Massive end grain cutting board makes it's Turkey Day debut

Recently made this massive 19” x 24” black walnut end grain cutting board with a sloping 1/8” to 3/4” cutting surface to contain the juices from a big bird. Previous boards I made even with an extra wide perimeter gravy/juice moat, still couldn’t contain all of the liquid runout during carving. This did the trick with ease! For scale, that is a 19 lb. cooked turkey.

After doing the normal end grain glue up, I hot glued a 3/4” wood scrap strip underneath one of the long edges to create the desired cutting surface slope. Then I just proceeded with a standard pocket tool path cut out. This method ensured I wouldn’t get any stepping/stair-casing if I had tried to angle the pocket as it cut the varying depths. I sanded to 240 and applied several coats of mineral oil.

The size of this large board was determined so it would max out a thin leftover space we had in our new kitchen cabinets for long and skinny objects which we were able to get an available mini-cabinet door.

Hope everyone had a nice and safe Thanksgiving during the pandemic!

-- ---Joel; Central MD...rookie empter nester and getting back into woodworking!