Introduction: End Grain Cutting Board-I Made It at Tech Shop

End Grain Cutting Board
-Maple, Walnut and Oak

Whoever takes a look at this, I cannot stress how EASY it is to make one of these, and if you end up giving this to someone they will love it.

First start off with materials
-Lumber approximately 13 inches, decide what pattern you want, after you make one you'll realize its easy as cutting and gluing.
-Wood Glue
-Clamps, parallel bar preferred
-Beeswax/Butcher Block Oil
-Cloth
-Flat Chisel
-Time, waiting for glue to dry :D

Step 1: Lumber

Select your pieces of lumber
Arrange them in orders of three

Example:
Cherry, Walnut, Maple
Do that three times so you should have 9 pieces of wood
-You can change up the width of the pieces, keep the height/length similar
so what you should have is something similar to the following:
Oak, Maple, Walnut, Oak, Maple, Walnut, Oak, Maple, walnut

Step 2: Cutting

Lay it down on the table saw and cut it long ways so you have strips of the combinations of lumber

Step 3: Fun Part

Take every other board and rotate around
-Easier to see than to explain, just take a look below and watch the regular cutting board turn into a cool one! :)

Glue those together, if when cutting you notice almost a blackish/burning look (go ask the techshop staff to switch the blade on the table saw!), run a piece of sand paper along the gluing edges so that the glue has "pores" to go in to the wood

I use parallel clamps because they have a level surface and you don't really have to worry about gluing two pieces of wood together and them not being completely flat

Ministep- WAIT, don't rush the glue 

Step 4: Chiseling/Planing

Run the chisel along the board to get the little lumps of glue off the board :)

Don't push the chisel too hard or else you'll chink up your beautiful board

After that I usually run it through the thickness planer to just make sure things are completely level

Step 5: Edging

Not really sure why I did this but i think one of the boards was longer so I had to trim this bad boy up with the table saw


***I remember now, careful with the thickness planer when using the end grain wood it may chip away at the ends so I just ran it along the table saw to get it all squared up


Step 6: Sanding/Finishing

Save yourself some time and start off with a 220 grit piece of sand paper, especially if you have ran it through the thickness planer

-Sand it down till you feel it is level and the same smoothness around the board
-Switch to a finishing sand paper like 320/400 something
-sand till level and smooth

Staining
-Beeswax/Butcher Block oil
      -Take a wiping cloth and evenly spread it over the surfaces of the board

TIP-Every time you apply the oil it will make the board rougher again- I believe that it's because the oil penetrates the wood making it more porous or something along those lines, I just know don't kill your self applying oil and sanding etc etc.

Just finish with a sanding and that way you have the stain and the smoothness you want-take a clean cloth and a dab (A SMALL DAB) of water and remove the sand/powder from sanding



Step 7: DONE :)

Finished product ready to be in a gourmet kitchen :)

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