setting up the glue clamps, I think you will be fine.

-- Measure, cut, curse, repeat.

McLean has very sound advice Joe. The board is more than salvageable and just fixing the Maple ends alone would make a huge difference visually. The fix really is nothing more than just a couple cosmetic tweaks.

-- There is little that is simple when it comes to making a simple box.

An easy fix for alignment might be to make a jig to drill a small hole that you can put a dowel in to help align everything. Doesn’t have to go all the way through, just enough you could put a 1/4” long dowel halfway into each piece, then you’d have everything lined up without any fuss and your clamps couldn’t shift things around on you.

Just set up a fence with a stop on your drill press, set your depth stop, and trial on a few pieces until the hole is right in the center of the sections, then drill flip drill flip drill flip until you’re done. Also would help make sure everything is level as well, so you wouldn’t have as much cleanup to do because of pieces that didn’t quite lay flat.

This board has great looking woods and is far from being firewood. I was going to say the same thing as Mclean to just rip the edges off and cut out this misalignment on the both the dark and light woods and reglue. I don’t see the need to cut it down the middle. Some times it’s not just knowing how to make something it’s also know how to fix what goes wrong. Remember you know all of the defects in your projects, but 98.5% of the folks out there will think it’s great and the others will still think it looks great even though they think something might be a little off.
I LIKE THIS BOARD
I guess I was typing when other above me said similar comments.

-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/

Those are all really good tips. I’ve already moved on to the next one, so this is just a happy accident. Fixing the maple on the ends is a great idea though. I may give that a shot. My only issue would be flattening it again. It’s waxed and finished. Getting that off is no fun at all.

David, that’s pretty funny! here is my first attempt. It exploded in clamps. This is why I do a dry fit with clamps now:

I break pieces off from time to time for segmented turnings.

-- http://www.etsy.com/shop/KandJWoodCrafts