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Requirements for your cutting boards

​Your cutting board will need to:
  • be at least 6"-7" wide and 12" long.  
  • can not be larger than 10" wide and 14"long
  • your cutting board needs to made of birch.  No pine!
  • you may choose to added specialty wood but it will cost.  The price will vary depending on the type of wood you want to add and how wide the wood is.
  • your edges of your finished cutting board need to routered
  • your cutting board needs to have a juice/crumb groove on one side

General steps to making a Cutting board

​Step 1 - Get wood  

Find your short ends wood you would like to use.  All boards must be at least 12" long so they can be run through the jointer and planer.  

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Step 2

Get your boards checked by the instructor to make sure they all work for size and type of wood.  

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Step 3 - Rough cut on Compound Mitre saw

If needed cut your boards to rough length on the compound mitre saw.  About 1/2" longer than the finished length of your cutting board.  Do not cut any boards shorter than 12", they will be too short to cut on the jointer or planer.  

Step 4 - Jointer face side

On the Jointer, joint a face side on all your boards.  Check and make sure the fence on the jointer is 90 degrees to the infeed table before using the jointer.   Using a pencil, mark your jointed side with an x.

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Step 5 - Jointer face edge

On the Jointer, joint a face edge on all your boards. Using a pencil, mark your jointed side with an x.

  • If you are making an edge cutting board you will have to run your boards thought the planer.  They do not need to all be the same thickness.  Depending on the look of your cutting board, you might like pieces of wood to be difference thicknesses.  

  • If you are making an side cutting board, do not use the planner at this step.  You will plane your boards after they are glued together.

  • Not sure what an edge and side cutting board is?  Watch the first video.

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Step 6

Lay your boards out the way you would like them.  Mark the order so you know which boards go together.

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Step 7 - Dry clamp

Dry clamp your boards together.  This means NO GLUE.  Check and make sure all the boards pull together snug.  You do not want to see any gaps or shadows between your board, otherwise your wood pieces will not glue together and your cutting board will fall apart.

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Step 8 - Glue

Glue your cutting board together.  THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE IN STAGES.  Only glue together 4 pieces at a time.  When there is glue between the wood, the wood will slide all around and it makes it very hard to line up your pieces.  You can use two sets of clamps.  Glue up to 4 pieces in one set of clamps and glue up another 4 pieces in the other set of clamps.  Give the wood about 15-20 minutes to dry.  Then you can add more wood to these glued pieces or glue the two sets of glued wood together.

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Step 9 - Clean up wet Glue

Do not walk away from your drying glue.  Wipe off all the left-over glue with a wet paper towel and puddy knife.  This will save you a lot of time with a glue scraper tomorrow.  Trust me!  Wood can not go through the jointer or planer with dried glue, it will chip the blades on the machine!

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Step 10 - Clean off dried glue

Use a glue scraper to clean off the dried glue.  All the glue needs to be removed before it can be run through the planer.

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Step 11 - Plane Boards Flat

On the planer make one side flat.  Once you have set the machine up, only turn the cutting depth wheel 1/2 a turn until 1 side is flat.  If you cut too much off without a flat side, it can break your board at the glue lines.  Once this side is flat, flip over your board and run that side through the planer until if is flat.  Try to keep you board as thick as possible.

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Step 12 - Router rounded edge

Using the router to round over your edges.  You will be using the 1/8 round over router bit.  

  • cut the end grain of you board first, then side grain.  This is to prevent the router bit from chipping your wood.

 

Step 14 - Router juice groove

It is time to make the juice groove.  Please see Mrs. McCannon for assistance.

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Step 15 - Sand your cutting board. 

  • Start sanding at 80 grit (blue sandpaper).  Get out all the scratches, pencil lines or machine marks.

  • use 120 grit (red sandpaper).  Sand until scratches look smaller or almost gone.

  • Sand with 180 grit (green sandpaper)  

  • Sand with 220 grit (black sandpaper).  With this grit you want to make sure there is not scratches and that all surfaces are smooth.

  • Sand it with 320 grit (sandpaper side is black and the back of the sandpaper is yellow.)

  • Wet your cutting board and let it dry.  Now sand it again with 320 grit sandpaper.  

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