Simple Cutting Boards

The first board is Brazilian Cherry with an Oak stripe down the middle, the 2nd and 3rd are black walnut and red oak, and the 4th pic is the first one I ever made from one of those little kits that Woodcraft sells. I just love Brazilian cherry, its so damn beautiful. I just need to find a place that it doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg. I found a local hardwood company that sells scraps but the real exotics are hard to come across, I cant get maple oak and walnut pretty easily though.

Oh 1 question for you experts out there is – how does mahogany work for cutting boards? I have a bunch of it (i think at least, it looks like mahogany to me) from remodeling my master bedroom and kitchen, my house is just full of really nice lumber, every door jamb in my house is mahogany (unless its a lighter colored walnut), and my house was all original from 1964, there is a door about every 5 feet so there is a lot of this wood hanging around…

I also came across some interesting wood I’ve never heard of, its called Roble, it comes from the trumpet tree, really common in rain forests in South America and southern North America. It looks almost like a cross between maple and mahogany, maple like grain with a reddish tint. It said on the spec sheet that its works excellent for gluing and machining, and its very heavy and dense wood, but I noticed the sawdust seems a lot finer than the dust when I cut walnut, oak, maple or cherry so I was wondering if its suitable for cutting boards or not.

Soon I will get a new blade for my table saw so I can finish my end-grain boards, I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to figure out why its not cutting straight, and I took the blade of last night and it seems to me like the blade is warped. Thats okay though it’s time for a new one, does anyone have any recommendations? I was thinking about going with a Diablo 60 or 80 tooth from the Depot, I don’t want to spend a ton of $$ though.

I have 5 more cutting boards at home just waiting to be finished, I cut 2 of them for the 2nd time and turned them on the end grain and they are bowed, the middle is wider than the edges so they wobble a little bit and then when I put the clamps on they end up snapping at one of the original joints. So needless to say I need a good new blade, its apparent that my current blade is warped, it had a good run but its driving me crazy.