My First Cutting Board: A Journey of Trial and Error

I've always been fascinated by woodworking, and my latest project was my first attempt at creating a cutting board. I had high hopes for this project, but as we'll see, it wasn't without its challenges. From sanding to filling voids, every step of the process required patience and attention to detail.

The Process Begins

I started by selecting three pieces of wood: purple heart, wing, and bird's eye maple. I was excited to work with these unique materials, each with its own characteristics and challenges. To begin, I sanded the wood down to 320 grit, using a belt sander to smooth out any rough edges or surfaces. Next, I got the wood wet to "pop" the grain, which helps to create a more even finish.

Filling Void and Edge Imperfections

As I worked, I noticed a few voids on the back of one piece of wood. One of them was caused by an accident involving a blade, which left a small nick in the purple heart. I decided to fill the void with a little bit of black ca glue. If it were on the face of the board, I might have considered using black epoxy instead. However, my main concern was preventing the wood from separating over time.

Working with New Materials

I've worked with many different types of wood before, but this project presented some unique challenges. My friend Vincent Ferrari, a skilled woodworker and jeweler, offered valuable advice and insights throughout the process. If you're interested in creating your own custom cutting board or jewelry, I highly recommend checking out his Instagram page (link provided). He's an expert in his field, and I've learned so much from his experiences.

Preparing for the Finish

To add a protective coating to my cutting board, I used a wood preserver by Voltner Woodworking. This product is food-safe, made from just mineral oil and beeswax, making it perfect for protecting your cutting board while also enhancing its natural beauty. Matt, the owner of Voltner Woodworking (link provided), shared his expertise on this product during our conversation.

The Final Result

Two hours later, I was excited to see how my first cutting board had turned out. To be honest, I was pleased with the results – it's a beautiful piece that exceeded my expectations. The traditional design and minimal experimentation have yielded a result that feels both classic and unique. With only minor issues to address during the project, I can confidently say that this is an easy and rewarding woodworking experience.

Gift Ideas and Tips

This cutting board makes for a great gift idea, especially when paired with some affordable wood – in my case, approximately $30 worth of material per project. If you're planning on creating gifts or selling pre-made items, consider shopping in the cut-off bins to save money. However, keep in mind that using reclaimed materials may impact the final product's appearance and durability.

Lessons Learned

Throughout this process, I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of checking my table saw fence regularly. Even with an improved setup, it's crucial to ensure that the blade is perfectly aligned at 90 degrees. This might seem like a minor detail, but its impact on the final product can be significant.

Conclusion

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all my patrons for their support – without your contributions, I wouldn't be able to pursue my passion for woodworking. To our top-tier patrons, Nick the Greek, Stephen Mann, Eric Easy E Weiss, Derek Coates, Caveman Ross, Chuck Faulkner, The Weeknd, Diyer, and Michelle Harris, thank you for being part of this community – it means a great deal to me.

And so, I'll wrap up this article by saying that working with wood can be a fun and rewarding experience. With patience, attention to detail, and the right tools, you can create unique and beautiful pieces like my cutting board. Until next time, I have to edit another video – cheers!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys i'm nick and this is bill dab build a place where when it comes to cutting boards they call me the butcher nobody calls me the butcher i don't think the self-healing mat is coming back from that uh honestly guys this is the first time that i'll be making cutting board and cutting boards are big a lot of people make cutting boards there's a lot of videos you can watch on making cutting boards if you're somebody that makes cutting boards and has some constructive criticism or some tips or tricks that they want to leave in the comments feel free to do so if you just want to come in and tell me how i'm doing it wrong gfc hit them with the hard t so for making my first cutting board i am going to be making a face grain cutting board these are not the most popular cutting boards because they will start picking up knife grooves faster and things like that but with the lumber that i'm working with i just think it's going to look a little better i think it's going to be a little bit easier for my first one depending on how this one turns out i'll probably move on to like an edge grain and possibly even an end grain if i i'm feeling slightly insane those things look really cool they look like a big pain in the arse so the lumber we're using today is i have some curly eyed maple i wanted to get hard maple they didn't have any in the off cuts pro tip when you're making stuff like this go to the off cut section it's cheaper but they did have the curly eye maple that's part of the reason i want to do a face grain because the curly eye is is kind of the selling point on this type of lumber right next i did find this ridiculously awesome uh piece of wenge the fact that i'm using this as face grain and a cutting board i know but when i look at this when i look at this grain versus when i look at the edge grain this grain looks so amazing that we're just gonna we're going with it man we're just going with it this will probably be more of a decorative piece than an actual functional piece anyway so we're just doing it and just to make it a little funky and probably even a little bit more of a pain in my ass i have some purple heart i want to maintain as much of the spore thickness as possible because i'm like a little under an inch as it is i don't want to make this any thinner so what i'm going to do is just take these over the table saw cut them down to the sizes that i think i want them we'll lay them out see if we like it if not maybe we cut some more pieces i don't know um i think i'm going to make this a little long i'm looking at my shortest piece here my shortest piece is like 18 inches i don't even know if i want it to be that long i'm thinking about 16 inches but we'll probably make it a little long we'll probably go about 18 just so i can scrap the ends at the end let's grab the ends square off the ends around the middle does that make sense wait a second okay well i want to square them off before i'm finished so that would be square off the ends at the end if i do anything else then it would be square off the ends around the middle sometime and then finish the board i wish i was a microphone and as luck would have it these are all about the same thickness anyway so um once we once we cut them down get the design we want um and glue them up i'll probably be able to run them through the planer and uh get them flush but we'll see if we have any gaps and if we have to deal with anything ahead of time but that's what we do in dog that's what we're doing hey i may be looking a little insane right now as i look over this but what i'm looking for is to see if there's any gaps my understanding is if you see gaps that are noticeable you're going to take the two pieces flip them out and then i guess the best thing to do if you would be hitting with a sander if you have a joiner you can run them across the jointer so the bookend and then you can put them back but i ain't gonna join her so i think if i had any gaps what i would do is book on them out like this just hit him with the sander i mean like probably 220 maybe 120 probably 220 um and just so you want to smooth them out you know what i'm saying smooth them out the same amount yeah i mean anything that's even a slight gap if i if i push these together with my fingers like this like i'm like i don't know how to explain the amount of pressure i'm pushing i'm not pushing very hard uh any little tiny hairline gap goes away i think clamps and glue will take care of that am i right if i'm not right let me know alright guys so i'm going to glue this up and that's basically going to be it for today uh we'll come back and check on it we'll come back once the glue dries um make sure that we don't really have any gaps hopefully we don't have any gaps hopefully it doesn't look like this because sometimes when i've clamped things in the past they a little bit uh so we're gonna try to avoid that what i am gonna do is i'm gonna clamp it from the top i'm gonna clamp it from the bottom and the top hopefully i could just put four clamps on it we're good to go because everything's pretty everything's pretty tight tomorrow all right guys we're back with the cutting board we took it out of the clamps now we need to scrape the glue so i do have some glue squeeze out on the back which is actually kind of what you want you want a little squeeze out there that way you know that you got enough glue in the joints now something to take into consideration when you're going to make something like this is is what your machinery can handle this is less than 12 inches wide because i know it's gonna go in my planer and i know that i can cut it with my miter saw and i don't have to worry about dragging my table saw out so my planer will handle up to 13 and a half inches my miter saw will cut out to 12 inches i believe it might be a little bit more so i picked the size of this board so i know that i can cut the ends off of this with my with my miter saw and i don't have to pull my table saw out and i can run it through the planer and i don't have to hand sand the whole damn thing so just keep that kind of stuff in mind when you're getting ready to make something make it in the dimensions that your tools will handle or be prepared to have to like pull out your table saw or if you ever access your table saw you know like in this case i'd probably need a crosscut sled i don't have the best crosscut sled for this so just you know kind of keep in mind what you got when you build cool now we scrape the glue run it through the planer uh just we're gonna take off as little as possible we're gonna square the ends off and then we're gonna route the edges and then this baby's gonna be ready for a little oil okay so this has been sanded to 320 what i do is i sand it to 320 i get it wet to pop the grain and i'm going to sand it back to 240. however i did notice a couple of very small voids on the back one of them is i did nick one of the pieces of purple heart with a blade so that's that one uh the two ones that i'm a little bit more concerned about are on the edge right here so we're just gonna fill those a little bit of black ca glue if it was on the face of the board i might think about doing black epoxy or something like that but i just don't want this to start to separate over time so this may be my first cutting board but i did ask a good buddy of mine for some pointers his name is vincent ferrari i i'll put his instagram down here definitely go check out his instagram page if you're interested in a custom cutting board contact vincent he makes excellent cutting boards he also does jewelry he's one of the go-to guys when we're talking about cutting boards i once heard he made a cutting board that was like six foot long six inches thick and he made it entirely out of purple heart and tiger wood it took four people to pick it up and flip it over no lie no lie secondly i'm going to be using this wax by voltner woodworking uh it's my buddy matt uh go check out his instagram i'll put his instagram down here he's got a youtube channel too but i think he's more active on instagram but this is a wood preserver that is food safe i think he said it's like the two ingredients are just mineral oil and beeswax so not only could you rub it on your cutting board you could also just rub it on your wood all right let's get to work two hours later so what's up guys how we doing what do you think for my first cutting board do you like it i happen to love it a lot i actually like it better than i thought i would it's probably one of my favorite pieces to date it is more traditional and less experimental but i just like the way it turned out and honestly i've been trying to think back to think if i had any issues with this and i mean anything i had was really really minimal so like to me this is a very easy project too so i just i mean i love the way it looks it actually turned out exactly how i wanted it to but i was thinking what would be cool is to flip-flop these colors so to make the majority of it out of the wing or a darker wood and then have the bird's eye maple running through the smaller strips so i may try something like that in the future but this is a great gift idea this is some like people would consider this some expensive wood especially the purple heart and the wing guy i think i paid about 30 bucks for the three pieces of wood and i'm gonna make about three or four projects out of a combination of those pieces you look at that way it's about eight bucks worth of wood per project and actually this is probably about th this is probably a little bit more probably about ten dollars worth of wood but like i said be smart shop in the cutoff bins if you're making gifts you can fudge a little bit about what kind of wood it is you know i mean like pick up what is there if you have a client that's a little bit more difficult because they may want specific wood species but if you're making these as gifts or something to sell that's already pre-made just go shopping in the cut-offs then man it's a lot cheaper with that said my biggest takeaway from this is just make sure that your fence on your table saw is it exactly 90 degrees because even mine which is way better than my old table saw it it'll shift just a little bit and if it shifts just a little bit then those pieces aren't going to match up perfect so just check for 90 every time you adjust it speaking of checking for 90. i'd just like to say thank you to all my patrons out there guys i wouldn't be able to do what i do without your support it is greatly appreciated so cheers to you that tx straight bourbon it's no joke and a special thanks goes to our top tier patrons nick the greek stephen mann eric easy e weiss derek coates caveman ross chuck faulkner the weeknd diyer and michelle harris clinkies okay guys i don't want to take any more of your time i actually have another video to edit after this one so until next time i gotta get to work so not only could you rub it on your so not only could you rub it on your so not only could you rub it on your cutting board you could also just rub it on your woodwhat's up guys i'm nick and this is bill dab build a place where when it comes to cutting boards they call me the butcher nobody calls me the butcher i don't think the self-healing mat is coming back from that uh honestly guys this is the first time that i'll be making cutting board and cutting boards are big a lot of people make cutting boards there's a lot of videos you can watch on making cutting boards if you're somebody that makes cutting boards and has some constructive criticism or some tips or tricks that they want to leave in the comments feel free to do so if you just want to come in and tell me how i'm doing it wrong gfc hit them with the hard t so for making my first cutting board i am going to be making a face grain cutting board these are not the most popular cutting boards because they will start picking up knife grooves faster and things like that but with the lumber that i'm working with i just think it's going to look a little better i think it's going to be a little bit easier for my first one depending on how this one turns out i'll probably move on to like an edge grain and possibly even an end grain if i i'm feeling slightly insane those things look really cool they look like a big pain in the arse so the lumber we're using today is i have some curly eyed maple i wanted to get hard maple they didn't have any in the off cuts pro tip when you're making stuff like this go to the off cut section it's cheaper but they did have the curly eye maple that's part of the reason i want to do a face grain because the curly eye is is kind of the selling point on this type of lumber right next i did find this ridiculously awesome uh piece of wenge the fact that i'm using this as face grain and a cutting board i know but when i look at this when i look at this grain versus when i look at the edge grain this grain looks so amazing that we're just gonna we're going with it man we're just going with it this will probably be more of a decorative piece than an actual functional piece anyway so we're just doing it and just to make it a little funky and probably even a little bit more of a pain in my ass i have some purple heart i want to maintain as much of the spore thickness as possible because i'm like a little under an inch as it is i don't want to make this any thinner so what i'm going to do is just take these over the table saw cut them down to the sizes that i think i want them we'll lay them out see if we like it if not maybe we cut some more pieces i don't know um i think i'm going to make this a little long i'm looking at my shortest piece here my shortest piece is like 18 inches i don't even know if i want it to be that long i'm thinking about 16 inches but we'll probably make it a little long we'll probably go about 18 just so i can scrap the ends at the end let's grab the ends square off the ends around the middle does that make sense wait a second okay well i want to square them off before i'm finished so that would be square off the ends at the end if i do anything else then it would be square off the ends around the middle sometime and then finish the board i wish i was a microphone and as luck would have it these are all about the same thickness anyway so um once we once we cut them down get the design we want um and glue them up i'll probably be able to run them through the planer and uh get them flush but we'll see if we have any gaps and if we have to deal with anything ahead of time but that's what we do in dog that's what we're doing hey i may be looking a little insane right now as i look over this but what i'm looking for is to see if there's any gaps my understanding is if you see gaps that are noticeable you're going to take the two pieces flip them out and then i guess the best thing to do if you would be hitting with a sander if you have a joiner you can run them across the jointer so the bookend and then you can put them back but i ain't gonna join her so i think if i had any gaps what i would do is book on them out like this just hit him with the sander i mean like probably 220 maybe 120 probably 220 um and just so you want to smooth them out you know what i'm saying smooth them out the same amount yeah i mean anything that's even a slight gap if i if i push these together with my fingers like this like i'm like i don't know how to explain the amount of pressure i'm pushing i'm not pushing very hard uh any little tiny hairline gap goes away i think clamps and glue will take care of that am i right if i'm not right let me know alright guys so i'm going to glue this up and that's basically going to be it for today uh we'll come back and check on it we'll come back once the glue dries um make sure that we don't really have any gaps hopefully we don't have any gaps hopefully it doesn't look like this because sometimes when i've clamped things in the past they a little bit uh so we're gonna try to avoid that what i am gonna do is i'm gonna clamp it from the top i'm gonna clamp it from the bottom and the top hopefully i could just put four clamps on it we're good to go because everything's pretty everything's pretty tight tomorrow all right guys we're back with the cutting board we took it out of the clamps now we need to scrape the glue so i do have some glue squeeze out on the back which is actually kind of what you want you want a little squeeze out there that way you know that you got enough glue in the joints now something to take into consideration when you're going to make something like this is is what your machinery can handle this is less than 12 inches wide because i know it's gonna go in my planer and i know that i can cut it with my miter saw and i don't have to worry about dragging my table saw out so my planer will handle up to 13 and a half inches my miter saw will cut out to 12 inches i believe it might be a little bit more so i picked the size of this board so i know that i can cut the ends off of this with my with my miter saw and i don't have to pull my table saw out and i can run it through the planer and i don't have to hand sand the whole damn thing so just keep that kind of stuff in mind when you're getting ready to make something make it in the dimensions that your tools will handle or be prepared to have to like pull out your table saw or if you ever access your table saw you know like in this case i'd probably need a crosscut sled i don't have the best crosscut sled for this so just you know kind of keep in mind what you got when you build cool now we scrape the glue run it through the planer uh just we're gonna take off as little as possible we're gonna square the ends off and then we're gonna route the edges and then this baby's gonna be ready for a little oil okay so this has been sanded to 320 what i do is i sand it to 320 i get it wet to pop the grain and i'm going to sand it back to 240. however i did notice a couple of very small voids on the back one of them is i did nick one of the pieces of purple heart with a blade so that's that one uh the two ones that i'm a little bit more concerned about are on the edge right here so we're just gonna fill those a little bit of black ca glue if it was on the face of the board i might think about doing black epoxy or something like that but i just don't want this to start to separate over time so this may be my first cutting board but i did ask a good buddy of mine for some pointers his name is vincent ferrari i i'll put his instagram down here definitely go check out his instagram page if you're interested in a custom cutting board contact vincent he makes excellent cutting boards he also does jewelry he's one of the go-to guys when we're talking about cutting boards i once heard he made a cutting board that was like six foot long six inches thick and he made it entirely out of purple heart and tiger wood it took four people to pick it up and flip it over no lie no lie secondly i'm going to be using this wax by voltner woodworking uh it's my buddy matt uh go check out his instagram i'll put his instagram down here he's got a youtube channel too but i think he's more active on instagram but this is a wood preserver that is food safe i think he said it's like the two ingredients are just mineral oil and beeswax so not only could you rub it on your cutting board you could also just rub it on your wood all right let's get to work two hours later so what's up guys how we doing what do you think for my first cutting board do you like it i happen to love it a lot i actually like it better than i thought i would it's probably one of my favorite pieces to date it is more traditional and less experimental but i just like the way it turned out and honestly i've been trying to think back to think if i had any issues with this and i mean anything i had was really really minimal so like to me this is a very easy project too so i just i mean i love the way it looks it actually turned out exactly how i wanted it to but i was thinking what would be cool is to flip-flop these colors so to make the majority of it out of the wing or a darker wood and then have the bird's eye maple running through the smaller strips so i may try something like that in the future but this is a great gift idea this is some like people would consider this some expensive wood especially the purple heart and the wing guy i think i paid about 30 bucks for the three pieces of wood and i'm gonna make about three or four projects out of a combination of those pieces you look at that way it's about eight bucks worth of wood per project and actually this is probably about th this is probably a little bit more probably about ten dollars worth of wood but like i said be smart shop in the cutoff bins if you're making gifts you can fudge a little bit about what kind of wood it is you know i mean like pick up what is there if you have a client that's a little bit more difficult because they may want specific wood species but if you're making these as gifts or something to sell that's already pre-made just go shopping in the cut-offs then man it's a lot cheaper with that said my biggest takeaway from this is just make sure that your fence on your table saw is it exactly 90 degrees because even mine which is way better than my old table saw it it'll shift just a little bit and if it shifts just a little bit then those pieces aren't going to match up perfect so just check for 90 every time you adjust it speaking of checking for 90. i'd just like to say thank you to all my patrons out there guys i wouldn't be able to do what i do without your support it is greatly appreciated so cheers to you that tx straight bourbon it's no joke and a special thanks goes to our top tier patrons nick the greek stephen mann eric easy e weiss derek coates caveman ross chuck faulkner the weeknd diyer and michelle harris clinkies okay guys i don't want to take any more of your time i actually have another video to edit after this one so until next time i gotta get to work so not only could you rub it on your so not only could you rub it on your so not only could you rub it on your cutting board you could also just rub it on your wood\n"