With the holidays coming up and a large amount of scrap wood in my shop, I decided to make some end grain cutting boards.

A couple of them will be for our house, but the rest will be for gifts. It was my first time making end grain cutting boards, so I learned as I went.

The Lumber and Getting Started

The lumber I started with varied in size and shape greatly. Honestly, this made it tough to get started. First I started sorting it by species and thickness. I probably didn’t need to sort it by thickness and could have just started ripping it all to a common width, but I wanted to get as much yield as possible. One of the other challenges, I struggled with was “How Long Should I Cut This?”. The original cut length does not translate well to the final cutting board length since the boards get rotated 90 degrees after the first glue up. So, I made some rough calculations, but refined them via a spreadsheet you can find HERE.

Rough Cuts and Milling

I started by cutting the larger pieces down to manageable size. That meant cross cutting some and then ripping them down to width on the bandsaw. Afterwards, one surface and one adjacent surface were jointed.

The thicker boards were ran through the planer to get them to size. I didn’t use the table saw since I rough cut them to width near a similar size to their thickness (making a square). The thinner stock was taken to the table saw and ripped to width. The width of the boards was determined by the thickness of my thicker stock. After ripping the thinner stock it will get rotated 90 during the glue up. The upcoming pictures will help illustrate that.

Cross Cut Length Relation to the Final Size

After all the lumber is milled, I cross cut each board to the same length. I am striving for a common cutting board size and to maximize the total number of boards I make. The initial length of the boards will be a factor in the finished length of the cutting board. Confusing, I know, but the diagram below helps. The first glue up (after flattening) is on the left, with an initial thickness and length (Lo, To). When the strips get ripped on the table saw (black lines) you are creating the thickness of the final cutting board (Tf) by whatever your fence is set to. When the strip get flipped 90 so the end grain is facing up (right picture), the original thickness become the length of each strip. So, there is a relationship between the number of strips you can cut, their original thickness, and the overall thickness of your final cutting board (Lf). Once again, the spreadsheet I had compiled HERE will help with the math.

Pattern Selection and First Glue Up

Having the boards laid out by species and size, just helped my visual how much of each I had. So, as I progressed through, I didn’t over utilize one certain type.

A few things to keep in mind here. Don’t make the cutting boards any wider than your planer. You will want to thickness these after they come out of the clamps. Don’t make any of these “near” symmetrical. Either completely symmetrical or far off. During the second glue up, that “near” symmetry will end up looking like a mistake. Ask me how I know

The technique I used to glue up these boards is shown below. I have a couple of 2x4s that keep the ends aligned. With so many glue surfaces it is very easy for them to slip pas each other. You can see I have the right side fixed with holdfasts, then the left side has some screw style pushers in some dog hole. The entire contraption pivots about the board at teh far end. That board in between the squeeze clamp is the same length as my cutting board pieces. This “jig” worked really well keeping everything aligned.

Flattening Cutting Board after First Glue Up

Once the cutting boards come out of the clamps, it is time to flatten one side. First, I started by scraping the glue off, then I used a jack plane to flatten one surface. I typically went across the grain since that is the dimension that has the most variation. I would check for flatness by flipping the board over and making sure it didn’t rock.

After hand planing, I would send each board through the thickness planer until the rough side was flat. Then, I would flip it over and hit the “hand planed” surface to remove the plane tracks. I was taking a fairly thick cut with the jack plane.

Strip Ripping and Second Glue Up

After the board are flat and parallel, I cross cut one end on my miter saw. This surface will ride against my rip fence for the first cut and I want it to be perpendicular to the original boards. Based on some of the math I did, I set my rip fence to 1 1/4″ wide. This will become the thickness of the cutting board. After ripping strips from the first two boards, I realized my original math was flawed and I didn’t account for the fact that there will be a partial piece left over that can’t be counted. Oops, so I had to adjust my fence a bit narrower to get the final board length I was shooting for (14″). I wish I would have captured more pictures during this stage, but didn’t

Once strips are ripped, I took them over to my clamping station and laid the board out. I would rotate them so the end grain was facing up and then flip every other board end-for-end. It is an alternating pattern and this is why you need to watch out for “near” symmetry. The seams and board species will “almost” align and look like a mistake. Anyways, I glued the board back together and clamped them up.

Flattening After Second Glue Up

So, here is where the world slows down and progress gets slow. The surfaces are end grain, so they can’t be sent through a jointer or planer to get them flat or smooth. For the first two or three cutting boards I would start with a block plane (or a low angle Jack) to get the really high spots, then move to a belt sander and random orbital sander.

The above process was very time consuming, like 2.5 hours per board, and sometimes the boards would not be flat. Nothing is more frustrating than chopping vegetable on a rocking cutting board.

A buddy of mine (Jim) recommend I use a flattening sled/jig with my router. I initially hesitated because I didn’t have one, but after another painstaking round of sanding, I figured “what could it hurt”.

Flattening Sled To The Rescue

The jig I made for my router was super simple. I started with a couple of 6′ long 2X4s and cut them to 36″ and 24″ which will be size of the “box” that the sled will ride on. The sled is comprised of 1/2 plywood screwed together and the cavity was created using a forstner bit. The picture below will be more illustrative than my words. Note the ‘stop’ block on the sled (opposite side of router). I should have also added one to the other side, so I wouldn’t chew up the base so much. The only tricky part is getting the height of the base correct. I originally had it too tall for my cutting board thickness and had to rip it down some more. Once I had everything set up, I add a bunch of past wax and chucked a 3/4 bit into the router. If I would have had a larger flattening bit, I would have used it.

The base is clamped to my workbench via a hold fast and clamp. Then, I place the cutting board inside and pinch it with my wagon vise. Finally, I will use a wedge to really secure that SOB in there. If the board rocks at all, I used playing cards to shim it. Once one side was flat, flip it over and do the other.

Super effective, but make a pretty big mess even with the DC hooked up.

Sand, Sand….wait…Drum Sander, Sand, Sand

As everyone can guess, it is now time for a lot of sanding. The router sled leaves a pretty rough surface, so I would start with a block plane again and knock down the really offensive spots. Then I would grab my sander with 60 grit and go to work (for a long time). Working up to 80, 120, 180, 220. I sanded two of these by hand and ran out of steam.

By happenstance, the previous week, a friend said he just bought a drum sander. So, I called him up and headed over to his place. I have been eyeing one for a while to purchase, but figured this would also be a good opportunity to test-drive one. Boy, did that some a bunch of time. After a few passes all of the machining marks were gone and it was fairly smooth. We didn’t progress through the grits, but I wish we would have. He had some pretty coarse paper on there, so there were some deep scratches, but I could get them out with my RO and some time once I got back home.

Routing Finger Pull Grooves

Since these cutting boards are fairly large, they need to have some method for gripping and moving them. I like to route a small recess on the edges, so a person’s fingers can grab onto something. I used my router table, with stop blocks, and a core box style router bit.

Oil Time

After years of sanding and wetting, and sanding, it was time to oil the boards. I had purchase a shallow tub to contain the oil mess. I placed the board in the tub and just rub (a dub dub) some oil into it with my hands. Then I would stand it on its end while I did few more and then move it to some painters pyramids to dry. After it was pretty dry (1 day later), I did it again, to ensure it was fully saturated. I let the boards sit for about 3 days and wiped off any excess. Since these are Christmas gifts, I can’t share pictures of them all, but here a couple. When I talked about being “near” symmetrical, the board on the right is a great example of what NOT to do. Slight misalignment of the pattern looks like a mistake.