Les Ateliers Bonzai

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Peek in cutting board making

So what goes in cutting board making ? Well pretty simple steps actually.  Here are few steps on how I make my small cutting boards 

The Glue Up 

In this small board, there are a few small pieces that comes into play.  The bigger pieces are Walnut and the smaller accents are bloodwood and Yellow heart.  I will typically use parallel clamps to get the glue up done.  If I can, I will put in clamps in the evening before going to sleep and leave it in the clamps over night

Dimensioning and Prep

Once everything has had time to dry out, it is time to dimension the cutting board and applying the edge treatment.  

Started by getting the board with perfect right angles to make it a rectangle and used both the track saw to do the cross cuts and then the table saw to get the second edge parallel.

Went on the routing table and applied chamfers to both the bottom and top, which are not the same dimensions, being bigger on the bottom edge.  These bevels don't have quite the same purpose. 

Mainly, the top one is mainly so that the cutting board does not have shop edge but the bottom one makes it easier to pick up from a flap surface.  

Finishing

Once the visit to the router table completed, time for some sanding through a few grits and making sure the are no dings or tear out.  I will typically sand up to 150 as I will oil the surface and want the mineral oil to penetrate somewhat on the surface of the board.

Once the sanding was finished, came time to really show and pop the grain.  I really like to use Oil based finish to pop up the grain like on cutting boards.  Really see the colour shine.