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I'm working on the base of a butcher's block where the top I built looks just like this, but is 2-3x the size. My mother-in-law saw the project and commented on how they'd make a nice gift…her birthday is tomorrow so last week I started making her a smaller version as a cutting board with leftover maple.

It's all side grain for the middle and frame boards, and I added several end grain pieces to make it stand out a bit. I had leftover bloodwood from a previous project and thought I'd add miter keys (bloodwood on top and maple keys on bottom) to make it a little different than my butcher block top. I had difficulty cutting down the bloodwood to thickness with my block plane and initially blamed it on sharpening since it was my first attempt at sharpening. After more sharpening and struggling I tried the maple keys and they cut with ease. I guess Bloodwood is just difficult to work with!

I think there were 5 different glue ups, lots of sanding since I don't have a planer and I used Watco Butcher Block Oil as a finish. A fun, and relatively quick project.

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212 Posts
i like it, it's very nice
 

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18 Posts
It's a nice block and good gift for in-law.
Is it soft maple?
I like soft maple for flat grain cutting board because it's more generous
to the blade than hard maple unless it's end-grained.
 

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201 Posts
Very nice, hopefully the corners won't come apart from wood movement.
 

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Very nice combination you got there.

great work.
 

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48 Posts
Beautiful cutting board. Will she use it or just show it off?
 

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Thanks for the comments, much appreciated! It's hard maple…but per MickeyD's comment, something tells me it wont be used as a cutting board as often as I'd like and will likely be more of a serving board on display. Oh well - as long as she likes it I'm happy!
 

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Looks good from here, really nice job. I know she will love it. Never hurts to impress the mother in law.
 
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