Project Information
After cutting my teeth on the Wood Whisperer's end grain cutting board last year for Christmas, I had plans to make another board for my wife for our 6 year anniversary (the other one went to a sister-in-law for a gift exchange).
Well, our anniversary was in April. It's now the end of August…
Fortunately I had some leftover purple heart from the first cutting board, and since my wife loves purple I used it all up on this one.
I am very pleased with how this came out, especially since I used all my own tools for this project. I have a friend with a 36" drum sander, but decided I needed to ween myself off of that. I was able to rig up a very simple router sled, which worked wonderfully. The only downside (if you can call it that) to using the router sled is that I had to take off a bit more material than I had planned, so the overall thickness of the board is 1 3/16" instead of 1 1/4". The rails of the sled were two laminated sheets of 3/4" MDF that I had laying around. The sled is 3/4" MDF also. All I had to do was put my board on my table saw, shim it, and clamp everything down so it wouldn't move.
Overall dimensions of the board are 11 3/4" x 17 1/2". I was very fortunate on the width of the board. It was originally going to be 12" wide, but I had to make it a little narrower than I wanted because I didn't have enough purple heart. That ended up being a blessing because my planer's maximum width is 11 3/4".
And even though I bought my Makita LM3001 (Planer Jointer Saw combo machine) about 8 months ago, this was the first project where I needed to have it really dialed in. That forced me to stop and make some adjustments, but I really enjoyed getting the machine squared away. I love that thing!
Everything was going great until I tried to restore some of the purple in the purple heart by leaving my board in the sun for a few hours. You can read about that here: http://lumberjocks.com/topics/176170
Bottom line: Don't leave a cutting board in the sun to restore the color. Or be very careful about it. I don't really think it did much for the color anyway.
I learned a lesson the hard way, but that also brought another first for me - using 2 part epoxy to fill cracks.
My wife wants to be able to cut on both sides of the board, so we bought a set of these:
http://www.woodcraft.com/product/158830/chobs-cutting-board-feet-4pc-red-green.aspx
They take away from the 'finished' look of the board, but we're 'function over form' people in general, so I'm okay with it. Plus, since the board has a slight bow to it now, those feet take away any rocking/instability.
I'm keeping it simple (and cheap) with a mineral oil coat - at least for now.
Finally, and most importantly, my wife loves it and will use it!
Well, our anniversary was in April. It's now the end of August…
Fortunately I had some leftover purple heart from the first cutting board, and since my wife loves purple I used it all up on this one.
I am very pleased with how this came out, especially since I used all my own tools for this project. I have a friend with a 36" drum sander, but decided I needed to ween myself off of that. I was able to rig up a very simple router sled, which worked wonderfully. The only downside (if you can call it that) to using the router sled is that I had to take off a bit more material than I had planned, so the overall thickness of the board is 1 3/16" instead of 1 1/4". The rails of the sled were two laminated sheets of 3/4" MDF that I had laying around. The sled is 3/4" MDF also. All I had to do was put my board on my table saw, shim it, and clamp everything down so it wouldn't move.
Overall dimensions of the board are 11 3/4" x 17 1/2". I was very fortunate on the width of the board. It was originally going to be 12" wide, but I had to make it a little narrower than I wanted because I didn't have enough purple heart. That ended up being a blessing because my planer's maximum width is 11 3/4".
And even though I bought my Makita LM3001 (Planer Jointer Saw combo machine) about 8 months ago, this was the first project where I needed to have it really dialed in. That forced me to stop and make some adjustments, but I really enjoyed getting the machine squared away. I love that thing!
Everything was going great until I tried to restore some of the purple in the purple heart by leaving my board in the sun for a few hours. You can read about that here: http://lumberjocks.com/topics/176170
Bottom line: Don't leave a cutting board in the sun to restore the color. Or be very careful about it. I don't really think it did much for the color anyway.
I learned a lesson the hard way, but that also brought another first for me - using 2 part epoxy to fill cracks.
My wife wants to be able to cut on both sides of the board, so we bought a set of these:
http://www.woodcraft.com/product/158830/chobs-cutting-board-feet-4pc-red-green.aspx
They take away from the 'finished' look of the board, but we're 'function over form' people in general, so I'm okay with it. Plus, since the board has a slight bow to it now, those feet take away any rocking/instability.
I'm keeping it simple (and cheap) with a mineral oil coat - at least for now.
Finally, and most importantly, my wife loves it and will use it!
