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I was commissioned to build this 3'x3'x4" chopping block. It's made of walnut and maple in a checkerboard end grain style with a solid walnut border. I used the same basic procedure I have used a hundred times in making smaller end grain cutting boards only because of the size I had to split it into three separate slabs. Once those were fabricated I glued them together to make the finished board. I also had an issue with once the slabs were complete, the thickness was too large to fit in any of my machines, so I had to resort to getting help from my hardwood dealer who also has an industrial caliber wood shop. They did the wide belt sanding of the slabs, and also trued up the edges using a full size shaper. I was going to try it using a straight edge, straight bit and a spiral compression flush trim bit but decided it would be better to let them do it in a single pass on the shaper.

I did a lot of planning, creating a full AutoCAD drawing including cutting guides and materiel lists. Certain pieces had to be thicker than others so I could build in some extra for truing up the glue edges. You can see in the drawing I made notes about the types of blanks to produce the pieces as well as where the dividing lines for the slab are



The client had done a kitchen and made a space for this beauty by cutting the draw out of a draw top cabinet and reinforcing it. This was a drawing of how it would look placed



A sample of one of the blank drawings. I ended up fabricating these in sections as well …basically because I didn't want to do 6 foot long glue ups



I think it was about 350-450 board feet of materiel's. He had purchased some back when he was thinking of building it himself. After watching a few videos of how to make end grain boards he decided to relinquish the project over to someone with more experience! Here is a shot of all the raw materiel's planned and ripped to size. The left hand pile is all oversized pieces to build in extra around the outside edges and along the glue lines



Then it was glue up time. I had 7 different patterns, and 13 separate glue ups to get the required pieces. I also built in 3 spares for each pattern type in case of defects in the wood



Gluing up the blanks:


the finished blanks



Drum sanding all the blanks to finished width:



Then Slicing up the blanks to make my pieces:




The outside slices in clamps ready for the second glue up. the center slab is already glued up in this photo:



Then it was the long process to glue up each slab. I did it in sections, 3-4 slices at a time to make it easy to manage the edges and line up the pattern before the glue set up. Then I would fully clamp and wait 45 minutes for the glue to set up, break open the clamps and add more pieces on. Here are videos showing the process of making one of the outside slabs:








So after that x3 I was left with glued up slabs. Next step was to have them sanded flat. They wouldn't fit in my 16-32, so I brought them to my local hardwood dealer to push through his $30k Timesaver..





Then after that he used a straightedge and a huge expensive top bearing straight bit loaded in his industrial shaper to true up and straighten all the glue surfaces. Here they are sanded flat and trued up ready for final glue up:



Then it was time for the final glue up. I decided to do it in two separate glue ups..




After that it was back to the HW dealer for the final wide belt sanding. At this point I was moving out of my house and my shop was packed in a 20' POD. So i did the final finish work in the clients garage. Final polish sanding and grain raising



Oiling



After this we moved it into its final resting place, did some shimming to make sure it was sitting flat with no rocking. We also added a solid piece of Walnut to cover that plywood sub backsplash, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that at the moment.





All tolled..around 450 Bd Ft of lumber, almost 1/2 gallon of Titebond3, 2 16" drum sanding sleeves, 30 ROS discs 150, 220, 320 grit, and about a quart of mineral oil and beeswax. Final weight was 160lbs. I started out keeping track of my hours but didn't stick with it..I regret that because I have gotten inquiries for making more of these and I would have liked to know my labor to price it correctly. I worked on it part time and on weekends and it took me from March of 2018 to Aug. 2018 to complete. But I also sold my house, packed my shop, and moved during that time.

I will tell you that I charged way less than I should have because my client was a friend that I work with. My friend at the hardwood dealer that I worked with on this project told me that he would have charged upwords of $5K to do this for a client if they walked through the door with just the idea..and almost had a heart attack when I told him what I charged for my labor!

I was glad that my assumption that my techniques for building the normal sized end grain boards held true to this monster. I was really worried that it would have failed along the way and I would be on the hook for paying for all the raw materiel's in the event of a failure. I am happy to report that 7 months later it is still prefect…and as I suspected not a single knife blade has touched it! They even insist on people using coasters if they put drinks down on it!

Gallery

Comments

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One massif beast. Very Well done.

-Madts.
 

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what a massive endevor and a HUGE success. That has to be one of the most impressive boards out there.
 

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AMAZING! 160#'s! Everything looks spot on, great work! Hope your friend realizes the great deal…......
 

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That thing is a BEAST!!! Very impressive build!
 

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OUTSTANDING!!

Congrats, and many thanks for sharing your impressive build

George
 

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Very nice, an exceptional build, congratulations.
 

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What a beauty! . . . and what a beast! It certainly is a showpiece, but you need to do something to convince them to use it. I'm amazed at how great our end-grain board continues to look after years of use. You've almost convinced me to make a smaller version of yours for butchering venison! (I couldn't handle even your smaller sections before final glue-up.)

Congratulations on a masterpiece!

L/W
 

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Magnificant! Very smooth top surface. You can play chess, not only cut meat here.
 

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Awesome, I have thought about making something similar for my wife's kitchen.
 

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Looks fantastic. Must have been a beast to work with.

I'm a little confused on the b/f needed for this project though. You say you needed 450 b/f of lumber. My calculations (36"x36"x4" = 5184"^3/144"^3 = 36 b/f). Even accounting for waste that seems like a huge difference. Am I missing something?
 

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Thanks for the nice comments! It was quiet a project.

Looks fantastic. Must have been a beast to work with.

I m a little confused on the b/f needed for this project though. You say you needed 450 b/f of lumber. My calculations (36"x36"x4" = 5184"^3/144"^3 = 36 b/f). Even accounting for waste that seems like a huge difference. Am I missing something?

- JADobson
I could be off a bit i wasn't sure what the Bf was on the stuff he gave me but I had to purchase an additional 200 bf and the walnut had a lot of defects I had to cut around. I don't think you can use conventional length width and thickness bf calculations with end grain. I am definitely sure it was more than 36bf! The bf calculations for the blanks would be closer to my number
 
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