The end-grain cutting board is an age-old rite of passage for any woodworker. Jen and I decided to take the plunge together so down the rabbit hole we went.
End-grain cutting boards are at the apex of the cutting board world for three reasons… 1) They are very attractive looking, 2) They are much easier on blades (i.e., your knives stay sharper longer) and 3) They represent a step-up in both skill level and time to create.
We started by collecting wood from all over our shop and dimensioning it into several groupings of sizes. You can see in the photos the beginnings of the process and the amount of lumber needed. These particular cutting boards contain 11 different types of local wood:
| Walnut (KCMO) | Sycamore (KCMO) |
| White Oak (Lecompton) | Hickory (Olathe) |
| Mulberry (Our Farm) | Ash (Gardner) |
| Hackberry (Our Farm) | Sweet Gum (KCMO) |
| Honey Locust (Lawrence) | Elm (Raytown) |
| Maple (reclaimed lumber) |
The next step is to begin the first of many glue-ups. The first glue-up is edge-grain up based on similar widths. Once this is complete the boards must be sanded to a uniform thickness and trimmed to a common length.
The pieces are then sliced into the desired thickness of the target board, rotated 90 degrees and glued-up again.
Now begins the onerous task of sanding… then sanding again… and lastly sanding some more. End grain is notoriously hard to sand and this is the part of the project where we started questioning why we ever started down this path. Luckily, a little mineral oil and all the pain floated away revealing cutting boards with an amazing patterns and colors.
