End grain chopping boards

[whittler1507]

As Christmas is almost on us I tried my hand at making some gifts, a carving and a couple of end grain chopping boards for presents

A maple and walnut and one thick walnut. Am quite chuffed with them considering its my first go. I downloaded the plans from mom wood website

Downloaded the duck template from lsirish.com if anyone wanted to have a stab, am no way near finished with it yet but generally happy with it so far for a first attempt.

 

[SVB]

Nice work. Love the plain walnut board. How did you do the flattening?

S

 

[Racers]

Nice boards and the carving is looking good.

Pete

 

[bugbear]

What does the thick board weigh? It looks massive!

BugBear

 

[whittler1507]

The walnut board weighs in at 8 1/4 lb and is 400 x 275mm. So it's not that bad. I rough flattened everything with my scrub plane (an old Stanley 4/12) before cross cutting. The trick though is to try and glue everything flush. Flattening the end grain was done with my sander as it was too big to run through my planer. This was surprisingly quick to get it flat, then sanded up to 320 grit.

The maple board is small and I was able to run it through my planer using a sled.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I like that walnut board. Lovely wood. I guess this could be a good way to rescue some use for walnut that has been cut into discs ?

I think thick and heavy is good. My beech end-grain carving board tends to cup when you place a hot joint on it; thicker would surely help.

 

[whittler1507]

The walnut board is 58mm thick and has been used to chop up some pork joints, surprisingly it's hardly marked it. It could be down to the finish which was beeswax and mineral oil.