endgrain butcherblock

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Is it strong? I never made one. I wonder about the structural integrity if dropped or otherwise mistreated.

I have read that end grain is tougher than side grain for cutting surfaces. I rather suspect this is myth. That the notion is founded in the fact that most cuts are dead vertical and as such the knife will slide into the grain structure without removing any where as a face grain cut will forever leave a mark.

What about water - ya know when washing the boards? Won't end grain drink it up fast enough to swell the lumber and affect glue joint integrity?

Nothing in my kitchen survives good intentions: everything gets used hard. So I can't have a purdy board for bread only. Any board I have will be used for whatever needs cutting.

Of course the idea of trying to flatten and finish an end grain board may eliminate it from contention.

Any one got any input?

[Chris Padilla]

Well, for starterrs, end-grain glue-ups are long-grain to long-grain so that is inherently a very strong (and the strongest) glue-joint one can get in wood so I wouldn't worry about strength in a cutting board.

David Marks used a broom as an example to explain why a cutting board with end-grain up is good for cutting on. Lay the broom on the bench and hack into it and you can see how the broom would get mangled. Stand the broom on its handle and hack into it and you just go through it not cutting anything.

Yes, water over time can swell the wood and cause joint failure but if you use a good waterproof glue, it should help.

There was a thread a while ago about sending endgrain through a planer: some had very bad results (both in the wood and from flying wood) while others never had any issues planing such things. Some folks posted some very nice looking cutting boards in the thread, too; lottsa cool patterns and such.

[Brian Backner]

End grain, in the configuration you describe for a cutting board, is the strongest orientation you can have for wood (at least most species). One hundred years ago, it was very common to lay floors in heavy industrial settings by cutting and gluing lengths of various species of hardwoods to an underlying concrete floor. It was easy on the feet, and a cutting tool would not be damaged if dropped.

White oak was a common species used - cut into 2x4" NET cross-sections, they would be glued on end to the floor, but not to each other. Depending on the application, the pieces might be 2", 3" 6", 8", or more, long, creating a floor of the same thickness.

Not too far from here, in the town of Natick, MA, I toured an old machine shop that had closed and was being liquidated. They had an oak floor that was 24" thick. Why so thick? - the machinery they had installed onto it was absolutely massive - I'm talking 25-100+ TONS each - and the end grain floor took the weight and held it for many decades. If you're wondering why it was only glued to the floor --- made it much easier to remove/replace a single or small group of blocks that might get damaged (by dropping a 2 ton piece of steel on it, or something similar).

Anyway, I went there to look at some of the tooling (bits, saw blades, etc.) that they were selling. While I was there a guy came in and bought the floor - I asked him about it and he said once it was pried up, he would cut the top 2-3" off as well as a half inch or so from the bottom, and he would be left with 20" pieces of 2x4" white oak that was first growth stuff. As I recall, he bought the entire floor - some 85,000 sq ft, or roughly 2 MILLION board ft - for $10,000. Of course it probably cost many multiples of that to have it removed and cleaned up.

Brian

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

You asked why wood was oriented with end grain up for a cutting block. There is a good explanation. If you look at a well used carving board with a long or face grain surface you will see how sharp knives damage the grain and literally allow splinters to come free of the wood. End grain chopping blocks are oriented that way to allow the grain to separate when stuck by a cleaver then close when the cleaver is removed. They do wear with years as you will note if you happen to see one in an old butcher shop. The tops become a bit concave after 20 or 30 years of daily abuse but they never leave splinters. I wonder how they keep them sanitized!

Faust Ruggiero

[travis howe]

Cliff, I just did my first cutting boards. If you spread the glue well across the entire surface and clap these things are ROCK solid. I'm using tb-2. Just need to be careful that you keep the board pieces flat when clamping or it might bow the board a bit.

Running it through a planner as others have said can be good or bad...I've had both. I only have a 13in planer so I'm somewhat limited...but moving forward will design the boards to accomidate my new discoveries....

That being, try to plane each board to a common thickness prior to cutting and gluing anything, pending your pieces aren't too small. As much as possible if you're doing oddball designs try to keep the glued pieces w/ run through the planer straight and not sideways. Lastly, try not to have small glued pieces on the front or rear of the board...

So that's my experience anyway, quick and durty, I'm sure others have more/better ideas....

[Peter Quinn]

Cliff, I was a professional chef for 14 years before I got into wood working. The only end grain boards we had were butcher's blocks, usually massive hunks of maple. Coolest one I have seen had sliding dovetails at the intersection of any two boards, absolutely beautiful and durable. I find I prefer edge grain for bread boards, carving boards where a slicing motion will be used, and general purpose cutting. A butcher block only really shines when you are butchering, say like 10 hours a day 6 days a week! Its actually gentler on the tools and takes longer to damage for reasons stated above. A good butcher doesn't hack up the block with a cleaver, the block is more to absorb the force of the cleaver blows over time. End grain is easier on the wrists when butchering extensively IMO, more shock absorbing then edge grain.

As far as glue joints on butcher blocks, they all fail at least in minor ways eventually. Thing to remember is you have MANY pieces of wood held captive in the field of such a board, each moving at a slightly different rate, throw in a little water and over time they open up here and there a bit. It is not as simple as one long grain to long grain glue up. You cannot accommodate wood movement in a butcher block.

Most of the butcher blocks i used were at least 24X24X24, many bigger, and all had some reinforcement method. Some had steel bands around the out side like a coopers barrel, some had steel rods running both directions every few feet, plugged with big dowels, one had the sliding dovetail setup.

In rugged use end grain blocks take more up keep, they have to be washed, salted, sanded and oiled and or waxed frequently to keep them looking good and not developing cracks or harboring bacteria. I don't use them at home though i do have a 30X30X28 block for decoration, I prefer to use an edge grain block with a drip well for most general purpose food preparation.

In short, those checker boards people make sure are cool looking, and probably fun to make, but they are candidly the stupidest idea I have ever seen employed in a kitchen unless you are a butcher.

[Frank Drew]

I wonder how they keep them sanitized!

Chlorine bleach is the sanitizer I've seen used.

In addition to the effects of frequent wetting, I think some of the glue joint failure seen with butcher blocks is due the fact that maple isn't the best wood for long term glue holding, at least in my experience.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

All that really cool useful information of a lousy Six Bucks.

Thanks guys. I can proceed now much more fully informed than I was.

It took me a moment to connect the notion of salting a wood block till I realized that salt inhibits bacteria and yeast growth.

[Paul Downes]

A couple of points. I have used a mix of mineral oil with paraffin wax melted into it. I don't remember the ratio but I do remember sticking a couple of canning wax blocks in a small pan and covering it with the oil. This is poured onto a new cutting board and allowed to soak in for as long as the wood will absorb the stuff. I bet the end grain will soak up a lot. reapply as needed as there develops evidence that the wood grain is getting opened up to water. I've seen that when the wood starts showing a whitening haze after washing and bleaching.

I can't remember where I read the article but, I seem to remember that wood is actually more bacteria resistant than plastic for cutting boards. Something to do with tannins and other bacteria resistant resins in the wood. Plastic can develop cuts that hold material that will grow bacteria.

[Greg Cole]

It took me a moment to connect the notion of salting a wood block till I realized that salt inhibits bacteria and yeast growth.

My parents bought an old butcher block with the dovetailed style end grain cutting surface. The top is at least 16" thick, solid hard maple, it's dished out a little from "use". The gent they bought it off was the butcher who used it for his career, he retired when the shop closed up and they gave him all the butcher blocks from the shop. He had something like 14 of these butcher blocks in a barn. Mom asked him about cleaning it, and he said they only ever used salt, no bleach, no detergents or soap. And he also commented the salt is the reason for the dishing of the top as much as it was the 40+ years of actual cutting.
FWIW.

[Joe Chritz]

I'm pretty sure that endgrain boards is the reason the widebelt sander was invented. Anything else is exponentially a ton of work to flatten and smooth.

I have done a few, and hope to do two more before Christmas this year.

I tend to believe the pro-chef that they aren't needed. There are some disadvantages to either style. I think the looks make up for the added trouble in building since they look really cool.

Joe

[Howard Acheson]

If you are thinking of making an end grain cutting board here is some info that may help.

There is a little engineering that needs to be considered when building an end grain butcher block or cutting board. First, choose wood where the growth rings (viewed from the end) run as close to 90 degrees or parallel to one edge. Remember, the expansion/contraction is about double along the annular rings verses perpendicular to the rings. You've got to keep the grain running in the same direction as you glue up your strips. In other words, don't glue a flatsawn edge to a quartersawn edge.

Next, the way butcher blocks are made is to glue up strips of wood like you were making a laminated type cutting board. These laminated panels are then run through a planer to flatten them and bring them to equal thickness. Then the panel is crosscut into strips of blocks equal to the thickness that you want the butcher block to be. These block strips are then glued together again keeping the grain running in the same directions.

Not paying attention to the grain orientation will lead to the block cracking and/or joints being pulled apart.

A type II adhesive will work just fine however, you need to be sure you do everything right to get good adhesion. Your glue faces should be flat and freshly cut. It they were cut more than a few days earlier, freshen them up with about three swipes with 320 sandpaper and block to keep the faces flat.

Generally, threaded rod is not used as maple has quite a bit of movement when it's moisture content changes. Threaded rod would restrict this movement and either deform the block or pull the nut/washers into the wood when it expanded leaving the rod performing no function when the wood later shrinks. Proper gluing will keep the block together.

Finally, it always much cheaper, and a lot less aggrevating to purchase a butcher block than to make one. The firms that specialize in end grain butcher blocks have speciaiized equipment to apply the necessary clamping force, plane the initial boards exactly correctly, plane the first glue up and then clamps to make the final block.

An excellent treatment for wooden food preparation surfaces like cutting boards and butcher blocks is a mixture of mineral oil and either paraffin or beeswax. This is what is used on many commercial wood surfaces. It will last longer and be more protective than just mineral oil. Mineral oil can be found in most supermarkets in the pharmacy section or in a true pharmacy. Paraffin is found in the canning section of the store or in a hardware store.

Heat the oil in a double boiler and shave in some wax. The exact proportions are not critical--a 5-6 parts of oil to one part of wax will work fine. Stir the mixture until all the wax is liquefied. Apply the mixture heavily and let it set 10-12 hours or overnight. Next day do it again and continue until the wood will no longer absorb the finish. Let it set for 10-12 hours and then lightly scrape off any excess. Then buff it with a rag.

Reapply whenever the wood begins to look dry.

Never put a wood board in the dishwasher and don't soak it in dishwater for long periods.

[Frank Drew]

Never put a wood board in the dishwasher and don't soak it in dishwater for long periods.

Absolutely critical pieces of advice, not just for butcher blocks or cutting boards, but for any wood products IMO.

[Peter Quinn]

All that really cool useful information of a lousy Six Bucks.

Thanks guys. I can proceed now much more fully informed than I was.

It took me a moment to connect the notion of salting a wood block till I realized that salt inhibits bacteria and yeast growth.

Yeah, I guess technically the salt reduces the 'Available moisture' for bacteria to grow. Canning processes have a specific ratio of salt and sugar to moisture required to reduce the level of available moisture to below what bacterial require to live and reproduce. A brine solution can be wet but have no moisture available to bacteria, all of it captured by salt. No moisture, no bacterial growth period. It also creates osmosis, which will leach all available moisture from a wet board. First time I was told to salt a cutting board I sarcastically asked "Should I spread some mustard on it too?". It sure does dry out a well used board in a commercial setting, yours may never get that wet to begin with.

This technique also works well for gravalox, but remember to add dill and coriander for flavor in that case!

[Chris Friesen]

Is it strong? I never made one. I wonder about the structural integrity if dropped or otherwise mistreated.

An endgrain board stands up better to knives and is kinder to them, but will be less sturdy if dropped than an edge-grain board of similar dimensions (until you get to real "butcher block" thicknesses, where the block is standalone with legs).

A thin endgrain board that is dropped could split apart at the grain lines (since each grain line is only as long as the thickness of the board). In an edge-grain board, each grain line is the full length or width of the board, giving more strength.

I have a 2" thick endgrain cutting board that I made. It's fine, but I wouldn't want to go much thinner.