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These cutting boards are made of hard maple and cherry. The maple is
oriented with the edge grain up. The cherry is just there for looks. This
is a very easy yet rewarding project. These cutting boards are not just
for looks, they get used.
The cutting boards are finished with mineral oil. This can be purchased
in woodworking stores for about $10 a bottle or at a pharmacy for just
a few dollars. Please don't apply your normal finish on a cutting board.
Remember, you'll be eating the food you cut on it. Unless the finish is
specifically for food, assume it contains metallic driers and other toxins
that you shouldn't feed your family.
If you plan on making cutting boards, make a bunch. Once you get going
they don't take long and they make great gifts.
December 2004 Update
It is cutting board season in the shop again. December is the month when
the shop is transformed into a gift making shop. Since I've found cutting
boards to be well appreciated as gifts I decided to make a few more this
year. This time around I've updated my designs a bit. The boards are now
a full inch thick compared to 3/4" last year.
This year I decided to use more traditional woodworking tools for preparing
the boards for the mineral oil finish. Instead of the typical sanding
process I decided to use nothing but planes and scrapers. To simplify
the process of planing and scraping I made sure the grain on all of the
boards were running the same direction when I glued the 8 boards together.
Skipping that step would cause too much chipout and using planes would
be a major disaster. Even using this technique, chipout was still an issue.
To solve that I just used my Stanley No. 80 scraper, my Clifton card scraper
and my Lie-Nielsen No. 212 scraper. All performed admirably but the No.
80 was the best tool for the job. As you can see from the picture below,
the No. 80 scraper will produce some very nice shavings.
| Cutting Boards In Process |
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