Cutting Board Mortality and Morbidity Review

Jay, sorry to see the boards didn't survive the trip. They all look very nice. I think your assessment of the cause of the damage is probably right on. I'd guess it was a combination of heat, grain orientation, and not enough glue. What you've described and shown has indications of all three. I know from making some boards that didn't have the grain all going the correct way that sometimes they stay together, and sometimes they break. The heat and glue starvation would explain the other breaks.

Personally, I think I'd re-glue them where they've come apart and re-sand them if necessary to get them smoothed back out. For the hairline cracks, I'd probably see if I could work some Titebond II into the cracks and re-clamp. If not, you could re-cut the joints (you'd need to do all of them to keep the pieces the same size as each other) and re-glue. You may also find that now that the boards are back home where they started, the hairline cracks might close back up. (Still not great for wet food preparation, but the board could still be used for quite a bit of stuff.)

I've got a cutting board that did similar things as yours. It developed hairline to 1/8" wide cracks, including some split wood where the joint remained glued, but the movement broke the wood itself. The cracking happened a couple weeks after the board was made (and delivered to the customer :eek:). A few months after I got the board back, the gaps had all closed so tightly I couldn't get glue into them. I don't use the board for anything other than decoration now, but it'd make a fine serving platter for cheese and crackers.
 
Not a Problem.... First response will be..."Thats too pretty to use" and they will sit and be admired by whomever recieves them. Will make no difference what glue or which finish as they will be cherished and adored and respected but never ever used.

Loverly things they are and far too good looking to hack with a knife. I know you are well intended but such beautious work has stepped over the line and left the usefulness realm and entered that twilight zone of "Too Pretty to Use" Chraftsmanship.

Thanks for posting and letting us Lurk at your work. :thumb:
 
Hi Jay.

Looking at how beatiful they are and what happened you must have felt like having those cracks on your own body. At least I would.

I'm glad you've been able to fix them.
 
Jay, maybe you should have put them in the trunk of your car for a week instead of the shop to let them acclimate.:huh::dunno:

How long in advance of your trip did you make them? Maybe they just needed more "Cure Time" after they were made, before being exposed to that hot humid air in the trunk.

How about making another one and use Epoxy instead of the Titebond II and then put it in the trunk and leave it for a few days and see if it does the same thing? There's gotta be a cure for the problem somehow.
 
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pretty boards jay!
pure speculation on my part here:eek:...but ash is a very mobile wood as are most ring pourous woods so combining it with a less mobile wood could have been part of the trouble? and you`re right in thinking that baking `em in the trunk didn`t help......aliphatic resins are a form of plastic that are heat sensitive...
 
jay,
maple would have been much more stable...but wood has a nature of it`s own and it might have failed with maple too?
i don`t know where to get wood movement charts, but they`re out there.
as a simple rule of thumb if a board has obviously open pores, like red oak, those open pores allow moisture transfer more quickly than a closed grain board like cherry.. when you open large amounts of end grain like cutting little blocks, you`ve effectively created a very porous piece of wood that`ll move more that a longer section of the same board.
one of the best analogies i`ve heard used is wood fibers are like a bundle of drinking straws or better yet like a bundle of bamboo.....if left long the cells remain sealed and movement due to increased moisture is slow, but once cut the cell walls are open to the enviornment and subject to humidity changes so movement takes place at a much faster rate.
make sense?
 
Too bad they are pretty designs... If you want to mix grains, orientations and species, maybe you should rethink your approach and do veneer over a uniform substrate, maybe a little thicker than you would normally use for marquetry so that if they actually get used as cutting boards they'll do okay. I'd also use epoxy. Made my wife a cutting board 12 years ago from 6 different species with an inlay and it is still going strong today as a cutting board... And it has seen its share of the dishwasher.
 
I've got a board I made, endgrain maple and cherry.

I probably made a stupid mistake by gluing some strips of maple (long grain across the bottom of the end grain bottom face of the board) on the bottom to hold the it up off the counter a bit. Depending on the amount of moisture, it tends to get a bit dished on top.

Titebond II, but it's still holding up pretty good....
 
Updated Wood Movement Page

Hello,

I guess my first post got lost. My name is Johnny Morlan and the link in this thread goes to my article, How to Insure Wood Movement Doesn’t Ruin Your Project http://www.morlanwoodgifts.com/MM011.ASP?pageno=82. I went ahead and joined the forum. I receive a lot of e-mails asking about the measurements of how much each category moves.

I have had the information for weeks to update it and went ahead and did.

Thanks Jay for welcoming me.

Billy Burt, I am glad you found the information helpful and I don’t mind at all with you sharing it. Wood is expensive and if it keeps other people from making mistakes that are costly and wastes their time, I am thrilled to have helped.
 
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Hey Johnny :wave:

Welcome to the clubhouse, and many thanks for sharing your information. It's apparent you put a lot of work into compiling it. (Looks like you have some fine end products, too.) Looking forward to your additions to the mix.

By the way, I suspect your original post was one of the casualties of the Great Server Meltdown of '07. ;)
 
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