Cutting Board Crazy

I've been making several cutting boards lately. I finished four over the weekend and have a fifth ready for final sanding and oiling. Mostly I have just been doing a standard checker board pattern, but I did experiment a little on a maple and cherry board.

I finish the cutting boards with mineral oil.

Experimental cherry and maple cutting board before applying oil finish.

The one I still have to finish is made from maple and walnut. It maybe my new favorite.

I am running out of scraps so this maybe the last batch of cutting boards until I do some bigger projects and build the scrap pile back up. I've also been working on some Christmas gifts and will have to wait to post anything about those.

Finished gifts

The walnut box I was building for my grandma and the cherry and maple cutting board both turned out great.

The cutting board was a gift for my sister and she was very excited to get it. 

 I was really proud of of how the box I made for grandma turned out.

I have a feeling I am going to be making a lot of cutting boards as Christmas gets closer.

This is only about 3 weeks over due. I am going to try and get into a schedule of posting more often.  

Gift making

Saturday morning I managed to got a little shop time in and work on a few projects that are need to be finished up rather quickly.

The maple and cherry cutting board was ready to run the glue up through the planner, next I cut it into strips and reglued it in a end grain checker board pattern. Here is a picture of it out of the clamps and ready to sand and finish.

 I also worked on the box I am building for my grandma. I routed a grove in the sides to hold the bottom, and then after some trial and error I managed to make some acceptable miter joints on the corners. This is mainly a display piece, if it was something that would see extensive use I would add some splines to the miters to strengthen them.

 The piece I used for the bottom is a lot of sap wood but I wanted the to be made completely from wood that was grandpa's. If I add any ascent wood it will be from the few piece of wood I have harvested myself.

 I still have to cut the lid to size and add hinges. I will be working hard this week to have the box ready to give to Grandma this weekend at her birthday party.

Where did it go?

Where did it go?  What is "it"? It might be summer, time in general, or the tool you just had, but I end up asking myself "where did it go?" a lot.

I can't believe it's been about 2 weeks since my last post and the last time that I spent much time in the shop. I made an effort last night to get some shop time in. I have some time sensitive projects (gifts) that I need to get done before next weekend.

One of those projects is a box I am building for my Grandma's birthday. It will built from the walnut that she gave me and is being built to hold one of my Grandpa's Bibles. I had previously milled the boards two a thickness of 1/2". Last night I cut the pieces to the rough dimensions.

 The first cutting board I built ended up being a failure, it looked nice but I used the wrong type of glue and when it got wet on the counter some glue seeped out. I found I used the wrong glue part way through construction, but I went a head and finished it. It has now came back to the shop. I sanded all the areas that felt rough, then gave it a coat of boiled linseed oil, and have started to apply shellac. I think it will be come my cherry and walnut paper weight.

I have already started a new cutting board to replace the failed one. It just needs sanded and finished applied. This one is 9"x9" and is 1.25" thick.

Last night I started another cutting board this time made from Hard Maple and Cherry,

I finally got the cypress that I bought for my brother planned and delivered last weekend. I really liked the looks of it and want to build with some cypress in the future.

Walnut lap desk: milling parts-part 2

I have all the wood for the lap desk planed to the correct thickness now, and will be starting to cut pieces to size soon. 

This week I made another trip to the hardwood dealer and picked up 40 board feet of Maple for a Butcher's Block style island I am making. I am lookingforward to this project, there will be a lot of glue ups that will have to be done, so it should be interesting.

Buying glue by the gallon means things are getting serious.

here is the Maple.

Over the weekend my shop helper was wanting to make something so we dug through the box of small piece of hardwood (it's not scrap if it can still be used) and we found some pieces that would make a nice wooden mallet for her. It is made from oak and cherry and should hold up to what she can throw at it for now. Its not perfect, but she is happy with it. 

Walnut lap desk: milling parts

I've made mention in some recent blogs about a walnut lap desk I am building for my wife. The plans for it came from issue 202 of Woodsmith magazine. In the magazine they build it out of mahogany, I am going to build Jenny's from walnut so it will match the entertainment center I am planning to build. That is so the lap desk will look nice while sitting on a shelf in the entertainment center. Here are a few pictures from the magazine of what the desk will look like.

Last night I got the pieces that I re-sawed to 1/4" thick glued back up. I still have a to resaw a few more piece of 4/4 into two 3/8" pieces. I am hoping to start cutting parts to size this weekend.  I plan using a box joint instead of dove tails on the case construction.

Finished the Re-finish

Back in April I posted Quilt rack: clean up to finish I've been working on it between other things but I finally finished it. I found a stain that on pine matched the oak cabinets in my mom's kitchen according to sample display at lowes.  I did a few test on the back side and found that using a prestain conditioner match the oak cabinets.

Here is the before and after pictures. I will get a picture of it in use once my parents get the quilt rack hung up.

Overall the color looks alright but I am still not a fan of staining pine. There were areas where the stain hardly took at all. I gave it a coat of the garnet shellac I used on the knife block with hopes of darkening it up some. Then I gave it 3 more coats of clear shellac.  Mom was pleased with how it looks so that is what important.

I have also been working on the walnut lap desk.  So far I have the panel glued up for the top and bottom. I resawed the 4/4 board into 3/8" thick boards and have book matched the center section. I used a 1/8" spline along the edge glued boards. Here is the glue up, this is the top and bottom.