Woodworking: Making an End-grain Inlay Cutting Board

because we don't quite have one for every single room in the house I decided to make my wife yet another cutting board I really wanted this one to be a high quality and durable piece so I decided to make it a walnut and grain board and the slab a walnut that I had was sporting some dry rot so I figured I'd try to salvage as much material as I could and just work around it and then to jazz it up a bit I figured a contrasting inlay would look pretty sharp also I'll work in another neat feature into the bottom which I think will make using the board even easier well here we go let's get started after getting the chunk of slab cut off the first step was to flatten one side over on the jointer [Music] with that done I could then reference that edge on the table saw and begin to cut the slab into strips now with this piece being more than two inches thick I had to take several passes while raising the blade between cuts this was to avoid overheating the blade burning the wood or putting too much strain on the saw so as you can imagine this step took quite a while but as a wise man once said if things take a while to complete then it's probably because you're slow or something but eventually I got the slab broken down into all the strips next step was to take each one of those strips and flatten one of the rough sides a couple passes on the jointer and each one had a real smooth face then referencing that face I could rip each one down into the final strips that we'll use for the glue up so I was able to salvage quite a bit from that piece I think the only bits that I'm not going to be able to use are this end here and the halves of these two pieces I'll cut those off and I mean as far as waste goes it's just gonna be those and the little strips that I cut off the edge I'm pretty pleased with that now before I glue these guys up I'm sure to alternate the end grain directions so that there's a lot of variety in the pattern on the finished board and now I need to do the same thing but on a smaller scale for the inlay material I cut down some maple into small strips and glue that up as well once they are both dry and out of the clamps I could flatten each one by running them through the planer then using my crosscut sled I could clean up one edge of each of the panels I set my flip stop to the desired width and then start to cut each one of them down into strips [Music] our shootin for a finished thickness of about one and a half inches for the cutting board so I cut each of the walnut strips to about one in three quarters so this gave me about an eighth inch of material I can shave off on each side during the flattening stage now to glue up these end grain boards basically I took all the strip's and I just rotated them so the end grain was facing up then I took every other one and flip them and friend this staggers the end grain directions and gives more of an even pattern in the finished piece time for glue up I pull around a bunch of waterproof glue and then use my wife's favorite comb to spread it around with that done I can tip each piece up and then close them up in the claims and to keep all the strip's coplanar I add some calling boards to either side and clamp them down tight once everything is in place I tighten up the parallel clamps and leave things to dry overnight now I have it on good authority that if you put an end grain board through a planer that the world will explode so with that fun fact I chose to use my CNC to flatten the bottom after that I could flip it over and then carve in the mortise for the inlay and then I could cut out all the maple pieces that'll fit into those areas since I didn't want to mess with cleaning off tabs for my inlay pieces I chose to resaw the panel on the bandsaw to cut them loose I gave each piece a little shave and haircut and then test fit it into place then when I gained enough courage I was ready to glue him in I brushed on some glue around the edges of each piece as well as around the bottoms and sides of the matching mortise I dropped in the inlay gently worked it down into position and then pressed firmly to make sure it was fully seated now since this isn't a v-bit inlay it's important to get enough glue around the perimeter of each piece so that the tolerance is completely filled and now with the unlit pieces set and dry I could go back to the CNC and flatten the top [Music] vacuuming up the man glitter and now I could just clean up the edges over at the table saw and square up the board [Music] so I thought it would be kind of neat to carve out a recess into the bottom of the board to allow for a plate to be inserted partway this will make it easier to transfer food without it winding up all over the counter because I don't know what I'm doing and I shouldn't be in the kitchen anyway so to do that I drew a circle and then made a portion of it invisible so that the C&C wouldn't try to carve it and then the last bit I did on the CNC was to put a short engraving on the back along with my logo using the router I put a chamfer around the board and then with a speed square I could brace the piece upright so that I could get the corners to I stepped up through all the sanding grits from ad all the way up to 220 and then used a sanding block to get all the chamfers raise the grain by wetting the board and then sanded it all again to get it perfectly smooth now it was time to add some finish for that I'm just using an oil and wax conditioner this helps the board be water resistant prevents it from drying out and will even help repair some knife marks in the wood the last step was to put on some non-slip rubber feet on to the bottom I measure and mark where each one needs to go drill out some pilot holes and then screw them into place and here it is man it just turned out gorgeous I just love how the end grain pattern looks the inlay turned out perfectly and the engraving on the back adds a personal touch and the recess for the plate on the bottom turned out to be a pretty cool idea - huh apparently for dinner tonight there's gonna be two fun guys I'd invite you all over but I'd probably take up to mushroom thanks for watching well that's not even remotely close do I not know how to measure Center oh I'm an inch off you idiot so I cut up some of these pieces for the cutting board and then I took every other one and then flipped them and I began to notice hey some of these pieces appear to be darker than the other ones and I thought well what is causing that but then when I walk over here to the other side I noticed hey what the heck they all switched so keep your eye on say like this one right here this one here appears to be darker than the ones on either side of it but as we walk across here to the other side you can see that it switches and now it's the lighter color one in between these two dark ones now what's going on here is the Uyen see of the wood so on a microscopic level all of these end grain fibers tend to bend over depending on the direction that they are pushed through the table saw blade so then once you alternate them they tend to reflect the light a little bit differently so some of the rows appear darker than the lighter ones I thought that was kind of neat now unfortunately once I sand all this down and fill it with oil and wax all that's gonna disappear but as for now it's kind of a neat little effect you

Channel: Fisher's Shop

Views: 341,320

Keywords: woodworking, hobby, diy, x-carve projects, x carve, x carve projects, oddly satisfying, satisfying video, cutting board, end grain cutting board, cnc machine, end grain, how to make a cutting board, wood grain, making cutting boards, cutting board with inlay, how to make an end grain cutting board, inlay cutting board, woodworking for beginners, woodworking ideas, home decorating ideas, do it yourself, how to, woodworking projects, diy cutting board, making a cutting board

Id: sLrROQBjvAE

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2019