The charcuterie board that had been spied in the magazine (or a similar-looking version) seemed to be available from Amazon. That version was inevitably constructed out of the boring but ubiquitous Acacia wood and made by a no-doubt-Chinese company called "Xilazab". That's not exactly a household name in these parts, but I'm sure they are all very nice people; at least the information on their product helped me nail down the dimensions.

The main feature of this board is that it consisted of three separate pieces that could be clicked together with magnets. But what the feature list failed to mention was that the magnetic connection wouldn't actually be strong enough to pick up any attached pieces. That "feature" seemed like a disaster* waiting to happen so on this one I included some small metal rods to provide the needed strength. I chose what is probably my favorite wood and made it from Cherry.

*for a food-spilled-on-the-floor level of "disaster" anyway.

It might have been nice to make the charcuterie board out of a single plank but with a 12" width there was little hope of that. Instead I set my sights on a 6"-wide plank which would let me use a 2-board lamination.

The "good" Cherry at Windsor didn't include a plank that was quite 6" wide so I looked at the Cherry "shorts" and managed to find this rather decent specimen that was 7.2" wide. The shorts are generally of iffy quality - big knots, warps, cracks, etc. but this particular plank was quite nice. Plus the shorts are less than half the cost per board-foot compared to the regular Cherry so my inner frugal spirit was delighted.

I spent some time determining where best to cut and laminate the two lengths for the 12"-wide center portion to get a nice grain pattern. I found a way to get an almost-symmetrical match by cutting the edges at slight angles and in this photo I'm marking the cut line on the longer piece.

The plank was cut up with my SOP; radial arm saw for the length and band saw for the width. In this case I hand-held the band saw cut to get it close to the shallow angle of the marked line and then ran the somewhat wavy edge over the jointer to straighten it out and bring it to the marked line.

The grain match looked fairly decent in the test positioning.

With just two sections of planks, it was a pretty simple glue-up and in this shot I'm spreading the glue evenly on an edge before clamping the pieces together.

Once the glue was dry and the composite piece was planed and cut to exact size it was ready to be shaped.

It needed a lip around the edge and that was formed by routing away an 0.2 inch-deep cavity from the top side.

The center piece is the easiest of the three since it just needed stops on the router table to limit the routed area.

Unfortunately, when the routing was done the piece had developed a noticeable warp.

I didn't really want to start over and make a new piece because why wouldn't it just do the same thing? I'd probably need to fix this one somehow. My initial approach of swearing at the board seemed to have little measurable effect on the actual warpage so I figured I'd need to try something more permanent.

So the next thing I tried was making some "relief" cuts in the bottom. The board was not relieved. Then in desperation I made twice as many cuts as shown here and the effect was twice as large as before (i.e still zero).

Eventually I thought I'd see if I could just remove the curvey bits to leave a flat piece and hope I had enough good karma stored up that it would remain flat.

I flattened the bottom curve with the planer as shown here and then used the drum sander on the top-side edges. Those measures effectively removed the surface warpage and fortunately the flatness remained stable.

I then re-planed the two end pieces the 1/16" or so needed to match the reduced thickness of the center piece.

The central piece had been de-warped but that was really only the outside profile since the floor of the cutaway section still retained some of the warp. I set up the router again and re-routed the floor flat but I messed up on the stops and cut into the edges in a couple places. AARGGH! These photos show that screw-up being...unscrewed? Anyway I cut right through the lip to make consistent straight edges and then glued in tight-fitting pieces of wood with similar grain patterns. Once the glue was dry, the inside edges were routed round again and the outside parts sanded smooth.

The top-side cutouts of the end pieces have two cavities and most of the edges are curved. The best way to approach that routing task is using a pattern. I grabbed a piece of half-inch MDF and marked the pattern on one side, being sure to enlarge it to take into account the geometry of the router bit and guide.

The pattern needs to be as perfect as you want the routed piece to be so it takes some effort ("a lot of fiddly-diddling" as my mother would say) to get it to that state. The photos below show the construction of the pattern.

When it was completed, the pattern was connected to one of the blanks for the end pieces using double-sided tape. In this shot I'm removing the tape backing from the dozen or so tape patches.

The pattern was carefully aligned with guide marks on the Cherry blank and stuck in place. Here it's ready to hit the router table.

While you can't actually tell from this photo, the blank is getting routed as it is moved around over the bit, guided by the pattern.

I wanted rounded inside corners for the cavities which was achieved by using a 1/4"-diameter bull-nose bit as shown here. The pattern rides against the small brass collar around the bit, keeping the bit a specific distance from the inside edge of the pattern. I started by cutting just the perimeter of the two openings in the blank, starting with a shallow cut and gradually increasing the bit height until the proper depth was achieved.

Once the perimeter was cut, I switched to a straight bit to clear out the central area. The thicker collar around the bit keeps it from cutting into the nicely rounded corners made in the previous stage.

Then all the pieces needed the floor and edges sanded to remove the tooling marks from the router bit.

The plan was to round the inside edges to a 1/8" radius. This was done in two stages; the first shown here where a small chisel was used to make an approximate curve, followed by sanding to round things off.

The edges of the pieces needed holes for the support pins and magnets. These were formed on the drill press using the cross-vise for accurate positioning.

I had kept the corners of the end pieces intact for easy handling but with the woodworking done, they could come off. I used the small bandsaw to cut the curve and then sanded the edges smooth.

The semi-circular end pieces will have magnets embedded in them but the center square piece will just have matching metal slugs.

My local hardware store didn't have any 1/4" rod for the slugs so I just used the long shaft of a 1/4" bolt. These were cut to a length of about 3/16" using a cutting wheel on the dremel and then the ends were sanded to clean them up.

The cut ends of the slugs were initially smoothed using the grinder but that left a rather crude finish. I made a jig to hold the slugs straight and then used that to first sand and then polish the end using a honing-compound-coated leather belt as shown in this shot.

I didn't worry about trying to get a mirror finish but at least the visible ends looked presentable.

This shows the four polished-up stainless steel support pins plus a small platoon of not-yet-polished metal slugs.

All the pieces received a final round of hand sanding up to 320 grit to remove any remaining scratches or scuffs and to break the sharp corners.

And that was it for the woodworking.

The ends had matching blind holes for the support pins and the magnets or slugs.

After some consideration I decided to delay installation of the metal bits until after finishing.

This shot shows the start of the varnishing. The board pieces received my favourite finish, consisting of three coats of Minwax Fast-Dry Polyurethane in satin finish.

All pieces wet with the first coat of varnish.

When the finishing was done, the magnets and slugs were epoxied into place. The center piece received the steel slugs like the one being inserted here while the end pieces received 1/4"-diameter rare-earth magnets in locations matching the slugs.

Here's the completed board set in the long configuration.

The heart configuration.

The top edge of the center piece has the same slugs and holes as the right-hand side so the right-side end piece can be moved to the top to form the heart.

And the separate configuration.

I managed to remember to arrange the polarization of the magnets so that the end pieces would stick together.

This shot shows the alignment of the magnets and slugs.

The open holes accommodate the small stainless-steel pins which slide into place to provide support between the pieces.