Face Grain Cutting Boards

Face Grain Cutting Board

I made this cutting board with some leftover pieces of wood.

I started with some leftover hardwood flooring (Brazilian cherry) that I've had for about 7 years. This will be a thin strip that goes in the middle of the cutting board.

The remainder of the cutting board will be made from some American Black Walnut.

I'm cutting the piece in half so that I will have to pieces to glue up with the Brazilian cherry running down the middle.

I'm ripping the walnut to width with the table saw.

Gluing up the walnut and Brazilian cherry

Now it's ready for glue-up. I'm using TiteBond III which is a food safe and waterproof glue.

I leave it clamped up over night, but I make sure that I wipe up the excess glue so that I don't have to scrape it off the next day.

I trim the ends of the cutting board after the glue-up so that the ends are straight and square.

I'm going to use some leftover cherry for the ends. This it so that the cutting board will have a bread board style of an end to help keep it from warping over time.

I joint one side of the cherry so that it's straight and flat.

Then I run the cherry through the planer to bring it down to the same thickness as the cutting board.

Now it's time to glue on the bread board ends.

I clamp it up over night and wipe up the excess glue.

Trimming the ends using a cross cut sled

After the glue has dried, I use my cross cut sled to trim the excess from the end pieces.

Running the cutting board through the drum sander

Then I run the cutting board through the drum sander multiple times to clean it up and make sure it's flat.

I use a 3/8" round nose bit on the router to create a groove for fingers to make it easy to pick up the cutting board.

Then I mark the corners so that I can round them on the band saw.

After cutting on the band saw, I use my random orbit sander to clean up the rounded corners.

Then I use a 1/4" round over bit to round over the edges. I needed to be careful that the bearing didn't go into the finger slot, so I cleaned up that part by hand.

I did more sanding by hand. Then I wet the cutting board, let it dry, then sanded it again. Wetting the cutting board raises the grain. By doing this, it prevents the grain from raising up when the cutting board is washed.

After the cutting board was completely dry, I applied a couple of coats of mineral oil.

The finished product looks pretty good!

To watch the video, click here.