Finishing the Cutting Boards

Well it was fun, but the cutting boards are now finished. Here is sort of a recap of the process.

I decided that I should just go ahead and glue the other board together finally. It is good to see the glue squeeze out of the joints, it means I will have a good union.

The next night when I unclamped the wood I discovered that the wood was in contact with the steel and pulled off some of the oxide(rust). Oh well, nothing a little bit of planing won't fix.

This however was more of a problem. On one of the sections a little strip of maple was on the outside and was slightly deformed by the pressure of the clamps. I had to make the decision to remove that damaged section and one walnut section in order to insure that the glue joint would be good. 

The Walnut/Maple cutting board needed to be re-clamped overnight. Any of the finish work will need to be done by hand from now on. The width of the cutting board now makes it too large to fit through the planer.

The Maple/Walnut/Cherry board all glued together ready to be planed.

Nice and smooth.

On both cutting boards there was an uneven edges which I addressed with the table saw. I nibbled off as little as I could while still making sure that in the end the cutting boards would have nice 90 degree corners.

In order to put the rounded edges on the two boards, I had to dig out the router table. The router is easily my least favorite tool to use in the shop, but I need to get better at it because we use round-overs on everything at Betty Brinn.

I actually discovered after using the router last night, that part of my frustration with this router table in particular comes from the fact that the router has a loose shaft. I presume the bearings are probably toast. As I was running the cutting boards through the router I could see the bit wiggle and almost deflect when it was under load.

Not good.

In order to clean up the router's marks I used a orbital sander with 120 grit sandpaper to even the edges out. Now you can't even tell that there was any "chatter" marks on the edges.

As for finish I used a butcher block conditioner which was a blend of mineral oil, vitamin e oil, bees wax, and carnuba wax. The finish went on smoothly and really brought out the grain. According to the label on the product though, these boards will require at least two more applications of the conditioner before being put to use.

This cutting board is a mix of American Cherry, Walnut, and Hardwood Maple. It measures 9 3/4" x 12 3/4" x 5/8".

This monster of a cutting board is a mix of Walnut and Hardwood Maple. It measures 16" x 15" x 1/2". 

All finished looking pretty swanky in the kitchen. 

If anyone is interested in making their own cutting board, or would like to purchase one of these boards please feel free to contact me. I would love to lend a helping hand.