Light Duty Cutting Boards

[Joe A Faulkner]

My wife asked me to make a light duty cutting board for a wedding gift. The board featured what I refer to as a multi-species butcher block pattern. The board was pretty much made from scraps. By the time I made the materials for "butcher block", I had enough left over for another 10 boards. No one board is a like. These were fun little projects and made almost exclusively from scraps. Gluing up the first one was a pain, so I built a jig for the gluing up the remaining boards, and that made it much easier. The pictures are not the greatest. Finished with simple butcher block oil.

[James Almasy]

Nice way to use up some scrap Joe . I like them and had the same idea in mind . I was curious about the glue up jig you made up . It might save me some trouble !

[Prashun Patel]

+1, please show yr glue up jig. I caul mine but am always looking for the easiest way out.

[Joe A Faulkner]

The jig was designed to accommodate 1.5 to 2 inch thick, end-grain cutting boards. It is essentially a vise or clamp. We've all heard of a twin screw vise, this is scaled down version of a 5 screw vise.

The base of the jig consists of five "fixed cauls" running left to right made from 3/4" x 1.5" stock with 1/4" slot running down the middle of each caul. A Quarter inch carriage bolt runs through the bottom of each fixed caul through the slots to attach to an "adjustable face" for the vise. Wing nuts are used to secure these bolts.

The other face of the vice consists of five bolts running through T-nuts. The bolts are tightened with a wrench or socket, essentially closing the vise by putting pressure on a floating face. You will note when gluing up 5/8" thick stock, the "floating face" racks. I suppose I could control this some by bolting the floating face to the to the "fixed cauls" the same way the adjustable face is attached to the cauls. Light clamping works too. The jig was a fun little build and made clamping up scrap for the butcher block (shown in this photo) as well as the cutting boards much easier. I finished the jig with some brush on lacquer I had left over from another project. One coat makes it slick enough to make removal of squeeze out quite easy. I got the idea from the jig from an example that I think I saw here. Any way, without the jig, I tended to pull out 8 or so clamps for one little 5" x 11" cutting board.

cb_jig (1024x765).jpg

[Gene E Miller]

Joe,

Those boards look great and I have made a few
in the past.

BTW I see you are a fellow Hoosier, I was born
and raised in Indianapolis, lived there 55 yrs.

Gene Miller

[Tom Welch]

Joe, those are to nice to cut on..............

[Ted Calver]

They really look great. It's hard to tell, but it looks like some of the pieces are glued end grain to end grain and also perpendicular to long grain. I gotta wonder if these will self destruct, or are they small enough that wood movement won't hurt?? Any long time use experience with these Joe?

[Gus Dundon]

The combination of wood and color is impeccable. Beautiful pattern and great finish!

[Duncan Potter]

What type of glue and finish did you use on the boards? They look great.

[Joe A Faulkner]

To Ted's questions, yes the mini-butcher block patterns in all of the boards are end grain glued perpendicular to long grain. I was hoping that given the relatively small size of the pieces that the movement would be minimal and forgiving. One board has suffered some separation issues after 5 months in the forced air (natural gas) heated house, but the others are holding up - hardly long-term experience . I used Titebond III to glue them, and finished them with mineral oil/butcher block oil.