Introduction: 3-D Cutting Board-I Made It at Tech Shop

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First let me state
-This is easy, even for a beginner
-If you're at tech shop ask for help and they will be more than happy to, or other people that go there :)

Start of with 4 pieces of walnut & maple, and 3 pieces of purple heart 
-1 1/8 wide approximately 3/4 thick and just around 33 long (walnut & maple)
-1/4 wide, 3/4 thick and again 33 long (purple heart)

Select the pieces and line them up
Maple, Walnut, Purple Heart, Maple, Walnut, Purple Heart, Maple, Walnut, Purple Heart, Maple, Walnut

Step 1: Gluing

Next Step
-Glue the pieces together
-For the cutting boards I've made I use titebond
-Use parallel clamps to ensure a level glued board 
-I even went as far as to grab two pieces of wood to clamp down the glued pieces again to ensure flatness

After clamped, I took a damp cloth and wiped up the excess glue that had been pushed out


***USE a board of plywood/MDF under your project, that way you won't be worried about tech shop staff looking over for you to clean up the mess you just made :D**

Step 2: Difficult Step/Cutting/Sled

Don't give up!

Okay, unless the shop that you are working at has a table saw sled that can hold your put together boards at a 60 degree angle you are going to have to make a lil jig.

This is how I made my sled
-take a couple little scrap pieces that you can find, cut one on the compound chop saw at 60 degrees
-measure out approximately 1 1/2 inch space at the end of the jig, this way every time you cut you have the same size piece
            -depending on how wide you want the board pick a number of pieces you want, 6-12 should be fine, select an even number
-I found a piece of MDF, screw the 60 degree cut to this
-**See picture for more accurate description


Step 3: Cutting

Cut the strips into 1 1/2 inch wide strips at the 60 degree angle made with you jig/sled

Step 4: Flipping and Biscuit Joining

Take every other piece and flip it around, you will get your zig-zag effect

-If you see between the 6th/7th strips you can see there is a pretty large gap, if this occurs, take those pieces to the belt sander and sand a LITTLE so then it is even and flat against each other.

-Take them over to a work bench, get a biscuit cutter and make two biscuit cuts at the middle of the top and bottom purple heart boards
TIP-Use a pencil when you have the boards together and draw a straight line between the two so you know where exactly to use the biscuit cutter

As always, glue these bad boy's together
-Biscuit joints are very strong, that's why I did them

Step 5: Gluing Again

So you'll have a bunch of sets of 2's and then glue them together to have a majority of the finished board

Once again!
Parallel clamps, and as you can see the piece of scrap wood below to catch your glue drops :)

Use picture below as a reference

Step 6: Squaring Up/Edging

Cut off the excess points to make a nice square board
-enough to make it square, but not too much or else your hard work is wasting away

I like to finish it off with a purple heart border
-Same width as before
-I practiced before using the purple heart
-miter the edges and glue them together

TIP
-line up the first piece, mark the 45 degree angle by eye and cut it, the next piece place right up to it and mark off the angle to cut, pushing it right up against the board to ensure smooth and precise finishes

Glue these up :)

Step 7: Finishing :)

Butchers block oil or beeswax, apply a couple coats and sand with 320 grit sand paper
-The oil will bring out the "pores" of the wood so end on a sand paper like 400/600 and wipe with a damp rag to get the fine dust off

Thank you

-Feel free to PM me with any questions/concerns :)