cutting boards

Back in the Zoo years... Every so often we would take off-cuts and small pieces , plane, rip and cut off to a nominal size and stack in a bin. this helped clean up the clutter in the shops and provide for future endeavors. As students finished a project ahead of the class they were allowed to glue up and complete Cutting boards from those off-cuts and shorts. This kept the whole class on the same time frame as well as provide work for idle hands, also gave a reason to get busy and finish...

Back in the olden days (when teaching was fun) you didn't have to worry with keeping the group together and you let the leaders go out ahead of the pack, but as society dimenished so did the work in our shops and the methods of controling student behavior,

Still today, I mass cut-offs and shorts in piles awaiting a chance to glue up boards for such projects. They are "Simple Fun" projects with pleasurable results, protecting the environment from wood waste and keeping old shop teachers busy. Also provides gifts and saleable projects.

Not all fine woodworking requires exotic joinery. Thanks for the posting and remembering the fun times.

busy week, finally some progress

been a busy week this week, not much time for any woodworking. finally a nice enough day to get some sanding done. after a slight diversion to the spinny side, and cleaning up after my indulgence, with the help of my dad, we brought my dust collector up out of the basement, and out to my benches. (hopefully this is a first step in getting the big spinner out of the shed, and onto a mobile platform). after a bit of contemplation, and reading of the manual, i got to sanding the cutting boards. it took a while, but luckily i have plenty of patience, and inside of 2 hrs (taking off a 64th at a time), i had 2 of the 4 cutting boards sanded flat on both sides. hopefully some time this week, i'll finish the other 2, get the final sanding done on all 4, trim all the edges, round them over, and give them a good soak in mineral oil...

more progress today...

after i finished up what i could do with the grandfather clock, i shifted over to the cutting boards. i got the last 2 sanded flat, and fixed the 2 that i had started before i lucked into that other hard maple. now i have 6 cutting boards for family christmas presents...

What kind of glue do you use for the boards, I was thinking of making a board and was concerned about the glue letting loose from getting wet. I guess one of the water-proof tightbonds would work.

Dave,
I've used Titebond 3, as well as gorilla glue, both have held up well

Dave Black said:

What kind of glue do you use for the boards, I was thinking of making a board and was concerned about the glue letting loose from getting wet. I guess one of the water-proof tightbonds would work.

Click to expand...

For ump-teen years we used Titebond original, Never a failure. In fact an old teacher buddy related to me about a cutting board he made for his aunt 15 or more years ago. He was visiting and saw her pull it out of the dish washer. He asked her about it and she said she always washes it, More than 15 years of Dishwasher didn't cause a failure , what will?

As I said Titebond Original is just fine for me...

i've always used the original titebond for all my other projects with no problems. but i was advised to use the titebond 2 for the cutting boards, as it is more water resistant.

Sounds good, I'll have to see how much glue I have around when it comes time to make it.

Dave Black said:

What kind of glue do you use for the boards, I was thinking of making a board and was concerned about the glue letting loose from getting wet. I guess one of the water-proof tightbonds would work.

Click to expand...

I just use the yellow stuff that I got laying around. You know, comes in a 1 gal plastic bottle. Never had a problem.

4 end grain hard maple cutting boards finished!!!

finally finished the big hard maple cutting boards. trimmed up the long sides on the table saw, and commenced to sanding. the sanding took a while to get the scratches out from the drum sander, and that was starting out at 60 grit. i think i'm going to invest in some higher grit belts in the near future. either way, they're sanded to 220, and heavily oiled, and will be heavily oiled for the next couple of days.