# Checkerboard End Grain Cutting Board



## Brad_Nailor (Jul 26, 2007)

*Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*

I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it? 
Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.

This is actually the first custom cutting board I have been paid to make. In a previous project post I showed a cutting board I made for a friend to give to his wife for mothers day. A neighbor of his saw it and wanted one of his own. My friend showed him pictures I had sent him of the end grain checkerboard cutting boards I made and he wanted one, only full size 12×16, 1 1/2" thick with a half size border around it. And he wanted the checks to be 1 1/2" square. So I needed to be precise about how I glued up the blanks, so I would have enough material to make sure it came out the right size. SU is perfect for this, I did three different models, the first one shows the first glue up with all the material sizes. The length takes into account how many cuts I need at 1 1/2" including saw kerfs.










The next model shows the second glue up. After the 1st glue up is scraped, flattened, and sanded to 1 1/2" thick, (Usually I would plane it flat, but this one wont fit through my planer!) I take 1 5/8" rips and set them on end and offset every other row…










The last model shows the finished board as close to the dimensions that the customer wanted I can get while maintaining the other criteria. Sanded to 1 1/2" and the edge squares trimmed to 3/4"










Of course another great reason to do a SU model would be so I can use cutlist. Even though this isn't a large complicated piece of furniture with lots of parts it is still a very useful program to figure out exactly how much material I need and what the exact board footage is so i can price it accurately. I used the first glue up blank to run the cutlist, once for the maple and once for the walnut










So it turns out I needed just under 2.5 board feet of each type of wood. Where I buy my hard woods, 8/4 hard maple is $6.35 b/f, and 8/4 walnut is $10.65 b/f. So my material cost is around $42.00. The walnut is pricey…maybe I should stick to all hard maple butcher blocks! So I bought all my lumber today and spent some time planing it down to 1 3/4" thick…but I am thinking…once I do the first glue up, if I have to use a drum sander to flatten and size the blank….. that could take a while to loose 1/4". Maybe I should take my blank thickness down to 1 5/8, and just be real careful when I glue it up? What do you guys think?


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## CorporalWilly (Jan 7, 2008)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*
> 
> I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it?
> Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.
> ...


Great Job. Terrific use of a great little program. Very interesting pattern you made. Play checkers or chess on it too. Dual purpose. A Green built project. Well done buddy.


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## DanYo (Jun 30, 2007)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*
> 
> I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it?
> Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.
> ...


I've used CAD to design cutting boards myself


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*
> 
> I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it?
> Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.
> ...


nice design


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## DaleM (Feb 18, 2009)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*
> 
> I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it?
> Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.
> ...


I haven't made a cutting board since high school shop class and can barely remember that, so I have a question. Why do you slide the pieces over to make the checkerboard instead of flipping them for the second glue up? Don't you get more waste that way? Is it because they line up better that way? I'm thinking of making another is why I'm asking.


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## PatentNonsense (Mar 8, 2009)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*
> 
> I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it?
> Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.
> ...


How cool! I hadn't known about sketchup, and I'm wanting to do some endgrain boards myself.
I've got a big wide-belt sander I'm dying to put to work.

Does anyone do boards with non-right-angle pieces? E.g. like a honeycomb? Obviously it would take a little more work in the milling, but it'd be interesting to try.

Thanks,


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## Splinterman (Mar 13, 2009)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*
> 
> I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it?
> Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.
> ...


It will look cool when finished.


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## cranbrook2 (May 28, 2006)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*
> 
> I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it?
> Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.
> ...


The sketchup master has done it again !!


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## Brad_Nailor (Jul 26, 2007)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*
> 
> I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it?
> Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.
> ...


Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

*Dale *you are 100% correct. The last one of these I made I ended on the same color row as I started so I had to do the offset thing…but since this one ends with opposite colors,I could have left off 1 row of each color and just flipped them like you said. That would have saved me some materiel….oh, well..live and learn…I know that now for the next time!

Edit: Actuually looking at it…. if I did that, then once I cut down the border squares it would have came in at 11 1/2"...


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## sawedoff (Oct 10, 2011)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Skecthup Model....ya, you heard me right...of a cutting board*
> 
> I know what your thinking…this lunatic made a Sketchup model of a cutting board? Can't he just wing it?
> Ya sure, I have made quite a few cutting boards with and without plans. The few I have done plans for were in Autodcad, to work out the design details, but this is the first time I have used SU for planning a cutting board. I wanted to be able to know exactly how much material I was going to need, and how it was going to have to be glued up so it would come out exactly as I wanted.
> ...


Looks awesome! I never knew how people did the checkerboard cutting boards… Now thanks to your sketch up I know…. Thanks!


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## Brad_Nailor (Jul 26, 2007)

*Putting it together*

Ok, when I last left you this cutting board was just a Sketchup design. After a trip to the hard wood dealer and some basic milling I arrived at this very hefty glue up. I tried to do the ripping on my BOSCH, but even with a thin kerf blade it was a little too much for that saw, so I took over my buddies cabinet shop! Here are some shots of the first glue up..
















Here is the blank, out of the clamps and sanded to 1 1/2" thick..
















Ok, now the fun part..After squaring one end up on the radial arm, I cut 1 5/8" strips out of the glue up and flip every other one. Then another glue up..Here is where things started to get a little dicey. It never occurred to me that these were laminated pieces not solid wood and I might consider gluing it up in sections to keep it straight…or using some solid wood cauls on the ends to squeeze the pieces together. You can see the top left of the board curving in from the clamps. 








definitely a slight alignment problem..everything was getting skewed slightly by the clamping pressure..
















Here is the board out of the clamps and sanded with a dual drum sander to 1 1/2". You can clearly see the left side bending in..
























Well it is what it is, so I just made the best of it. I carefully cut the sides down trying to strike a balance between keeping things square and perpendicular and making the boarder look even. Here is the board after I cut the border, and polish sanded it from 80 to 180 with a pneumatic orbital palm sander..
















Not too bad..it looks ok. After this I took it home a routed a 1/8" radius on all the edges and sanded it to 250. Then multiple coats of mineral oil. I have a light and heavy viscosity mineral oils and I use the heavy one for end grain boards..it slows the absorption down a little. The end grain really soaks up the oil!

Check out my project posting for the finished pictures!


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Putting it together*
> 
> Ok, when I last left you this cutting board was just a Sketchup design. After a trip to the hard wood dealer and some basic milling I arrived at this very hefty glue up. I tried to do the ripping on my BOSCH, but even with a thin kerf blade it was a little too much for that saw, so I took over my buddies cabinet shop! Here are some shots of the first glue up..
> 
> ...


Hey David
Cool board,well done


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## Maynard (May 9, 2009)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Putting it together*
> 
> Ok, when I last left you this cutting board was just a Sketchup design. After a trip to the hard wood dealer and some basic milling I arrived at this very hefty glue up. I tried to do the ripping on my BOSCH, but even with a thin kerf blade it was a little too much for that saw, so I took over my buddies cabinet shop! Here are some shots of the first glue up..
> 
> ...


Would it be advisable to use a wash coat of glue and water before you start to finish so as to slow down the absorption of the mineral oil?
Larry


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## SPMaximus (Mar 2, 2009)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Putting it together*
> 
> Ok, when I last left you this cutting board was just a Sketchup design. After a trip to the hard wood dealer and some basic milling I arrived at this very hefty glue up. I tried to do the ripping on my BOSCH, but even with a thin kerf blade it was a little too much for that saw, so I took over my buddies cabinet shop! Here are some shots of the first glue up..
> 
> ...


Very nice

A easy fix for that alignment problem would be some scraps to the length of the board or something and some clamps to keep all the pieces…. aligned


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## Brad_Nailor (Jul 26, 2007)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Putting it together*
> 
> Ok, when I last left you this cutting board was just a Sketchup design. After a trip to the hard wood dealer and some basic milling I arrived at this very hefty glue up. I tried to do the ripping on my BOSCH, but even with a thin kerf blade it was a little too much for that saw, so I took over my buddies cabinet shop! Here are some shots of the first glue up..
> 
> ...


Thanks for the comments. Maynard, I guess that would work but even though the glue is food safe I wouldn't cover the food contact area with it. I am a strict believer in only mineral oil and bees wax for cutting board finishes…unless its decorative then I use a salad bowl finish. I have two different viscosity's of mineral oil. I use the lighter one for face and side grain boards so it penetrates the tight grain faster. I use a heavier viscosity on the end grain boards …it slows the absorption down alot, and I don't let the end grain boards sit as long as the others…a couple coats and thats it. The end grain will keep drinking up that oil forever, and then it will bleed back out of the board..forever!


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## akaCAM (Oct 21, 2009)

Brad_Nailor said:


> *Putting it together*
> 
> Ok, when I last left you this cutting board was just a Sketchup design. After a trip to the hard wood dealer and some basic milling I arrived at this very hefty glue up. I tried to do the ripping on my BOSCH, but even with a thin kerf blade it was a little too much for that saw, so I took over my buddies cabinet shop! Here are some shots of the first glue up..
> 
> ...


Thanks for the wonderful photos!

As an aside, "The Woodwhisperer" did a video (YouTube) on building this same butcher block. He made a point of telling the viewer not to clamp the board too tightly. Perhaps overclamping is what attributed to your alignment problem? Like Peik suggested, "The Wood Whisperer" does use additional boards to help the alignment problem, as well. He also heavily addresses the finishing process. It was pretty interesting; if you haven't see it, you might want to take a look.

I will say you have one up on "The Wood Whisperer" for how you've presented this project with such great photos. I made notes from his video, because I need to build a large butcher block from maple and walnut (like yours). Having your notes and photos will really help me, when I start mine. Between the two of you, I can't miss with all the info I've gathered! Thanks for going to all the trouble to document your process.


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