Custom Mosaic Cutting Boards

A few weeks before Christmas, a colleague asked if I could create two custom end grain mosaic cutting boards for his two daughters for Christmas. This video is of those two custom boards. Whenever I create a mosaic cutting board, I tend to use this handy cutting board designer program. A link to the download is in the description below. This program allows you to select different wood elements, define lengths, cross cuts, and other dimensions so that you can see how a particular design will turn out without all the guesswork. I arranged several options for my colleague to choose from and he chose this design shown and another that was very similar. Now on to the video. So to start the cutting board, I cut some walnut, maple, and cherry stock that I had on hand into 20 inch lengths that are approximately one and one quarter inch wide. These particular boards were just a little over three quarters of an inch thick. Once I have all of my strips cut, I arrange them on my workbench according to the layout of the cutting board designer program and then mark the arrangement with a pencil so I know the order of the layout. I now go through the process of running them through my planer so that all of the strips end up as close to the same width as possible. Plus it'll give them a nice tight seamless glue up. I now arrange the planed strips in their proper order and proceed with the first glue up. After carefully coating each strip and placing them in succession, I use a scrap board to align one edge. As the glue up progresses, you'll see that I'll use the same piece of scrap board in order to press down each of the strips to make sure that they're flat before I begin tightening the bar clamps. After 30 minutes or so, I'll come back to remove any of the glue squeeze out. It's easiest to remove it now rather than waiting until the next day when the glue is hardened completely. I'll also repeat the same process for the second cutting board. The next day, I remove the bar clamps and make one more pass at removing any residual glue with a scraper. I'll repeat this process for the second cutting board. At this point, I'll make a few line marks on the cutting boards before sending them through the planer. I really want to take as little off on these cutting boards as I can and these pencil marks will help me determine when I've got a nice flat surface on both sides. If I can still see pencil marks on the cutting board, then I know I need to send it back through the planer again. Now that the cutting boards are plain smooth, I want to square up one side at my table saw. I'm using an 18 inch miter gauge fence that is set 90 degrees to my blade. I want to take as little material off of the edge to square it up as possible. After it's been squared, then I'll adjust my fence and begin cutting the board into one and one quarter inch strips. Here's where we get to see the mosaic pattern emerge. After laying out all the strips on my workbench, I begin to arrange them by flipping every other strip. Now comes the part that we all hate, sanding. I'm just using a piece of 100 grit sandpaper and going over each edge of the strips just to make sure there's no excess material. Now we come to the second glue up and on both of these cutting boards, I have to pay particular attention to the glue up to make sure that the mosaic pattern stays in perfect alignment. As I move on to the glue up on the second cutting board, notice that the mosaic pattern has got sort of an offset to it, so I have to even pay more attention when gluing this one up to make sure that the center alignments stay where they should. As I finish up on this glue up, I do some fine adjustment here of the strips just to make sure that everything is still aligned. Press everything down and then lightly tighten the bar clamps before doing a full tighten. After the cutting boards have had a chance to dry overnight, I'll remove the bar clamps and again I'll go over them with the scraper to remove any of the excess glue squeeze out. Now it's back to the table saw to square up my edges. So it should be noted that it's not necessarily the best practice to plane an end grain cutting board. You'll likely get some chip out on the edges, so what I've done here is added a couple of scrap strips to the edge of the cutting boards to take the brunt of that chip out. You'll also see that having them just to the sides doesn't work. I ended up getting some chip out on the edges, so in the end I had to add scrap strips around the entire board. Now that I have scrap material on each side of the cutting board, I can feel more confident about sending them through the planer without damaging them. I'll also note that I changed the blades on my planer just prior to this video and that I'm taking extremely small passes through the planer. After the cutting boards have been planed smooth, I remove the scrap edges on the table saw. Note that I'm taking several small cuts from each edge as not to remove any of the cutting board material itself. I don't want to throw off the balance of the mosaic design by accidentally removing it on the table saw. Now it's on to sanding. I start by clamping the board to my table so it doesn't move around. Beginning with 100 grit sandpaper on my handheld orbital sander, I'll sand each side, then turn the board to sand the other half. Then I'll flip the board and repeat the process. Finally, I'll sand each edge of the cutting board. Since these cutting boards aren't very thick, I'm not going to router an edge on them, but instead lightly sand each edge so that they're not sharp. After each round of sanding, I'll wet the cutting boards to raise the grain by simply running them underwater at the kitchen sink. I'll then let the cutting board dry for several hours and repeat this process with 180, 240, and 320 grit sandpapers. On one of the cutting boards, I noticed some significant cracking in the pieces of cherry. To remedy this, I took some sawdust from my table saw and mixed it with some food-safe glue to create a paste. Then I spread the mixture to fill up the cracks and voids. I'll let this board dry overnight and sand it smooth the next day. After a final sanding of both boards, they're ready for a dip in food-safe mineral oil. This is where all of the hard work pays off. You can really see some great grain structure in these boards. Now that the boards have dried overnight, I apply a coat of cutting board conditioner by hand. To finish these boards, I add some rubber feet. As you can see, I had a difficult time trying to determine which was the best side of this particular cutting board. I have to say that I'm extremely happy with the way both of these cutting boards turned out. I received a text message from my colleague on Christmas Day letting me know his daughters love the cutting boards and how they couldn't stop talking about them. That alone makes all of the efforts worth it. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like and share it with others. Comments are always welcome and I try to reply to them all. If you haven't subscribed to my channel, please do so. Here's wishing everyone a happy new year.