Sawdust on the Floor

No matter how simple or complicated a project is, one thing is a certainty, you will generate a lot of scrap lumber. If you’re like me, you have a bin someplace in your shop where you put those pieces that are really too long or wide to just throw away. The problem is that these scrap bins soon become an overflowing mess, that contains so many scraps that you couldn’t find anything in there, even if you wanted to. So a couple times a year I go thru the bin and reexamine what I have saved, often wondering why in the heck did I save that. During a recent purge, I found several pieces of walnut, along with some maple that I have no idea where it came from or what I used it for.

After considering several options, I decided to make a cutting board out of these scraps. So the first step was to clean up the lumber and see how much usable stock I really had. All of the lumber went across the jointer to square up two sides, then a trip thru the planer to make all of the stock the same thickness.

 When you dress your stock it is important to always use the jointer to square up. Start by running one side of your stock over the jointer, continue working this side until the side is flat. You will be able to hear when the wood is in contact with the knives, and when it’s not. When you hear that contact sound over the entire length then you’re ready to go to the next side. Always use push sticks or better yet, push pads, to move the stock over the knives.

When you have one side done, then its time to move to an adjacent side. Work this side the same way as the first, only this time, be sure that you keep the stock in contact with the fence. This will give you two flat surfaces, that are at a 90° angle to each other. Again remember to use the push sticks. It’s also a good idea to mark the sides that are dressed already with a simple pencil mark or better yet use a piece of chalk to mark the finished sides.

 Now it’s time to run the stock through the thickness planer. Just be sure not to run your stock with the finished edges up, or against the knives. These are already done and we don’t want to mess them up. I like to run all of the stock thru at the same time. Even though my planer has a stop for 1″, 3/4″, 1/2″ and so on, but the stops are not exact, and its impossible to ever guarantee that you come back to the exact same settings.

After all the stock was dressed and at the same thickness it was time for glue up. I choose to alternate the stock, with the maple stock on the outside edges. I chose this because the maple is denser then the walnut and not as susceptible to tear out as the walnut is. Tear out or splintering are important considerations when you are making anything that will come into contact with food or drink. You also don’t want to use a wood that has really open pores which will allow food and drink to penetrate into the wood.

Glue up is a simple process, the only hard part was to insure that the glue was not water soluble if the piece will ever come into contact with water. I choose to use a two part epoxy for the glue up that not only was somewhat water proof, but also had a long open or working time. After mixing the epoxy, I applied a liberal amount to both sides of the stock and then clamped it up. I prefer to use 3/4″ pipe clamps for this operation, as they don’t flex as easy as some o the bar clamps do. When I glue up stock I like to use alternating clamps, The first on the bottom of the glue up the next one on the top of the glue up. Alternating like this over the entire length. I find that this produces less of a chance of the glue up bowing or cupping, which can happen if all of the clamping force is on the same side of the glue up.

After sitting in the clamps for a couple of days, I cleaned off the squeeze out with a sharp chisel, and then ran the entire glue up through the thickness planner. When I was happy with this I turned to my random orbital sander to clean up the top and bottom of the cutting board. No one wants a cutting board with sharp edges, so I then rounded off the corners with my band saw which required that use of the random orbital sander again to clean up the corners. I followed this up with a quick pass over the shaper table that was equipped with a 1/2″ round over bit. This put a nice smooth edge all over the board.

The only thing left to do was seal the cutting board. Because the cutting board was going to come in contact with food, I couldn’t use any of my favorite finishes, such as stain or polyurethane. Both are toxic to humans. So I choose to borrow a finish that wood turners use to seal bowls and cups that they turn, Salad Bowl Finish. This is a wipe on finish that requires several layers to totally seal the project. Like most wipe on sealers, a light sanding is recommended between coats. Some older woodworkers I have talked to use, recommend that you seal the cutting board with vegetable oil, instead of the Salad Bowl finish, I would recommend staying away from the vegetable oils as a finish, over time vegetable oils can seep down into the cracks and joints of the project, where it can turn rancid.

 So now my scrap pile is a little smaller, and I have a useful project that really didn’t cost me anything but time. But really time spent in the shop isn’t really time is it?

Related posts:

1. Cutting Cove Molding on a Table Saw