Cutting Boards - Cycle of the Moon?

glenn bradley

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We've had a flurry of these just lately . . . Making an end grain cutting board has been on my to-do list for so long I thought it might have to be moved to the Bucket List :D. This one is just a plain checkerboard. I wanted to be sure my method was worked out; straight lines, tight seams, matching corners and all that. Like a lot of things, taking a simpler approach gave me better results than obsessing over every step.

Cuttboard and Trivet (1).jpg

Now I can try some more interesting patterns. I fell so flat last Christmas that I am really wanting to get a jump on it this year. Trivets will also be on the menu.

Cuttboard and Trivet (2).jpg . Cuttboard and Trivet (3).jpg . Cuttboard and Trivet (4).jpg

P.s. Dad, don't show this to mom :eek:.
 
Nice! Those "simple" cutting boards are harder than they look. (Or at least they are if you don't plan on using glue and sawdust to fix your mistakes, LOL.) I really like the trivets, too. Is that your design?
 
Woot! I like those trivets. :thumb:
Are you making those with pattern routing, or do you have some other magic for those curves? And how thick are you making the top and bottom pieces?

...art
 
Well Glenn you had me all excited .....I though those mixed wood trivets were going to be made from the cutting board slab when I first saw your pics and not read the post. :(
 
Thanks all. Trivets are a pair of 1/4" pieces of dissimilar colored woods; walnut and maple in this case. I just jointed the face of a couple pieces of scrap and face glued them together. Then milled to size and routed the grooves just a bit more than half way through with a trammel jig. I marked lines about 3/8" in from the sides so I would know where to stop routing. Done in multiple passes. I have also seen this type of trivet done with dados (straight lines of course) and the resulting blank then being framed to hide the sharp edges.

I am vascillating on a juice groove for the cutting boards. Any comments from those that have done this? Warranted? Not really worth the bother? What do you say? I have also been percolating on a blank that could be diagonally dado'd on one side, then mounted on the lathe and worked with small-to-large circles on the other . . . . Any of you spinny guys want to give that a whirl and report back?

Capture.jpg
 
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I am vascillating on a juice groove for the cutting boards. Any comments from those that have done this? Warranted? Not really worth the bother? What do you say?

I do not have a groove on any of my boards that are for cutting/chopping.

I DO have a groove on the one that I made specially for BBQ'ing. The meat gets slapped onto it after removing from the grill. I usually aim for medium/medium-rare on my steaks, so there is usually a bit of juice that oozes out before we sit down and eat. I find it quite useful. Previous, I'd just pop the meat onto a plate, and the juice collecting had nowhere to go. If anything, I wish I'd made the groove just a touch deeper.

I will say that I found the actual CUTTING of the groove to be a royal pain in the backside. Since I'm just a hobbiest I don't have a CNC (which would make this easy, nor do I have a standard size cutting board that I make umpteen copies of. So I basically had to cook up a special purpose on-time-use-only pattern jig in order to cut the groove. It was a real headache.

ps: here is a thread from 2+ years ago where I made my board with grooves: http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?24510-cutting-board-juice-grooves
 
Would a Dado stack on a good RAS be good for making groovy cutting boards? Or, rather, groovy meat serving boards?

The problems with that (at least as I see it) are A) The grooves would have a square profile instead of rounded, and B) The grooves would run to the edges of the cutting board. A groove with a square profile will be a lot harder to keep clean compared to a rounded profile. And if the groove runs to one or more edges, so will the juices.
 
The problems with that (at least as I see it) are A) The grooves would have a square profile instead of rounded, and B) The grooves would run to the edges of the cutting board. A groove with a square profile will be a lot harder to keep clean compared to a rounded profile. And if the groove runs to one or more edges, so will the juices.

Can't help with the square, but clamp your work securely to your custom built over engineered RAS table. Line up where you want the groove to be and setup a stop or mark so they are all the same. Mark where you want your grooves, then clamp the saw motor on the track so it won't move. Then lower it into the workpiece to desired depth, grab saw carriage handle, release carriage lock and push saw to end of groove. Minimal hand oil cleanup afterward.

Alternatively, router on EZ Smart works too.
 
Finally got back to these. the walnut and maple ones are brighter and cheerier but, still wet. This is walnut and padouk after a few hours. I am hoping it will lighten up a bit more after a few days. My usual photographic skills don't help :).

Cuttboard and Trivet (5).jpg . Cuttboard and Trivet (6).jpg
 
glenn do they have feet on them or are they just suspended for drying?

Setting on risers for drying. It is now the next day and it is still weeping. I only flooded the surfaces on this one. On my little test board, I soaked it in a pan and it still weeps two weeks later :eek:. Surface flooding seems adequate ;).
 
Here's a couple more Walnut and Maple with Juice-grooves this time. LOML says juice grooves are a must and I wisely defer to her in these things :eek:.

Cuttboard and Trivet (7).jpg . Cuttboard and Trivet (8).jpg . Cuttboard and Trivet (9).jpg
 
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Glenn, RE: the weeping...When I was going a lot of cutting boards, I would slather them with mineral oil and let them sit for a day or so, adding more oil if I saw dry-looking spots develop. Then I would wipe them down (hard and vigorously) with clean paper towels. For end grain boards, I would usually follow the wipe-down with a couple of days wrapped in an absorbent cotton towel. That usually handled the weeping.
 
I'm pretty sure you posted about the router guide frame before, but I couldn't find it.

Who makes/where did you get it? I can see a number of uses for such a rig.

Trend makes the Vari-Jig and it does come in handy. I could never bring myself to pay over $100 for one and so made my own. This worked fine for smaller stuff but, was limited in scale. I was happy with my shop made version until Sears had the Vari-Jig on clearance for $40 :eek:. The clearanced version came stripped so I had to make my own clamps (again, Trend was way too proud of theirs at $42 a pair back then and something like $65 a pair now) :eek:. Bill Huber then took one for the team and found that Woodcraft's guide clamps fit the Vari-Jig at about half that price. My shop made versions are still serving me well but, I thought I would mention it in case this helps someone out.
 
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