I ran across this design last year when I was investigating options for breadboards. I liked the laminated look and it was actually on my list to make but I ended up making a different variation of the laminated wood cutting board so this one stayed on the bench.

But it's a new season and while the starter was the Brick Breadboard, that was followed by an opportunity for last year's draft pick. The construction is conceptually a bit simpler than the previous laminated breadboard but turned out to be more difficult in practise; tricky glue-ups and several operations where it could have been (well, OK, was) messed up with a bit of inattention or imperfect execution.

The process was kicked off by making a full cutting board.







The end of this nice big plank of Maple would be enough for the 16x12" board.

This underwent the standard prepping operations; cutting off a suitable length and jointing one edge to get a flat reference face from which to work the following operations.

I was going to need the main faces to be flat since these become the edges which must fit together tightly. The jointer is used to get the first face flat but unfortunately the board was wider than my 6" jointer capacity so I started by cutting it into two smaller widths at a strategically-chosen spot.

The board will eventually be cut into 7 slices so I made this cut at the location of one of those slices.

Then those two pieces each had one face flattened on the jointer, followed by going through the planer to make the opposite face parallel to the first (and therefore also flat). To prevent snipe in the planer I fed through a pair of flanking boards that extended beyond the maple.

And then the two pieces were cut into 3 slices (for this one) and 4 slices (for the wider board).

These slices will ultimately be turned on their sides to make up the width of the cutting board.

This is the reassembled array of slices. Due to the bit missing on the top slice, I left that one out and used only the bottom six for the board, making it about 1/4" narrower than planned. The width wasn't particularly critical, so I didn't worry about that difference.

I set up a protruding board to use as a clamping area. That let me have access to three of the four sides for easier clamping (if it was done directly on the table there would be only one or two sides with easy access).

The setup includes a backboard against which to align the ends and I've set up the maple slices to be ready to have glue applied. Clamps and a largish square await in the background.

Having the pieces arranged together like this allowed me to spread glue on all the edges at once which is considerably faster than doing them individually.

Then each board was rotated onto its side and the glued face made contact with the neighbouring edge.

In this shot, the slices have been rotated, pushed against the backboard, had the squareness of the assembly checked and then received a hold-flat board (in the center) and side-to-side clamps to compress the joints while the glue sets.

I used waterproof Titebond III glue and the clamps come off after 30 minutes, although the glue isn't at full strength for around 24 hours.

When the glue was dry, the next step was to sand the cutting board to even out the surface (since the slices differed a bit in thickness). This also removes any excess glue.

Now the drum sander is the perfect tool for doing this, but it's pretty boring. You adjust the sanding height, set the board in at one end and then wait around for it to slooowwwlllyyy emerge from the other end. It actually takes under a minute to get through but it is best to sand off only small amounts each pass, so it takes a bunch of passes. See - even that explanation is boring, so imagine actually doing it.

Anyway, here's some slightly different photos. This one is me installing a fresh strip of 80 grit to the shiny sanding drum. The paper tapers at the ends and there are slots in the drum furnished with clips to hold those ends.

I normally store the sander under my main bench and then bring it out to the middle of the room for use. That means there's no dedicated dust collection pipe, but I have a long hose on the opposite wall so I bring that over and suspend it from a hook near the ceiling to keep it out from underfoot.

This totally candid photo shows me looking bored while waiting for the wood to come through.

This is the look after sanding.

The maple strips were arranged in the same order they were cut from the original plank but I rotated every second one to form three book-matched sections across the board, giving it a more-symmetric look.

So normally the cutting board would be almost done at this point. Just sand the edges and Bob's your uncle. But no, this was the easy part. At this point, you don't even know anyone named Robert.

The shape of the three curved inserts are defined by a single pattern. The different curves are shaped by offsetting and/or flipping the pattern.




I wanted MDF about 1/2" thick for the pattern and it had to be around 20" long. I had the right material but all the pieces were too short. So a bit of work with the router, some joinery biscuits and glue were employed to solve the length issue. Here a couple well-used scraps have been glued together to achieve the required length.

Then it was a fairly simple process to make the pattern; The required shape from a paper plan was traced onto the wood and it was cut to shape and sanded as shown here. Later I coated the edge with Cyanoacrylate glue to strengthen it and varnished the sides to provide better adhesion for the double-sided tape I use.

The assembly of the cutting board employs a few strips of each insert wood, thin enough that they can be bent to the designed curve.







I started out by smoothing and straightening the edge of a plank on the jointer, in this photo the Thermally Modified Poplar.

Then I cut off a single strip about 0.135" thick using the bandsaw. The new exposed edge of the plank was run through the jointer to smooth it again and then another strip was cut so that each strip had one smooth side and one rough side from the saw blade. These photos show the three types of wood being cut.

I cut an extra strip for each of the types of wood and this photo shows them all together, hot off the bandsaw.

Step one was to attach the pattern to the cutting board in the appropriate location.

I had marked both the pattern and the cutting board with the curve locations and used those marks to align the pattern properly (taking into account the router pattern-following bit offset as well). Double-sided tape was used to adhere the plan to the cutting board.

This shows the router pattern-following bit (AKA template guide).

The pattern rubs against the short brass collar, placing the bit a fixed distance from the edge of the pattern.

In this shot the cutting board/pattern has been flipped upside down so the pattern can contact the collar of the template guide. The slot being cut is visible on the left end of the cutting board.

The slot was started quite shallow on the first pass (perhaps 1/16") and then deepened with each of three or four subsequent passes. The slot needs to be only 0.2 to 0.25" deep.

The process is a bit nerve-wracking since pressure must be kept on the unseen and varying curve touching the template guide on every pass or the slot would be ruined. Fortunately, I managed to do all passes on all slots successfully.

It isn't very practical to try to cut all the way through the board with the router bit, so the slot is made just deep enough to guide a bearing on a flush-cutting bit.

So then the full-height cut is made using the bandsaw. This is done close to the edge of the slot if you have a steady hand and are brave or merely foolhardy (since the blade touching the side would ruin the slot). Or if you are more like me (not a very steady hand, plus cowardly but brilliant) then you cut in the middle of the slot.

Then on both halves of the now-separated board, the extra wood past the slot edge is removed using a flush-cutting bit on the router with the bearing riding on the edge of the slot.

The insert wood strips were cut intentionally thick so they could be smoothed and narrowed to the appropriate widths. For the 1/4" slot just formed, I planed two strips down to 0.125".

Here the strips are taped to the anti-snipe sled and are ready to go through the planer.

I cut a slot in a test board using the same bit that made the slot in the main board. Then I was able to check that the stacked-up pieces were the correct width to fill the slot.

In this case they ended up pretty close - maybe 0.002" to 0.003" narrow, but that should be close enough.

I planned to do the gluing on the Workmate, which allowed access to both long edges of the board.

The insert wood was made wider than the cutting board so it wouldn't need to be precisely positioned. That meant it extended above and below the board so here the two halves are sitting on thin plywood to provide room below for the insert.

The two pieces of maple have had glue applied and are being squeezed between the board halves with the help of the large clamp.

I added an MDF caul on each side to vertically allign the two halves of the board, plus a number of clamps to squeeze the board halves together.

Here's the board out of the clamps.

After trimming off the protruding ends of the insert wood, I used a spokeshave to reduce the strip height down to the level of the main board.

Evidently my clamping method for vertical alignment of the board halves was imperfect and consequently the two sides of the board were upwards of 1/16" different as can be seen here. I could have sanded that out but I also wasn't happy with the fairly visible joint between the two strips of maple forming the insert.

It looked like this strip was never going to pass the strict QA department requirements so I might as well just replace it now. The recovery plan was to cut out a wider slot in the same shape with this one at the center and refill with a correspondingly wider insert wood strip.

I also concluded that 1/8"-wide strips were probably too stiff so for this new 3/8" slot, I used four strips of 0.093" each.

Now let's all imagine together doing the new strip (since I didn't take any photos) which involved:
- taping on the pattern
- routing 3/8" slot centered on the existing strip
- cutting board in two through center of the slot
- routing edges flush with slot walls
- cutting new maple strips and planing to 0.093"
- gluing and stacking strips, inserting between halves and clamping
- trimming strips flush with board.

And that brings us to the point where this photo was taken. Not perfect, but better than before.

This shot shows the overall board with the (second) first insert in place.

Whew! Let's hope the second one is easier.





The second insert was supposed to be the 3/8" width but I'd used that recovering from the first slot debacle. So then this one became the 1/4" insert.

Here the pattern is attached to the board and it's against the brass template guide and ready to go for the first shallow routing pass.

These photos give a visual summary, pretty similar to the first go;

This slot was to receive the Purpleheart inserts. I planned to use three strips of 0.083" thickness to fill the 1/4" slot so I started running them through the planer.

And they emerged shattered. I decided I must have had the grain the wrong way around (the planer can be fussy) so I made a new batch and made sure the grain was correctly oriented. And the same thing happened.

So I decided to use an alternate planing method that didn't use the sled. A slippery piece of Melamine is taped to the planer base and the strip slid through on that. It was the method described by the author of the article on the board construction. I tried it with a piece of scrap and it seemed to work fine. But it wasn't Purpleheart which (foreshadowing) was a mistake.

This method needed extra length due to the anticipated sniping at the ends, so I glued a couple lengths of Purpleheart together as shown in this photo to get a longer blank. This was then sliced into thinner pieces as before.

With the Melamine in place, the strips were fed through which was OK for the first pass or two, but when they started to get thinner, they were shattered like the original couple tries. Clearly, the planer and thin Purpleheart don't get along.

The only good news was that the wood was ruined only at the ends and there was still enough intact center portion. So then it was on to the backup contingency fallback plan which was to use the much gentler (albiet slower) drum sander.

Fortunately that worked, and this photo shows the strips emerging from the sander after a few passes brought them to the correct thickness.

So then - finally - as before the strips were charged with glue, inserted between the board halves and clamped.

That came through OK, and here it is mounted on the Workmate in preparation for flattening the protruding insert strip.

The third insert was same old same old, summarized by these six photos. The insert wood was Thermally Modified Poplar (Poplar that has been heated which carmelizes the sugars and turns it much darker). The slot width was about 0.2" (my 3/16" bit must have been cutting wide) and was filled with three strips of 0.067" thickness each.

Levelling out the insert.

With all the inserts in place, it was time to level out the board. Once again the drum sander was used, with 80 grit for the main material removal and then 120 grit to start to remove the sanding marks.

This shows the board after drum sanding. The thinnest insert doesn't extend to the edges but the outline shaping will take care of that.

I was trying to steer clear of making exactly the same board as the one described in the article so I looked at alternatives to the outside shape. Most didn't look that great, but I ended up with this ellipticaly-curved-sides version that looked OK and was at least slightly different from the original. Shaping it followed the same procedure I had used for previous cutting boards.

The angled sanding produced this not-very-consistent faceted edge that "just" needed rounding.

The end grain sands very slowly compared to the side grain, so I spent 80% of the time on the ends. I started with this sanding block equipped with 120 grit and used it to round the faceted edges and then remove the significant scratches from the coarse belt sander used for the shaping.

The edges were sanded up to 320 grit.

The faces still had the scratches from the 120 grit drum sander so I smoothed things out a bit more using the random orbital sander, going up to 220 grit.

I was trying to steer clear of making exactly the same board as the one described in the article so I looked at alternatives to the little round slots that one used for side handles. And failed to come up with anything better. Fine, so I do the same handle slots.

For that I needed to use a beading bit as shown here; it cuts a horizontal round-profiled slot in the edge of the wood.

The end grain is pretty tough so cutting into it needs to be done in small depth increments, and good support of the board end is needed as it is slid along to form the slot.

Again I followed the article recommendation and made an MDF curve matched to the cutting board end to provide good support. This photo also shows scraps clamped on for end stops to define the width of the slot.

And with everything set up, it was just a matter of setting the fence for the cut depth, taking a swipe from stop to stop at each end of the board, and then repeating with a different fence setting (moved about 0.04 to 0.05" each time).

After a bit of sanding, one of the end handle slots looks like this.

That was it for the woodworking.

I used the Clapham's Beeswax Salad Bowl Finish (a mixture of beeswax and mineral oil) to finish the board. This was applied and polished later.

Done.