# How did they do it? (not your average end-grain cutting board)



## phillsam

Hey guys,

I found a picture of a beautifully unique end-grain cutting board design that I would LOVE to try and make.
The pic is from a designers page but they mention nothing about construction.

Looks like it would be fun to turn a bowl and shape the board around it.

My question is how you think they formed the ripple?
Thoughts?


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## grfrazee

Eccentrically mounted in a lathe?


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## Bullet

Randy Johnson fastball?


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## mds2

Lathe seems really plausible , but wouldn't you have tons of tear out?

CNC maybe? Cool looking board.


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## JustJoe

my guess is four of them on a lathe at one time, held together from the back, or one big one on the lathe and then cut into four pieces.


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## shawnmasterson

My guess is a router and a jig


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## JoeinGa

ROS (And a hellof a lot of patience!)


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## donwilwol

+1 to JustJoe's idea.


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## CharlesNeil

Lathe, look close guys , bet there are 3 more some where, it was probably done as a out feed turning, as a big rectangle, then cut intop 4 sections, thats how I would do it, as to tear out as long as you go easy it would do fine, and have sharp tools,

also a overhead pin router would do it as well.


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## ChuckC

My guess would be a CNC router.


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## mporter

+1 on JustJoe
That is exactly how they did it. Turn on large cutting board and then cut into 4 pieces. One piece of work gives you 4 pieces that you can sell! Sounds good to me.


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## mds2

If that was done as one large piece and then cut into 4, the other 3 would look weird, since the center is presumably under the bowl.


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## phillsam

I agree with mds2 the idea of doing 4 at once woouldnt work if the center point of those ripples are concentric with the bowl they seem to appear.

I think I can use my shopsmith as an overhead pin router, maybe I will mess around and see if I can rough out something similar on scrap…


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## eao2012

They probably used a CNC to do it. Students would make stuff like this every once in a while when I was working at the university shop in college. Most of the time they used high density foam but every once in a while they would laminate sheets of MDF together and make contoured surfaces like that


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## joeyinsouthaustin

On a lathe the cut would be centered on the bowl… there would not be 3 more, just a lot of scrap. You can see the undulation goes around the back of the bow. I am not saying it can't be done on a lathe, but I am voting on CNC.

Edit: with *mds2* and* Eddie*... I walked away in the middle of responding for a bit.


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## ArlinEastman

You can turn that off center and the ripples are just as easy to make.

This project is well done.

Arlin


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## waho6o9

grinder


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## jap

probably a cnc


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## DIYaholic

I think they used a Star Trek "replicator"....
While traveling through a shift in the space-time continuum!!!


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## kdc68

Pretty cool however it's done. Thanks posting this forum…


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## tool_junkie

Pretty Cool… reminds me of the 3D contour plots in Matlab logo.


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## Loren

CNC.


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## GerryB

I'm wondering if the answer would be an angle grinder with a chain saw blade cutter, and a lot of careful control.
I have seen other works with waves and curls sculpted by hand chisels.

GerryB


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## Davynurse

Im shooting for router to hog out the bulk and or an arbor tech blade and a grinder, then the ROS and a few hand tools to finesse the curves.


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## Loren

It could have been turned… the corner could be turned
"over air" (takes considerable skill) or by gluing up the
blank with a waste area. Then after the ripple is turned,
cut off the waste part and glue on the flat part. Finish
by hand.

I still believe it is CNC. The nature of those machines,
access in schools, and the mentality of design students 
leads to this sort of exploration.


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## joeyinsouthaustin

3-d printer and a good paint job??


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## DaleM

Probably CNC, but you could replicate easily enough with an angle grinder using a Merlin carving tool then finishing with a flap sander or as someone already said, an Arbortech tool. It should be no harder, or even easier than sculpting the boxes that Greg, Andy and others post on here all the time.


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## papadan

I use a 4 1/2" grinder with a flap disc for shaping wood like that.


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## TCCcabinetmaker

... most look at the imperfections in the aches… Most likely done with a grinder with an extremely rough sanding bit.

Turning a piece like this on a lathe would have tons of tear out, if it didn't outright explode in the first place. Cnc,s and routers again tear out. easiest would actually be to grind it down.

Second look, I'm more inclined to think the grinder after noticing the grain patterns, the figuring would not do well at all with most of the ideas people had.


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## REO

best guess on the size of the pieces. overall size of the cutting board? the size of the bowl?


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## duncndonut

I make them on a CNC router… Pretty straight forward once the file is setup! If anyone is still interested in this let me know, I can show you the setup..


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## rad457

Could be done on a Shaper, I have a moulding head that looks exactly like that radius. With carbide head little to no tear out.


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## Codyclark02

Radial arm saw. Lower blade a bit then swing the arm side to side and repeat?


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## Waldo88

I don't think its from a CNC router. Look at the top, the transition from the ripple to the flat area. There is a long-ish almost flat transition.

I tend to think an angle grinder made the shape, smoothed with a ROS. A router (or possibly even handplane) flattened the cutting area.

A flap disk in an an angle grinder is surprisingly easy to control for making shapes like that, and it hogs off material quite fast.


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## Ger21

There's a CNC shown on his website, so I'd say CNC.

http://dylangold.com/work/ripple.php


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## AlaskaGuy

Kool, interesting and all that but I think a flat cutting board is more useful for cutting "stuff".


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## PhillipRCW

It's a CNC. there are a ton of videos online of stuff like this.


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## MarioF

Simple CNC, starting with a thick cutting board blank clear the flat pocket with a 1"straight cutter, cut the ripple effect with a 1" ball nose cutter and sand everything together. Nice looking board, these are the kind of creativity expansions that CNC's make possible. You can still make it in other ways, the offset lathe being a second best IMHO Of course,if you have the skills and a lathe to match.


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## daddywoofdawg

Cnc or a grinder and one of those chainsaw disks.


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## becikeja

Router, then ROS and patience


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## Clarkie

Looks like it would have been done flat with a serious router and profile bit. Nobody would be crazy enough to turn that on a lathe, think of the repercussions.


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## zzzz

I think everyone is missing the obvious. The piece is made up of segments. You would glue enough of them together to turn your rings, then cut to give the off centre look, from there on you glue on extra segments which are of a reduced height


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## AlaskaGuy

I think I'd prefer the average end grain cutting board over that.


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## pottz

> I think I d prefer the average end grain cutting board over that.
> 
> - AlaskaGuy


yeah i agree looks cool but for actual use,worthless.


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## Meisterburger

I think it should be correctly called a serving board. More prettiness than useful utility.


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