Not a Cutting Board! (BBQ Platters)

I needed a present for a family wedding and I decided that a barbecue (bbq? Which do you prefer?) platter would be a nice option.




They are similar to cutting boards, but I make them thinner, as they don't need to be that thick to carry a grilled steak inside from the barbecue! I also add a "juice groove" to hold the juices.


This gives me an excellent excuse to clean up all those skinny too-nice-to-throw-out wood scraps. And once you set up to make one, you might as well make two or three.


http://i.imgur.com/fBzuA24.jpg


First, Gather the scraps!


From left to right, ROUGHLY, I've got Ash, White Oak, Padauk, Teak, More Padauk, More White Oak, More Walnut, More Ash, Cherry, and Maple. I love putting different strips together!


http://i.imgur.com/0WvMz8m.jpg


I arrange all the strips in a pleasing manner and start gluing them up. These boards were all mostly symmetric, but that is not a hard and fast rule. All the thin strips make it more complicated to glue up, but the result is worth it.


http://i.imgur.com/8N204sP.jpg




Lots of planing


All my wood was varying thicknesses, so I had a lot of planing to do to bring the boards down to a nice thickness. I make my BBQ platters fairly thin -- roughly 1/2" thick, or maybe a bit thicker. Remember, these are not intended to be cutting boards! I use these just to bring the meat in from the barbecue after grilling. So they do not need to be thick


http://i.imgur.com/7WQHDWF.jpg


An important touch are the juice grooves to catch and hold the meat juices. Typically I would make a template and use a template routing bing to cut the grooves. But then all your bbq platters need to be the exact same size. Instead I experimented with freehanding it on scrap and it seemed to work. Yes, I'm taking a chance that I will slip when going around the corner, but hey, I'm a woodworker, I could fix it! But I did not slip. I just when slow and kept a solid grip on the router, keeping firm pressure against the edge of the wood, and being very careful at the corners.


http://i.imgur.com/QVQmWUW.jpg


I ended up making three. I use Clapham's Salad bowl finish on my BBQ platters and on my Cutting boards. It's totally food safe: a mix of mineral oil and beeswax. Smells like honey when you wipe it on.


http://i.imgur.com/XbdSTve.jpg




drain notch


I filed in a small notch in one of the corners. This is an experiment for me -- the idea is that here is a place where we can drain the meat juices, if needed.


http://i.imgur.com/bUjGHpx.jpg


Another view of all of my boards from this batch.
http://i.imgur.com/9sHeH2v.jpg




You can also watch the build on youtube if you want more details!


https://youtu.be/j_NysM2lC7M

Very nicely done and very useful.

Fine work Art.

Thank-you, Peter!

Nice boards Art....Gives me an Idea for all my scraps...

Si. Bueno! I hate looking for a platter to take goods to and from the BBQ. Well Done and darn nice looking.

Thanks for the kind words, Jay and Glenn!

Mini follow up:


So the other night I decided to freshen up my own five year old bbq platter.
So I sanded and and LIGHTLY planed it — just a fractions of an inch to peel off the knife marks on the top.


Then I pulled out the router to deepen the juice notches — they’d always been too shallow and that was the main thing I wanted to fix.


And it all worked fine. I routed it all out nicely, and at the end I was backing up the router a bit just to make sure there was no rough bits in the groove and… well… something just went a bit astray on the last corner.


And honestly, it almost became firewood. After all, I still had two brand new platters sitting there. But I decided to see what I could do, so I clamped a board across the corner, and put a straight bit in the router and cleaned out the whole corner to a depth of almost 1/4”. Then since there was no hiding it, I decided to make it a “feature” and pulled out some scraps of padauk. (As in, they were pulled out of the burn box).


http://i.imgur.com/DqRq346.jpg


A little over 90 minutes later I pulled it out of the clamps and tried again with the router. (have I mentioned how padauk dust gets EVERYWHERE?) I then hit it with some of the salad bowl finish and bob’s yer uncle.


http://i.imgur.com/QDCZgZd.jpg


oh yeah, and tonight we tested it out and the little juice-draining notch works quite well. It’s not exactly a spout, but it does help guide the juices when you tip it to drain.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Art Mulder

Mini follow up:


So the other night I decided to freshen up my own five year old bbq platter.
So I sanded and and LIGHTLY planed it — just a fractions of an inch to peel off the knife marks on the top.


Then I pulled out the router to deepen the juice notches — they’d always been too shallow and that was the main thing I wanted to fix.


And it all worked fine. I routed it all out nicely, and at the end I was backing up the router a bit just to make sure there was no rough bits in the groove and… well… something just went a bit astray on the last corner.


And honestly, it almost became firewood. After all, I still had two brand new platters sitting there. But I decided to see what I could do, so I clamped a board across the corner, and put a straight bit in the router and cleaned out the whole corner to a depth of almost 1/4”. Then since there was no hiding it, I decided to make it a “feature” and pulled out some scraps of padauk. (As in, they were pulled out of the burn box).


http://i.imgur.com/DqRq346.jpg


A little over 90 minutes later I pulled it out of the clamps and tried again with the router. (have I mentioned how padauk dust gets EVERYWHERE?) I then hit it with some of the salad bowl finish and bob’s yer uncle.


http://i.imgur.com/QDCZgZd.jpg


oh yeah, and tonight we tested it out and the little juice-draining notch works quite well. It’s not exactly a spout, but it does help guide the juices when you tip it to drain.

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I was thinking when you originally said about draining it; what if you cut a small kerf and put a small spline near one of the corners. I would think this might act more like a spout for pouring off any liquid. Just a random thought.

Nice save on the corner. I think I need to make a few of these...

Good call on the thin board! Who said cutting boards need to be thick? They work better as cutting/serving boards if they are thinner/lighter than the big, heavy endgrain boards.Attachment 347993 Here's one just over 1/2" thick that does very well going to the table.

Pretty! I like.