Location: Wakeman, OH

Hobbyist or Pro: Hobbyist

Experience: 6-9 yrs

Project Name: Halloween Router Bowl & Cutting Board

Wood Species: Black Walnut from my in-law’s property

Finish Used: GF Butcher Block Oil

Project Description:
This is just a twist on the Halloween Router bowl. I was able to cut the cutting board out of the top layer of my glueup prior to the actual glueup. This was initially a time-saving technique, but I was able to turn it into 2 items for party use. Momma received two presents, with minimal effort, and it seemed as I planned it that way. As you can see, the glueup went pretty well, and there is little issue at the seams.

Thought this might be something others could benefit from, as I do weekly on Marc’s site.

Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Hobbyist or Pro: Hobbyist

Experience: 0-2 yrs

Project Name: Cutting board lamination jig

Wood Species: Baltic birch 3/4 ply and hard maple

Project Description:
I made a very simple gluing jig for cutting board strip lamination. Basically a 20×30 inch piece of Baltic birch ply with a lot of grooves routed in for glue squeeze out and a back fence and side fence. You have no problems with clamping up the board pieces. They do not move around or slide out of alignment either vertical or horizontal. With the two rails you get a 90 corner and quick clamp ups.

Length wise is for edge grain glue up and short side is for the end grain glue ups. Although either would work depending on board dimensions. I have an easy time clamping up numerous pieces in this jig. I experience no troubles with squareness of the cutting board strips, no vertical movement with clamps in place and time to work prior to glue setting up. The end result is a very nice lamination that is square and mostly flat. A few passes through the sander or planer as it is still edge/face grain. Then you know the flips and turns for end grain and finally a few passes through the drum sander and it’s finished.

Check out this video tour of Geoff’s jig:

Interested in making your own cutting board? Check out the Wood Whisperer Classic: A Cut Above!

The Discovery:

A few months ago, I woke up one morning, poured my coffee, and was incredibly disappointed to see that my cutting board exploded! OK so maybe it wasn’t all that violent but it was cupped like crazy and had a very large split. Upon further inspection, I noticed a bit of trapped water in the center of the underside of the board. Now the thing to remember about end grain cutting boards is that even after finishing, they will still soak up moisture like a sponge. So standing water is your cutting board’s Kryptonite!

What Happened?

So how does the split actually occur? Well let’s think about what happened. The water soaked into the center of the board and as a result, the center “squares” swelled and expanded. Because the moisture was in the center only, the wood in the outer perimeter did not expand. So something had to give. The resulting crack is really nothing more than pressure relief. Think of it like surrounding a piece of solid wood in a frame. Eventually, the joints in the outer frame will open up if the board in the middle expands.

The Epoxy Fix:

The first step in repairing this disaster simply involves waiting. After a few weeks, the board flattened out and the crack closed up almost completely. But the gap was still big enough that I wanted to use a gap-filling glue, so epoxy did the trick. Now I know what you are thinking. Is epoxy food-safe? While I have heard that food grade FDA-approved epoxies do exist, I have never seen them. And I can definitely say that the West System Epoxy I use is not FDA-approved. So why would I use this on my cutting board? Generally speaking, its the same logic I subscribe to when discussing the safety of film finishes. That is, once cured, the product is inert. In other words, its not chemically reactive and its not actively leaching chemicals under normal room temperature conditions. Furthermore, the crack represents such a small area that actual food contact would be absolutely minimal. Now while I am not prepared to tell you epoxy is completely food-safe, I will say that I consider cured epoxy safe enough to use on a small crack on MY cutting board. Ultimately, the final decision is yours.

Want to make an end-grain cutting board like this? Check this out!

I used an Amana 72 degree V router bit to cut the Purpleheart halves. I set my bandsaw table to 18 degrees, and cut the edge of a Yellowheart board that was face and edge jointed, and planed. Then I used the jointer with the fence at 72 degrees to smooth the cut edge. I advanced the fence on the band saw to give me the correct length facet, plus the width of the blade kerf. The jointed edge of the yellowheart board always registered to the bandsaw fence, so the diamond is really the cutoff piece. I have a 1″ Starrett 2-3 skip carbide blade on the bandsaw, which gives an incredibly smooth cut, so one facet of the diamond is pretty much as it came off the blade. (I couldn’t get any life out of carbon blades, so I splurged for the Starrett. It was only $1.30 an inch from a local distributor, and it resaws so very nicely through hard maple. The only tablesaw work was after the final glue-up to trim and square the sides.

I used a Wixey angle gauge to set the bandsaw table, and the jointer fence, close to the angle I wanted, and then I used a TS-Aligner Jr. to get the angle as close as I could. www.wixey.com and www.ts-aligner.com

I’m fortunate to have some nice tools and measuring equipment, and I actually believe that making the two cutting boards improve my skill set. I was a Navy fighter pilot, and as an instructor pilot would tell a student an altitude, direction, and airspeed that I wanted them to fly. They always thought that was stupid, and they wanted to try some high performance manoeuvers. “After you show me straight and level.” Sometimes it would take 5 to 10 minutes for them to be able to get to the stated conditions. 36,000 pounds of thrust and a high-performance airframe takes some skill, and practice to control. The same with our shop tools. We need to be able to machine boards flat, cut straight lines, and make solid glue joints before we’ll be good at loops and barrel-rolls. But, I know I’m preaching to the choir.

I purchased a large screen TV that sat on our hearth for quite a long time. I gave the design much thought and did a mock layout using Adobe Illustrator. It is all red oak plywood carcass, with solid trim pieces. There were several issues to consider. It couldn’t be taller than 27″ and no longer than 52″. Half of the case had to sit on the fireplace hearth. Each end bay had to be able to hold a 17″ device. It had to hold a lot of DVDs, VHS tapes, and video games. It is also notched on the sides to fit on the hearth, with the front sitting on the floor. After pondering for days over how I wanted the face to look. I finally came up with the idea of 2 drawers in each bay, where one sits above the other, and the bottom has the full frame attached to it. The drawer faces are built with the stiles sitting horizontal. When closed, the grain runs across the top and bottom. I used a standard joint, with a 1/2 plywood insert. The insert has 1/4″ dados on the back to bring the insert flush with the frame. This was glued and screwed to the drawers. The handles are from Rockler.

The design took on a life of it own. I usually change designs in my mind several times before I come up with the final one. I did have a moment of panic. I had placed the vertical pieces to cover the dividers and the ends. The next day I woke up panicked. I had forgotten that I needed at least 17″ space to allow for equipment. I had left 19″, which was great, but forgot that I still needed the clearance. I got up and went out immediately to my shop and measured it. The space was 17 1/2″, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

There are 2 VHS recorders, a DVD player, the cable box, a mac-mini, audio receiver, iPod, UPS, and storage for all the DVDs and tapes. I still need to wire in my Playstation2. I will save that for another day, because I am running out of audio ports on the receiver.

Joe’s Cherry End Table

Thank you for the advice you gave me along the way as I built this project (via your podcast, live chat and emails). This was my first “Real Furniture Project”…. so your podcasts videos help push me to try new joinery and your answers to my email questions concerning finishing cherry were right on the mark. The Bulls Eye Seal-a-coat and Arm-R-Seal worked great.

Another unique part of this project was how it morphed from a simple “arts/craft” style end table (no drawer) I prototyped in sketch-up, to its final design with a drawer and turned legs. A picture is worth 1000 words so I attached 5 pictures: 1) The original sketchup picture; 2) My Cherry End Table view 1; 3) My Cherry End Table view 2; and 4) My Cherry End Table view 3.

Cory’s Cutting Board

Here are some pictures of my completed Tucson Mesquite cutting board made from some logs I pulled out of the fire wood stack. This was my first attempt at a cutting board and although I did not follow Marc’s design exactly since I was not using contrasting wood colors, I was pretty happy with the results. Anyway, I also attached a picture of what I felt was a more efficient design for finger holds, enabling either side of the board to be used without loss of workspace. Also a picture of the simple setup I used to make the finger holds. I look forward to making some more for friends. Thanks for the site, I really enjoy it.

Joe’s Cash Drawer

Well I thought you might enjoy seeing my version of a Wooden Cash Drawer. I built this wooden cash drawer for a very good friend who helps out with collecting the admission fees for girls basketball games at our local High School.

This project was a bit of a challenge for me since I usually follow plans or a picture to build projects, but since I could not find any plans or designs for a cash drawer…I simply improvised. I’m quite proud of how well it a came out. It was built using more common wood from the local Lowe’s, I used red oak for frame, top and the bottom. The dividers are birch plywood and the coin scoops are poplar ( I already had the 2×2 poplar at home). Each divider is inserted into mortises and interconnect. The top slides on via a mortise as well. The frame corners are mitered. I need to work on miters a bit :-) The bottom is set in a rabbet on the bottom of the frame. The coin scoops were a real challenge, I ended up slicing a 2×2 diagonally and then sanding out the curve on a stationary belt sander. As for the finish, I simply wiped on 3 coats of Formby’s Traditional Tung Oil Finish. I have had good luck with this finish in the past.

“Hi Marc! Long time listener, first time writer. First of all, I just wanted to say what a great job you do. Your videos and blog are absolutely informative and easy to follow for an amateur woodworker such as myself. I look forward to everything you put out. I just started putting together my basement shop late last summer. In fact the sole reason why I got started in woodworking was because I got hooked after watching your cutting board video (and promptly watched the rest of your videos), so many thanks to you! Since then I have engulfed myself with as much woodworking text as I can. After building an end table and some shop furniture, I actually got around to making my first cutting board based on your design. I attached a picture of it for your information, finished according to your videos. I really liked how it turned out.”

“Anyway, I wanted to try out new designs so I tapped into some of my limited programming background that I have and made a program in Visual Basic (I deemed it, CBdesigner) that lets you virtually design a cutting board in a matter of minutes by defining each layer. Also attached is a picture of the program showing your own design to illustrate how it works. I made a shout out to you in the program (I’m sure you can recognize it). I posted it at Lumberjocks to see what other people thought of it. I’ve been doing some small updates to the program based on people’s recommendations. I know you’re Mr. Apple so I’m not sure if it can run on your Mac, but I just thought you might be interested in it too. :) Not sure if a program qualifies as project of the week or not but I thought I’ll let you know know about it.”

“My wife, Jen and I were recently married in a beautiful park in Manotick, Ontario, Canada (we’re from Ottawa). I wanted to make something for my parents as a thank you for all their help. When I saw the sorry state of their flexible cutting mat I knew exactly what to make. I found a picture of a great end grain cutting board online and adapted it slightly. I used maple for most of it, jatoba for the vertical loop, walnut for the horizontal one and cherry for the square and corners. I routed a juice groove on one side and handles on the edges. I finished it with three coats of General Finishes Salad Bowl Finish and two coats of salad bowl wax. The only problem I had was the lack of a drum sander, luckily my local lumber yard has one. It cost me $30 to get them to thickness it for me. It took me about 2 months working a couple of hours every other night after work. My mom says she likes it so much she doesn’t want to use it… duh!!! Hope you enjoy the pics.”

Well, I have finally grown a skin thick enough to submit 3 project pictures of an end grain butcher block cabinet that I made for my parents recently. It just got shipped out to Singapore; cost me $800 for the freight!! I got the inspiration by watching you build your cutting boards, and have made up to about 20 so far. It’s a great way to use up scrap wood!!! Saw David Marks’ version on his woodworks show that day and thought that it would be an interesting challenge to build one. The top is larger than David’s design; it’s about 3 feet wide by 2 feet deep – a nice size for a single person to work at, and just enough counter space. You are probably wondering why I would put a semi-gloss finish on the top? Well, my parents want it as a piece for a corner in the house, so I thought I would spend a little time practicing my varnishing skills for a semi-gloss look.

I used 7 types of wood on it – purpleheart, black walnut, yellowheart, ash, mahoganey, jatoba, maple and cherry. Flattening the top was a major pain!! I have a 22-44 performax drum sander, but still had to use router rails to slowly but surely flatten one side before drum sanding the other. Touched it up with a Lie-Nielsen 7 1/2 bevel up jointer plane. The face frame is made of purpleheart (a major pain to plane, I might add), and the drawer fronts are made of ambrosia maple. Made a little effort to match the grain on the drawers + doors as well. The cabinet is finished with shellac (3 coats) via my Apollo HVLP spray unit, and rubbed out to a satin sheen with Howard’s feed n wax.

And yes, I did use casters – double locking ones – they put a strong brake on the wheel plus a lock on the swivel. They actually cost about $20 a piece from Linco Casters at Clairemont Mesa Blvd (next to the San Diego Rockler); They really do look a little utilitarian, but those were the best I could find in terms of durability and stability. Those red shop-grade ones at woodcraft were too tacky for my taste. All in all, it was tiring; but I have to give you the credit for the original inspiration via the cutting board! THANKS