Book Style Cutting Boards

Greetings, and welcome back to D.E. Yeager Woodworking. In the shop today, I'll be making these book style cutting boards, which seem to be all the rage right now. While I've seen several video shorts on these boards, I haven't seen an actual full-length how-to video on how to make them, so let's remedy that today. It's a pretty easy project, and you can get as creative as you want on how bookish the boards turn out. So let's turn the page and see how they're made. For this project, I'm using three different types of domestic wood. Ash, cherry, and walnut. But these boards could be made with whatever type of hardwood you choose. You can see here that my cherry and walnut stock is a little longer than the ash, so let's take them to the miter saw and cut all of them to the same length. I need to take four inches off of each of the cherry and walnut pieces. So that I can make repeated cuts, I place a stop block at the appropriate location on my miter sled. Now all of my stock are roughly cut to the same length, width, and thickness. In this case, 12 inches long by 2 inches wide by 3 quarters of an inch thick. When glued up, I want each of these boards to be the same length, width, and thickness. So at this point in the process, I'm running each of the pieces through the drum sander vertically to ensure equal widths. Before I glue up the separate panels, I want to arrange them in a manner that's aesthetically pleasing. So that I don't lose this arrangement, I mark each board with a number and direction. One other item I need to take care of is the book-binded edge of the cutting board. I take each piece that I have marked number one to my laser and engrave the label or title. I've chosen the titles Bread and Cheese, Meat and Fish, and Fruits and Vegetables. Now I'm ready to glue up each of the separate panels. After the boards have dried overnight, I run them through the drum sander to true the surface and to ensure equal thickness. At this point, the boards are equal in width and thickness. So it's time to work on getting a uniform length. I start with the labeled end of the boards and make a small squaring cut on each. I can now look to see if any additional trimming needs to be done so that the labels align properly. And I can see here that the Bread and Cheese board needs a little more material removal to properly align with the other boards. Now let's take care of the bottom end of the boards. I appear to have luck on my side in the shop today. As the edge of the left side of my crosscut sled makes a perfect alignment position for making the cuts for the bottom of the boards. Now we have three boards of equal length, width, and thickness. In order to make these boards look a little more bookish, I'm going to cut a small groove near the labeled edges. This will give the appearance of a book binding. Hopefully. I lower my table saw blade so that it's barely above the flushness of the table as I don't want this groove to be too deep. Yeah, I kind of like this. Since I'm happy with it, I repeat the cuts for this and the other two boards. So what do you think? I think they're looking more like books now. It's time to get out my downdraft sanding table so that we can add a nice smooth surface to these boards. If you'd like to see a detailed video on the building of my downdraft table, leave a comment below. I'm never really sure what people want to see on my channel. When sanding cutting boards, my sanding grits of choice are 120, 180, 240, and 320. To ensure even sanding across the surface of the boards, I inscribe a random pencil line. When I no longer see the pencil marks, I know that I've sanded the surface fully. Before the last pass of sanding, I laser engrave my logo on the back of each board. Additionally, I use a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and make a few passes through the groove to remove any roughness. And lastly, before sanding with the 320 grit, I use a spray bottle filled with water to raise the grain of the wood. After the boards have fully dried, I can make the last pass of sanding. It's also during this pass that I'll lightly sand all edges of the board to remove the sharpness. So that these boards will look more like a book display when sitting on the counter, I want to make a small holder, if you will. I have a nice piece of cherry that will fit the build perfectly. I start off by truing the edges of it on my table saw. Now, I'll run it through the drum sander to true the surface of the board. I want this to have a little more of a finished look, so I'm going to miter the edges. To accomplish this, I set my saw blade at 45 degrees. I then get out my 45 degree sled, mark where I want to make the cuts, and cross my fingers that the miter joints come out accurately. Before assembling the pieces of the holder, I'll make a sanding pass. I decided that for advertising purposes, I need to laser engrave my logo on what will be the taller side of the holder. While waiting for the holder glue to dry, we can give the book boards their oil bath. After 30 minutes, the boards are removed and placed on the rack where they'll dry overnight. We're almost at the finish line with these book-style cutting boards. We'll give them a nice application of cutting board conditioner to create a protective, water-resistant barrier. Additionally, it prevents the wood from drying, bleaching, and cracking. And there you have it, a set of book-style cutting boards. One for each of the categories of foods you're likely to cut on them. They're a good way to help prevent cross-contamination, and they look great on your kitchen counter or island. I hope you enjoyed the process for making them, and if you did, please give the video a thumbs up. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to my channel and turn on notifications so you know when new content is released. As always, thanks for watching.