How It's Made - Optical Illusion End Grain Cutting Board

hey what's up it's ryan welcome back to another video this week i'm going to show you how i take these chunks of hardwood turn them into this massive cutting board and i'm going to blow a little bit of sawdust at the camera in an attempt to create a cool intro which is a part of my videos i'm still figuring out first things first i want to give credit where credit is due this is not my original design that belongs to this gentleman right here and it's through his website that i purchased the plan a few years ago and built my very first one of these which i built out of some scrap softwood i had kicking around in the event that i messed something up i wasn't out some costly hardwood then i did use some hardwood where i did mess something up i my estimate was off which is why there's oak and hickory in there but after a couple trial runs i got things figured out and i've been building and selling these ever since and recently i thought to myself i wonder if i could stretch this pattern out you know scale it up in size and if so what would that size be the original plan calls for a 13 by 13 inch and so i took a look at the cut list a little bit of math added to it and i arrived at an 18 by 21 inch and here is how i put that thing together so i start by cutting the lumber into rough length pieces on the miter saw which for me is a 12 inch bosch equipped with 80 tooth diablo finishing blade and one thing you want to be aware of when you're cutting a big lumber like this on the miter saw is that sometimes oftentimes the wood can have a bow or a twist in the middle of it and not sit perfectly flat on your saw table and as you go to cut through it the wood on either side of the blade will actually fall in towards the blade causing it to bind and possibly kick back on you which if you've ever had happen is a very scary situation and can be potentially a very dangerous one so as you're cutting through these big chunks of wood just take it nice and easy and if you meet any resistance just slow down back off readjust and just keep working your way through the cut after all it's just rough cut lumber doesn't have to be too pretty we're just getting it down to approximate size so typically the next step is you would take your lumber to the jointer to surface one edge and one face on it and start the squaring up process but as you can see here my jointer is just a little undersized for this particular operation i could cut it up on the bandsaw down to six inches so it fits in the jointer but that would just be a wasted material so i'm going to actually wheel it on down to the planer where i have built myself a planer sled which is a pretty basic shop jig that turns your planer into a jointer i made this one out of a couple pieces of mdf glued and screwed together with a piece of cherry as the stop block on the back i use a shim and a hot glue gun to secure the piece down scribble some pencil marks on it so i know how much material is coming off and then just feed it through the planer as much as needed to make it flat then once i have a flat face on that board i take it off the sled scrape off any residual glue and throw the next board on and i just repeat the process for all the boards ultimately resulting in one flat face per board in the past i have not used a planar sled and just sent the pieces straight through the planer and that works okay until you get to the table saw and realize that your pieces are not actually perfectly flat because the blade is binding so this is definitely worth the extra 20 minutes it takes to perfectly flatten your pieces then once i have a flat face on each of the boards it's as simple as flipping them all over and feeding them all to the planer to surface the other side i keep them all the same thickness here too so i'll lower the planer send all the pieces through then lower it again and then repeat as needed then when i'm finished using my planer as a jointer i can head back to my actual jointer and now that i've got a couple flat faces on either sides of these boards i can just ride those faces along the fence of my jointer and dress up a third edge on each of these boards and once i have that edge all dressed up i head back over to my table saw where i'm gonna finish up the milling process so i get my blade all sided in there and typically after the jointer you only have one edge left to square up my jointer doesn't leave the nicest edge on the boards so i'm going to actually run both sides of each board through the table saw and then that way i have a perfectly flat perfectly square board and i don't have to keep track of which edge goes against the fence and which edge i'm going to run through the blade if you're not familiar with that yellow push block in my hand that is an awesome little table saw accessory made by a company called micro jig and it is called a gripper 3d push block and as you can see it replaces a traditional push stick and grips the work piece as you feed it through the table saw and again if you're not familiar with this little tool i'm about to use it a whole bunch so you can get a real good chance to see it in action and just see how truly valuable it is when you're building a cutting board that looks like this one does with the milling process all wrapped up i can go to my first cut list and just start ripping strips normally i'm a feet and inches kind of guy but precision is pretty important on this particular pattern so i do everything in millimeters and as everything comes out of the back of the saw i label it up and get it crossed off the list that just helps me keep track of what's been cut and what hasn't that way i don't end up cutting too few or too many strips or second guessing my tape measure when i'm trying to measure something to the exact millimeter that i forgot to label and then the other little tip here would be when you set your fence to a measurement make sure you cut all the pieces needed of that measurement before adjusting your fence to the next measurement that just ensures maximum accuracy and that all the strips that need to be the same are the same by the way the blade that i use in my table saw to do all my rip cuts is a freud 30 tooth glue line rip blade and i absolutely love this blade this thing is virtually indestructible i have ran thousands and thousands of linear feet of hardwood through it and to this day it is still leaving a flawless glue line finish so i guess it's really living up to its name and i've got links to that blade that push block and pretty much everything else you see me using in this video in my description below and those links will take you through to my amazon store so if you decide you want to buy something that you see me using in this video and you click through those links i actually earn a small commission based off your purchase and i'll be totally honest with you as a guy who recently left his full-time day job behind and decided to do this for a living i can't tell you how much i appreciate your support with that being said all the milling is done all the ripping is done and it's time to assemble all those strips into two opposing panels that are basically color negatives of each other so the first one here i start with maple on the outside and that pencil line is for glue up purposes it'll keep everything aligned while i do the glue up and then i go ahead and assemble the second pattern on top and there you can really see exactly what i mean by color negative then once i have both panels assembled and ready for glue up i wheel them on over to my glue up corner and now is a really good time to do a double take and make sure every single strip is exactly where it needs to be within those panels now keep in mind that these panels are 21 inches wide so unless you're lucky enough to have a 24 inch planer we're gonna have to break these panels up into a couple glue ups we've got two full panels here gonna end up being four glue ups total and i have a 13 inch planer so i gotta keep these panels under 13 inches and that's where i've established i'm gonna put my seam so the key to any good glue up is to have your glue ready to go have your roller ready to go have your clamps ready to go have any calls ready to go and just have a plan of action before you dive into it and these ones are relatively easy these first couple glue ups and i definitely do not skimp on the glue i glue both sides of the strips and i'm aiming for just a good solid squeeze out i have skimped on the glue in the past and there's nothing worse than coming back the next morning only to find some gaps in your glue up so i'd rather a couple dollars of glue squeeze out onto the table then come back and have to deal with a seam that didn't close up fully and that is about the heaviest glue up i have taken off this table that thing almost took me out so you'll notice that although we're gluing up four different panels we're only doing it in two glue ups and a couple reasons for that is first it's just less work and the second reason is that seam that we're not gluing up in this one we're gonna be gluing up in the next glue up when we join this into one large panel and we need that seam to be as straight as possible and gluing it up back to back ensures that it is as straight as possible and then what i'm doing here is about an hour after glue up i dismantle it i take everything off the calls the strips of poly and i give it a good scraping and the glue is still fresh enough that i can scrape the excess away and then that just makes for a little neater glue up and then when the time comes to send these panels to the planer it's just going to be that much easier and a little less wear and tear on the planer knives and i'll be totally honest with you this is just one of those weird jobs that's oddly satisfying and so i jump at any opportunity i get to do it then once i get them all scraped and cleaned up i put the calls and the clamps back on and just to hold everything rigid while the glue fully sets up and i let these sit for a solid 24 hours before i touch them again and just like that it's been 24 hours i strip all the calls and the clamps off the first panel and i break it apart at the seam and thankfully it breaks apart i've had it before where i've gotten a couple dabs of glue stuck in there and i got to kind of break out the hammer and chisel and then i label them so that i don't get them mixed up with the next set of panels that i'm about to take apart and i labeled the end grain because we are going to send these to the planer shortly and if i label the top of the panels it's just going to get planed off and then we're going to have a problem and that's not really the biggest problem to have it's only four simple panels you could figure out how they go back together without too much effort but i've got such a simple mind that if i can label things to eliminate any sort of confusion i'm absolutely gonna do that and then back at the planer it's the same deal as before i set the planer to the height i need to start taking material off and then i send all the panels through at that height before i lower the planer i keep these all the same thickness and of course i just want to take off enough that they are all flat and that first seam goes together beautifully and the second seam not as tight as i would like it so i stand them up on edge just to have a look at what's causing that and there's a little bit of crud left over from the glue up a little bit of crud on the walnut there as well and so what i'm going to do in attempts to get rid of that is just take some 120 grit sandpaper and lightly sand those areas and of course you want to be careful while doing this because you can start to contour the material and actually cause yourself gaps in other areas we want to just get it nice and flat and so there we go nice and tight once i'm happy with how my seams are coming together i am good to commence the next glue up where i joined the two panels into one one thing to pay attention to here is how i put my bar clamps on this glue up and i'm not saying that because it's an example of what to do i'm saying this because it's an example of what not to do i put my clamps just on the top of the glue up when i should be applying clamps to both the top and the bottom and i'm going to show you here in just a minute or two why that is it's the same deal as before about an hour after the initial glue up i throw it back on the table strip everything off of it to get at that glue seam and clean that up once i have the seam all cleaned up i throw the calls and the clamps back on again take note of how i'm applying the bar clamps i'm putting all of them on one side of the board and that's just not the best clamping practice that's going to apply uneven pressure while the glue sets up and one would assume that the calls would keep everything nice and flat regardless of how many clamps are on what side of the board but to be honest i crank my pipe clamps about as tight as i possibly can and with three of them on one side of the board it's definitely exerting a little more pressure than the calls can fight against once everything's all back in the clamps though i let it sit for another 24 hours and 24 hours later so i don't have a drum sander and that would be the ideal tool to run these panels through to knock down that seam and ensure they're perfectly flat so the way that i do it is i use my four inch belt sander with 80 grit sandpaper in it and naturally you want to be pretty careful if you use this particular method a belt sander can do a ton of damage in a short amount of time you'll notice that i'm not just going back and forth over my glue seam if i did that i would just dig myself a trench in the middle of my panel and that would be absolutely terrible every time i go over that glue seam i kind of take off a microscopic layer of the rest of the panel to keep everything as flat as possible once i have the panels flattened it's time to square up one end on each panel and to be honest these are just way too big to run through my table saw to do so hence i use the framing square method draw a nice straight line on it and take it over to my band saw and it doesn't have to be the absolute most perfect cut because i'm going to take these over to my jointer afterwards to make that and nice and flush now what i'm about to do might be considered a little unorthodox but i find this to be the best way available to me with the tools that i have to flush up this end and get it ready for cross cutting the thing you want to be careful about is not blowing out the grain on the end there which is why i clamped the sacrificial block on the back side and i take very light passes and slow it right down when i'm passing the end of the board over the cutter head [Music] now remember earlier when i asked you to take note of how i was putting my bar clamps on my glue ups all on the same side i think this is a pretty common side effect of doing that you put all the clamping pressure on one side and you end up with a bowed panel and in this case over 21 inches i am bowed about an eighth of an inch in the middle and this isn't the end of the world by any means i mean certainly i was annoyed with myself for making this error but when something like this happens in the shop and these things do happen you just got to stand back and ask yourself is there anything i can do about it right now and if there is great do that thing and if there isn't then you just got to keep moving forward and so that's exactly what i did i started cross cutting the panels into the end grain strips and this is the part of the project where i get to determine how thick i want to make this board and since it's a pretty massive board at 18 by 21 inches i want to make sure that it's a full two inches thick and i also want to account for how much is going to come off when i flatten this thing with the router and so i'm actually cutting these strips at two and a quarter inches wide and in case you're wondering where that fancy push block that i was bragging about so much earlier is in this scene all i'm going to say is i had an incident where i was not using it properly and i broke a piece on it nothing wrong with the tool tool's awesome it was the user that was the problem and once again you notice me labeling all my strips it's absolutely not critical to do at this point in the project sometimes i label them and sometimes i mix them up this particular time around i'm going to try and keep the wood grain as close together and as consistent as possible and then i just go to town ripping end grain strips the cutlass that i'm working off of will make an appearance here shortly and i've swapped out my glue line rip blade for a 92 diablo fine finish blade which i find leaves just a really nice finish really nice glue up edge on these strips now keep in mind these strips are two and a quarter inches tall so i really am making this particular table saw earn its keep another way you could do this is if you had a band saw and a drum sander you could cut them a little bit oversized and then jump send them down to final thickness and i think that works pretty well but again i'm working with what i got and i've got this table saw and it does not a bad job at all [Music] and then on to the final pattern assembly and this is the part i look forward to every time i put this pattern together because it's here i get to see how precise i was with everything i did before this how well do the corners actually line up with each other and because those two panels had a bit of a bow in them things are going to be off just a little bit and so here i'm just kind of tweaking things to line them up as best i can couple pencil lines for the glue up which is right around the corner and i'm not going to talk through it so enjoy the show i'll catch you on the other side [Music] [Music] so would now be a good time to ask you to subscribe to this channel and hit that like button that honestly is i think the most stressful glue up that i can ever remember doing and man is it ever a good feeling when it's all said and done it is nothing but smooth sailing from here usual treatment with the glue up about an hour later strip everything off of it and give both sides a really good scraping and clean it up as best as i can i think it's pretty safe to say that this is the least glamorous part of this entire process when you look at this it's kind of hard to picture it turning into the polished board that we saw at the beginning of the video and i get the calls and the clamps back on one last time and i'm gonna let it sit like this for 24 hours at which point i'm going to strip everything off of it and let it sit for another 48 hours just to let it breathe let the glue fully dry let it assume the shape that it's going to assume before i get it into this router sled and this is definitely one of my favorite parts of the process just like scraping the glue this is a really satisfying part you get to take a big crusty glued up board and hit it with a sharp metal router bit and just watch it clean up really nice and once i got one side done i flip it over and sit it right on its flat face secure it down with a couple dabs of hot glue and go at it one more time with the router and we're left with a pretty rough finish from the router sled and i think that's just the nature of end grain the router bit grabs those vertical wood fibers and sometimes just yanks them out of the board so there's gonna be a little bit of sanding involved here a drum sander again would be ideal just a few passes through there would probably make pretty quick work of this but again since i don't have one of those i'm going to have to use my belt sander and i got 60 grit in that thing right now and it makes pretty quick work of something like this the key is to keep moving you don't ever want to hover in one spot and again picture taking microscopic layers off the entire surface you want to knock the surface down as evenly and as consistently as you possibly can and after a few minutes on each side with the belt sander we are left with a much nicer looking finish with the first initial sand done i head over to my table saw to show you how i'm not going to be able to square up the edges on this massive board i have been thinking about building an infeed extension table for my table saw but that's as far as i've gotten thinking about it so i go back to the method that does work for me and that's drawing a couple square lines on the sides and taking it over to my band saw and real quick before i take it over to the bandsaw i take a couple measurements just to make sure the lines i drew on there are parallel with each other and a couple diagonal measurements to make sure that the board is going to end up square after i trim those edges off here and once i'm done the final trimming at the bandsaw a quick visit to the jointer just to clean up the marks left by the bandsaw blade and heading into the final stages of this build i'm gonna sand this thing up to 400 grit being end grain you want to go to a pretty high grit i'd say 320 is absolute minimum if it's edge grain you can get away with 180 or 220 but you'll notice with an end grain board after you go to wash it for the first time if you've only sanded the 180 or 220 it's gonna feel pretty rough so i like to polish these things right up and i usually just ease my edges with a little bit of hand sanding but this time around i put an edge profile on it with a small chamfer bit in my palm router a little bit of tear out there but nothing that a little bit of sanding won't take care of and after 80 grit i start raising the grain in between each grit and i do this just with a spray bottle and some water and what this does is it lifts the wood fibers up which you then knock back down with your sander and doing this just results in a much smoother finish on the end product and the reason behind scribbling the pencil line on the surface is to ensure you get a nice consistent sand and you don't miss a spot so i know once i've sanded the entire pencil marks off i am good to move on to the next grit and then you just keep going through that process spritz scribble sand repeat and i do hand sand the chamfer through all the grits as well and i use 180 to break all the remaining edges and corners and once i've got it all sanded up to 400 i break out my compressor and blow gun and i just blow off any residual sawdust left behind from sanding and with that there is nothing left to do but to watch this thing come to life [Music] i let the oil sit on the surface for about 20 minutes to half an hour before wiping off any excess or if it all soaks in i'll actually add more oil to the surface and then i let the whole thing air out dry out for 24 hours before applying the wax and i think applying a beeswax on an engrained cutting board is an absolutely necessary step first of all it shines it up real nice but most importantly it adds a protective layer that water just repels off of with the bottom of the board all waxed up before i flip it over i install the feet and i do that with this little jig i have i've got a couple different sizes of those depending on the sizes of the boards that i make and then i go ahead and use the stainless steel screws to attach the feet sometimes i use a drill to do this and sometimes i do it by hand now that i've got the feet attached i can get my little painters pyramids out of there flip it over rest it on its feet and the last thing to do is apply wax to the top of the board that little applicator i'm using makes it really easy to massage and work the wax into the wood fibers and then i just let it sit for about 20 minutes to half an hour before wiping off the excess and well there we have it it is all finished up thank you so much for watching i hope you got some value out of this and if you did please share it with a friend and if you're curious about other boards that i build feel free to hop over to my website and check out all the pictures i got over there and that's it until next week so so long take care [Music] you

Channel: Ryan Hawkins

Views: 1,264,649

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Id: S7qLC-lUwHI

Length: 25min 0sec (1500 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 18 2021