A few cutting boards

[Bob Childress]

The heat of summer keeps me from spending long hours in the shop, so I looked for some smaller projects to work on and decided on cutting boards. The first few were long grain, then I tried end grain, starting with Marc S.'s design and working on my skills. Finally made one of my own design. Christmas presents done!

Pics 1 and 2 are cherry and rock maple. Pic 3, maple and purpleheart. Pic 4, maple and cherry. Pic 5, maple, cherry, and purpleheart.

Sanding end grain is not for the faint of heart.

[John Thompson]

All of them are extremely nice and the finish is great. That second one would make a great commode seat in a swanky hotel.

[Brad Wood]

Very nice.

I've got a question for you, and for anyone else that does these (particularly 3, 4, and 5).

I just made one of these for the first time recently - where you flip the strips to get the alternating patterns....

I really struggle with envisioning how to make the initial placement of different woods so when I flip the alternating strips after first glue up I know what it is going to look like. (does that make sense?).
The one I just did, it was a crap shoot... I laid out the initial strips, glued them up, cut it up, flipped the alternating strips, and glued it up again... I like how it came out, but it was really just a chance pattern.

Are you able to put the initial layout in such a way that you know what you are going to get when you are done? Is there a trick? ... something you just get used to doing?

thanks

[Bob Childress]

Thanks Brad.

The question of design is a tricky one (at least for me). The first ones were based on Marc S's video. Then on number 4 or so I glued the wood in the wrong order on the frist glue up and got a slightly different pattern.

The last one was a bit of a crapshoot as well. I try to draw the first glue up using colored pencils for each type of wood. Then I try to draw it again reversing every other piece and get an idea of the pattern I might get.

But, being the impatient type, I don't always do it carefully.

I'm sure there are better qualified folks than me who have a great system. Maybe they will share it with both of us.

I DO think I know that you want an even number of boards on the first glue up and an odd number on the second so the pattern will finish correctly.

[Mark Patoka]

This thread has a link to a Cutting Board software program that will readily show you what your endgraind boards will look like. Helps to eliminate some of the crapshoot.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=98602

[Bob Childress]

That is waaaay cool! Thanks.

[Brad Wood]

yep, that looks awesome. the site says downloads are unavailable, hopefully it is a temporary thing.... I'll use this for sure. thanks for pointing this out Mark

[Bob Childress]

yep, that looks awesome. the site says downloads are unavailable, hopefully it is a temporary thing.... I'll use this for sure. thanks for pointing this out Mark

Scroll on down to one of the later posts in that thread and you will find a link that works.