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Scrap Mosaic End Grain Cutting Board
A gift for my sister, this cutting board was made with left over wood scraps from a bunch of other projects I had just finished up. The scraps were of all different shapes and sizes and thus had to be integrated creatively into the board. The overall look of the board was quite pleasing, although because of my wood choice, it may not serve as most effective end grain cutting board. Large grain pores trap bacteria in the board and soft woods do not stand up well to sustained chopping. This may all be irrelevant as my sister has yet to cut anything on it for fear of “ruining it”; thus, relegating my gift to the status of decorative trivet. Oh, well...
Required Resources: 5 hours, $40
Size: 12" x 12" x 1.25"
Materials: Walnut, Maple, Paduak, Titebond III (Food safe wood glue)
Finish: Howard's Butcher Block Conditioner (Canuba + Bees Wax + Mineral) Oil
Tools: Table Saw, Stationary Belt Sander, Orbital Sander
New Techniques: I spent an afternoon fixing up an old industrial planar at Otherlab. The planer was an inherited tool from the building's previous tenant, the Schoenstein Pipe Organ Company. In historical videos I’ve seen of the factory, this planer can be seen facing planks for 20 foot pipes. By the looks of it, though, it hadn’t been used in 10-15 years. A friend and I tore off the paneling to find that the springs that tensioned the rollers were caked in an accretion of rust and unknown gunk. We found some WD40 and went to work. In addition to cleaning it's innards, we did a fair amount of re-tuning of various offset screws and tensioners in order to get the planer working correctly. t
Lessons Learned:
Cutting Board Wood Choice: Monterrey Cypress is a soft wood. It’s pretty dense and has an intricate grain structure, so when I picked it out I figured it was a hardwood, for sure. Well, by the time it was integrated into this cutting board it became clear that it was different from the other woods used; sappy, high material removal rate and prone to grain tear out. I’ll admit it looks nice in the board, but I probably wouldn’t use it again in this application.
