Cutting Board ???

[movnup]

I was thinking of making some cutting boards as x-mas presents as I found quite a few great designs using variations on the dual wood "checkerboard" end grain theme.

My question(s) are that everyone uses a planer / jointer to start and then a drum sander to flatten them out when completed. With a Forrest Blade for rips and a stop block on the CMS for consistent height why would they needed to jointed/ planed / or drum sanded at all ??? Your ripping off a jointed edge and a planed board from the lumberyard, the saw is tuned for width, the stop block makes every height cut consistent ...

What I am missing here (unless the lumber isn't flat) and can I do it without those three tools ??? I can edge joint on the router table if needed but don't have the planer yet and a drum sander is low on the pecking order.

My relatives thank you in advance !!!

[Garasaki]

You'll be able to detect very small variations when you glue up the strips into panels.

The adjoining edges need to be perfectly flat and perfectly 90* from the faces for a glue-up. This is the reason for jointing. If your confident the edge on your lumberyard wood meets those requirements then you are good.

Now, as for the drum sander, it is very difficult to keep the strips perfectly aligned (top and bottom) during glueup. Running it thru a drum sander will fix any variances and result in a perfectly flat surface.

If you've never done panel glueup, then basically what your missing is an understanding of the extremely tight tolerances you need your strips to have.

The drum sander at the end is sort of a fix all - it will eliminate a lot of the mistakes you can make along the way.

YOu can take the panels to a cabinet shop and rent their drum sander, usually...a whole lot cheaper then buyin your own. (you can do all your panels in one trip too, I imagine, if you get em all done beforehand.)

[LarryG]

What John said. You could also flatten the glued-up boards using the "router rails" technique that is commonly employed to flatten a workbench, followed by a liberal application of random orbit sander.

I think a drum sander is low on the pecking order for most people, until they buy one. Then they realize what they've been missing. But they are rather expensive; and a planer would definitely be a higher priority for almost any woodworker.

[movnup]

I knew I was missing something, I've never done true panel glueups b/4 --- Thanks !!!

Looks like I need to joint these first due to the tight face tolerances but here's another question. Can't you maybe use a belt sander for the height variations ??? I sanded my "L" shape workbench to perfectly flat and that was nine feet one way and four on the short end (a lot of time and not much fun) and these are a lot smaller. I now know the drum sander or building a jig for the router are the tools for the job but if my bench is flat for the glueup there shouldn't be that much height variation to sand off .....

PS - your all allowed to swear at me if you want, I'm trying to keep this all in-house e.g. truly homemade which may not be realistic.

[JR]

PS - your all allowed to swear at me if you want, I'm trying to keep this all in-house e.g. truly homemade which may not be realistic.

No, buddy, no swearing going on here! These are good questions.

I'd think a healthy dose of belt sander could work. The challenge is to make it flat and square at the end of it all. A belt sander can take off a lot of material, but has no way to assure the project comes out square.

If you're going to do several of these, Larry's suggestiong about the router jig might make some sense. It would make a flat surface that would require a lot less sending.

JR

[crokett]

A belt sander will work fine. By 'fine' I mean it depends what your tolerances are. If you want it dead-level flat then you need a drum sander or the router jig. If you want it so the recepient (the untrained eye) oohs and ahhs and thinks it is a great gift then a belt sander will easily do the job it will just be slower.

[Alex Franke]

I made this one for my wife last year for Christmas and it still looks and works like new.



I used the stock bt3100 blade to rip, and cleaned the edges up with a hand plane (two mating edges at at time). Then I ran the panel through a thickness planer a few times. I cut the strips with the same stock blade, and glued them up as they were. Then I slapped 80-grit onto a cheap Ryobi belt sander and flattened it out on both sides. (Yes, it took a bit of time, but it wasn't too bad.)

Then I knocked off the corners with a band saw and sanded them down, rounded over the remaining edges with a router, and used mineral oil to finish it up.

BTW, it's cherry, hard maple, and walnut.

[Jamb]

It was also my first “glue-up project”. I have never done anything like it before. I don’t have a jointer either, so I used a router to clean up the edges of the boards (maple and purple heart). Then cut the strips on the BT3100 with the original Freud blade and glued them up as they were. Ran the board through a thickness planer on both faces and cleaned up the sides on the router table. Finally I used a ROS with fine grit paper and applied mineral oil finish.

[jackellis]

I just finished making a replacement built-in cutting board by glueing up lengths of 1x maple. Even with cauls to keep the boards aligned and a dead flat surface for the clamps to rest on, alignment is NOT perfect if for no other reason than wood moves. Since it's built-in, the one side is pretty flat but the other one, which is typically face down, did not come out well even with some hand planing. My one attempt at using a belt sander almost ended in disaster so I need to get my technique squared away on some inexpensive wood rather than expensive maple.

At 20 inches wide, the cutting board was too wide for my thickness planer but the result is good enough for the boss so it's good enough for me.

[movnup]

Thanks everyone for your techiques (and the why's behind them) and the two examples are really really really nice!!! It looks like I either build the router jig, farm out the belt sanding, or finally get the planer which was next anyways on the major tool list. These are meant to be lifetime gifts so I want to do it right.

Here's two examples of what I was kicking around to create as I feel these would be good projects to push me forward to the next level in my woodworking skills and utimately endless variations to stretch the creativity factor. After I get the ones done for the family I also want one for me to use too!!!

[Wood_workur]

When I made my cutting board, I used a rubber mallet to keep the strips as flush as possible. I still had to plane it a bit, but it was pretty flat. (Mine has strips of maple and walnut in one direction)

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Here's two examples of what I was kicking around to create as I feel these would be good projects to push me forward to the next level in my woodworking skills and utimately endless variations to stretch the creativity factor.

The two in the top photo would certainly be the easiest to do without a drum sander or planer.