As I talked a little about how I got into wood working I thought it made sense for my second blog to talk a little about my first board build.
Shortly into the journey of wood working I thought to myself that I really wanted to do a cutting board. I think this was on account of another one of my interests being BBQ. I had grand visions of either myself or someone else serving a perfectly BBQ'ed meal on one of my boards.
So how do I go about building a board? Well I started where I start most of my projects...I went to do research on Youtube. I spent a little while doing my research watching videos and reading things. I am the type of person that I like to do my own research before making a decision.
I had my idea around a vision and what I wanted to do. My first board was going to be a 100% maple board, I had decided I was going to tackle an edge grain, as cool as I thought the end grains were I wasn't crazy about doing multiple glue ups. Go figure at the time I didn't want to multiple glue ups and now the boards I love making require at least 3, and often more, glue ups.
I went Home Depot and found a piece of fully finished maple. For the record, I totally over paid for that piece of wood. I think it was around $80 bucks or so. At the time, if I'm being honest, I was scared of rough cut lumber. I didn't have a planer, and really didn't even know about jointing edges and all that. You would think I would say to any newcomer and get the planer and all the tools. But I would say no, if I were doing it again I would have done the exact same thing. The reason being, buying that piece of maple made it accessible for me to get started. There was a degree of familiarity with the store, Home Depot, I bought the wood at. I didn't have to invest lots of money in new tools and all these things allowed me to be in my comfort zone enough that I was happy and excited to start building my board.
I had the piece of wood at home, I had the tools I thought I needed (mitre saw, table saw, clamps, and glue) I was set. I started but cutting the big long maple board to rough length with the mitre saw. I then went over to the table saw and set my fence up to about 2 inches and started ripping. I ripped the pieces and then turned them over and measured how wide the board would be. It was coming in at a grand total of about 4-5 inches...hmmm I want to have a wider board. Well then I need to cut down some more of the original board. I then ripped again, turned the pieces on their side and lined them up with the original pieces and measured again...How wide was the board? About 8-10 inches. I then repeated the process again and this time got to the width I was thinking made sense.
The end result of the big long piece of maple I thought I would be able to make a few boards with, or use for other projects, I ended up using the entire piece for this one board. This would be the first of so many occasions where I plan that I would have enough wood for something and turns out to be not enough. Keep in mind at this point also, I had bought a 1 inch thick piece of Maple from Home Depot, and when I flipped the ripped pieces over that gave me a 1 inch thick strip.
Now I was ready for gluing. I had bought some Gorilla glue also from Home Depot. I believe it's water resistant, as well as food safe. But for all boards moving forward I have used Titebond 3. This would be something I would change I would tell anyone getting started to spend the time and find Titebond 3, as it's the proper tool for the job. That being said, the board is still fully intact.
I glued up the boards and now had a big block. There was obviously some shifting during the glue up, and now I needed to get it flat. I started with a sander and was going about trying to flatten everything, and quickly realized it was taking forever. Off to do some research. I looked up more info and everything was saying a thickness planer was the proper tool for the job. Then sticker shock...they are how much? Alright, how about an electric hand planer? I bought one. It came and I started to run it over the boards. Now I had a bunch of grooves in my nice big block. Uh-oh. Well, I then called up my Dad and asked what do I do? We came up with the best solution was for me to bring the board over to his place and we could run it through his planer. I did just that, and he also ran it through the jointer so I had a square edge.
What I learned here planer is definitely the best tool for the job. Perhaps I could have gotten away if I used cauls to keep the boards flat during the glue up and then could have gotten away with just a sander. Truthfully a planer is the best tool. I would recommend for those starting to either look at the cauls option, or do what I did and see if there is a buddy you can run the board through a planer. Or, if you are feeling old school you could use a manual planer.
Don't go out a buy an electric planer to try and flatten the board. The electric planer I have has had an interesting life. It served as a DIY jointer for a little while, and most recently served as a tool to scrap and clear up boards on my work bench. I am sure I will find more uses in the future for it.
I then had a board that was flat and square edge, I then started trimming it up. And decided to put a juice groove in it. Your are now probably thinking OMG what is he thinking. A juice groove this thing is going to be screwed up for sure. I am happy to report that the juice groove turned out pretty well, there is one area where the router came off a little bit, but all in all the groove turned out.
Then there was sanding, and eventually finishing. Here I learned about popping the grain. I didn't pop the grain and the first time I washed the board it sure was fuzzy.
At the end of the day I have board that I am proud of, it's a board that we use from time to time as a charcuterie board.
The things I learned through this process are things that I have incorporated into each and every board I produce. My recommendation to anyone debating would be to give it shot. The basic tools you would need to create a cutting board of your own are a table saw, clamps, a sander, and some glue. And perhaps access to a planer, don't go out a spend $500-$1000 on one for the sole purpose of cutting boards, give it a try and make sure you like it. It will push you out of your comfort zone but that's ok you learn the most when you're in that state, there are lots of studies that say so.
And finally I'll leave you with this, if you do go and try making a board you could always message me with any questions. I am always a few clicks away either here or on my Instagram page.