I’ve got plenty of outside work planned for this year getting ready for my pole barn, but I need to get a few more projects going so I have something to keep me busy on rainy days like this. Hopefully by starting a progress thread you all can help keep me motivated. I’m actually planning to make up a batch of cutting boards this weekend, but I had to start this project first. When I built my workbench last year, I enclosed the base with panels for an eventual drawer case. The face frame for the case is going to be black walnut, and the drawer faces will be curly English walnut. Both came from trees at my sister’s house that I chainsaw milled a couple years ago. I had to start on this project first because I was going to get into another black walnut slab for the cutting boards, and I wanted to reserve enough of the best and clearest stuff for this project.
Shawn Curry, you’re finished goods are always top notch, so seeing the progression of each project will be a special treat
The cutting boards are going to be this pattern again. I’m hoping to get 4 of them but I may only end up with enough for 3 out of this batch. One of them is going to my mechanic in payment for a new drivers side mirror for my truck. The other ones aren’t officially spoken for yet but I think they’re going to go fast... I made a video of my milling process. The pattern consists of 23 strips with 11 different thicknesses. In fact, 2 sets of them are required, the second one being the color inverse of the first.
Well it was actually a beautiful day again today, but I needed to get this project wrapped up before I move on to more firewood.
So the next step is gluing the sets of strips together to form the “first stage” blanks. Once these are cleaned up, they’d actually be pretty cool cutting boards in their own right; but they’ll be crosscut to form the end grain blocks, and then sawn into strips again to form the checker pattern. I made 4 of these blanks, each approx 24” long. My previous mental calculations were actually way off. I’ll end up with 6 finished cutting boards if I’m careful.
Are those cut to different lengths or do you stagger them? If they're staggered, why? Just curious.....
Yes they’re slightly different lengths. When I cut up the boards I used for the project, I just used a rough measurement somewhere north of 24”. If I can leave an inch or two extra length, sometimes that can get you out of a jam. For example if the end of a strip has a crack you didn’t see, or if the planer leaves a snipe, which happened with some of the thinner strips, I can just trim it off. My planer bottoms out at 1/2” and they dont recommend you run anything smaller than that. It’s for good reason too because any thinner than that, the piece isn’t stiff enough not to chatter on the way in and out of the machine, and that will leave a snipe if you’re not careful. I’ve actually had it eat entire strips on me. The really thin ones can’t have any knots or they won’t make it thru.
Thanks, enjoyed this esp. the vid. Your comfort level with your fingers near that band saw blade is much more than mine!
Here’s the next video in the series. Sorry there’s so many but I thought maybe a few of you would enjoy seeing the entire process.
