Knife Block -- Free-Standing

Step 2 The basic pieces

 I made this knife block thirty years ago, so I will use images created in Google Sketch-Up to describe its construction.  

This is the basic piece I used.  Five are required.  Each is made up from strips of oak scraps taken from old church furniture destined for someone's fireplace.  The strips were glued together for a butcher block effect.  I used a rotary planer attachment on my radial arm saw as a thickness planer to make pieces about 5/8 inch thick and smoothed them a little with a sanding block before gluing the five layers together.  But, that gluing operation comes later.

The five pieces are in the shape of an elongated trapezoid.  The long dimensions are 10 1/2 inches.  The longer end is five inches.  The shorter end is two inches.