A few weeks ago, we bought enough wood to make about 25 18″ x 12 ” x 2″ end grain beech cutting boards. While that doesn’t seem like much, in raw forms that’s about 1.25 cu yards of wood. We’ve got sick of tripping over the stuff it’s time to batch process them into cutting boards.
There are several steps to making end grain cutting boards:
- Joint plane and rip the component boards to the correct dimensions
- Glue the prepped boards together into a panel
- Rip the panels into strips of an even width
- Glue the strips together into a new board with exposed end grain
- Level the board — we use a drum sander for this
- Trim the board to size
- Sand and seal the board with a protective coating
Thus far, we’d been individually gluing the prototype boards we’ve made. It was time time to build a clamping frame so that we can batch process the glue-ups a couple of boards at a time. The camping frame is pretty simple. It’s essentially a bunch of pipe clamps that are embedded in 2x6s. It’s a simple tool, but it helps keep the clamps aligned and offers a flat surface the evenly distributes calming pressure.
Here are some pictures of getting our first batch of 6 end grain cutting boards. We haven’t completed steps 6 and 7. We still need to sand the boards so they are smooth, and give them a protective coating of mineral oil. Actually, it’s a mineral oil soak. This will happen tomorrow and the day after. Stay tuned.
