# Lord Forgive Me, I Rushed it



## PineSucks (Aug 3, 2015)

Made a cuttingboard from some edge grain maple, added walnut stripes and glued up before realizing the table saw I was using trailed off at the end of each board, leaving some significant gaps in a few places as wide as 3/32".

Any chance I could get away with using West Systems 205/207 epoxy to fill these bacteria grabbing eyesores?


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## dbray45 (Oct 19, 2010)

If already glued - don't know how it will hold up. 3/32" is a pretty good gap.

I would make a new one and dry fit before assembly.


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## Kazooman (Jan 20, 2013)

I would cut off the bad section and use the board for another purpose like a cheese board or serving tray.


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## bbasiaga (Dec 8, 2012)

You could slot all the glue lines to 3/32 and insert some shims of a contrasting wood. Then it would look like you did it on purpose.

Brian


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## bondogaposis (Dec 18, 2011)

Cut the ends off and make a shorter board.


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## JayT (May 6, 2012)

Another option would be to make breadboard ends to cover the gaps.


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## Underdog (Oct 29, 2012)

Were you using a glue line rip blade? If not, I'm wondering why didn't you joint the edges?


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## jwmalone (Jun 23, 2016)

Brian has my favorite idea, that's a true wood worker, use youre screw ups to your advantage they will never know.


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## JBrow (Nov 18, 2015)

McFly,

If a couple of *ifs* are true, then flipping the strips end for end should cancel out the 3/32", assuming my geometry is correct. 1) If the trailed off by 3/32" means the strips are tapered from one end to the other. 2) If flipping the strips end for end does not spoil the look you are going for.

Flipping strips end for end would put a narrow end between two wider ends along one end of the cutting board and at the other end, the same strips would be a sandwich of a wide end between two narrow ends.


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## jwmalone (Jun 23, 2016)

Next time I have a math question I'm asking Jbrow, That's pretty slick thinking there


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## Kazooman (Jan 20, 2013)

> McFly,
> 
> If a couple of *ifs* are true, then flipping the strips end for end should cancel out the 3/32", assuming my geometry is correct. 1) If the trailed off by 3/32" means the strips are tapered from one end to the other. 2) If flipping the strips end for end does not spoil the look you are going for.
> 
> ...


That cannot be the case here. If the individual pieces were all tapered from end to end then gluing them side to side would not create any gaps, but would result in a piece that was not rectangular. The OP has to mean that the very end of some pieces have a taper to them. Hard to understand how it happened on the table saw unless he was doing something like using a push stick and failed to keep the work against the fence as it cleared the blade.


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## bonesbr549 (Jan 1, 2010)

you could rip a 1/4 groove and put some inlay in. I've found in the long run when I have an opps some times it's best to just chuck it start over. Do you want to have that mistake with your name on it?

Experience is a great painful teacher. Do it over.


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## ChefHDAN (Aug 7, 2010)

+1 to Bones, it's fire pit time, charge it off to the cost of education and rest assured the next one is going to be nice! Think I might edit my sig line to "Know when to burn it" LOL


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## PineSucks (Aug 3, 2015)

Oh, jeez. I fat-fingered my keypad this morning. It's a 1/32" gap, but they're EVERYWHERE!!

I'll go snap a few pics of the atrocity.


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## PineSucks (Aug 3, 2015)




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## PineSucks (Aug 3, 2015)

Many thanks for the lively discussion. To address some of the high points;

Slotting to 3/32" and inlaying another species is genius. Well done!

The hasty decision that started all this was my not planing all components to the same dimensions after cutting them. Would have produced a perfect board!

Laying wide ends to skinny ends is more genius. However, in my application, it was ramdom end pieces cut from longer stock. It's a known isssue with this particular belt-fed ripsaw. In any event,Well Done!

I decided to embrace my hasty glue up and went with the fix of pressing tbiii glue & walnut wood flour into the gaps and immediately sanding it off w/100g. Should dry up nice & dark. 
I'll wrap things up this weekend by sanding up to 220g, wetting it down and starting up again from 120-400g before I oil & wet sand to 1000.


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## marshallmosby56 (Jul 16, 2016)

Well you have at least learnt the lesson of dimensions if not anything else. You have also made a pretty board. Nevertheless, imperfections make us unique and using glue and flour sure would be the best bet here.


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## dalepage (Feb 6, 2016)

Is your TS fence parallel to the blade?

You can rip all the maple and take out the taper. I have done this more than once when a gap appeared which was previously hidden by the squeezed-out glue. If you have a premium rip glade, you will end up with glue edges which require no jointing to true them. Kazooman has the idea, but if you're careful, you may be able to take out the taper if it's no wider than the glue line.

However, the end-to-end gluing is, quite frankly, very unsightly. Rip the pieces and glue them back together. Then crosscut the whole package to make end grain boards. I have made end grain boards with short lengths like you've got. When I crosscut the pieces off the slab, I just plan to throw away the strip which contains the end-to-end joint.

Since you are beginning, you should work on the process and do it RIGHT. Just my opinion: edge grain cutting boards are a waste of time and wood. Make only end grain. You'll discover the endless design possibilities when you roll the crosscut pieces and flip them end to end on every other one. You can roll every other one the opposite way, too.

There are several YouTube videos to show you how.

Think things through, don't rush, and don't allow yourself to have the "good enough" attitude.


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