Cutting Board Question

[jonesuh]

I'm making some end grain boards for gifts--I'm a novice-& have learned a couple of things--edge is faster & easier --end grain--prettier---hard to run the end grain board thru the planer safely -and as said above double check all cuts are square (no fun if not close not good enough don't ask)--check out The Woodwhisper web site for why end grain and plans to make---worth the effort

[berry]

I asked the question because I was told that end grain use more stock and I didn't see it, but after reading the responses it's pretty clear.

As to why make/use a wooden one. In my case this is a commission. My customer owns an 1920's bungalow and the kitchen, like many kitchens from the period have built in cutting boards. The one I'm to replace has long ago passed it's useful life. They slide in under the counter top and are cantilevered out in use and slid into the cabinetry when not.

Thanks for everyone's input.

[BuckeyeDennis]

Speaking of meat cleavers, they shed some light on the advantage of an end-grain cutting board. An edge-grain board may hold up well to use with a knife, but using a meat cleaver is like going after the board with a hatchet. It would easily sever edge-grain fibers, and you would soon be hacking a hole into the board.

From personal experience chopping and splitting firewood, I can attest that end grain can absorb a lot more punishment than edge grain. If you whack it with insufficient force (kinetic energy, actually) to cleave it deeply, you may force some end-grain fibers apart, but they will close back up when the tool edge is removed. Wetting the wood fibers will cause small splits to swell completely shut.

Wood fibers will generally be severed only if you whack the board at an angle to the fiber direction.

IIRC, traditional end-grain butcher blocks were made of maple, which has fine grain and small pores. A coarse-grain, porous wood such as red oak would probably not be a good choice.

[dusty]

I asked the question because I was told that end grain use more stock and I didn't see it, but after reading the responses it's pretty clear.

As to why make/use a wooden one. In my case this is a commission. My customer owns an 1920's bungalow and the kitchen, like many kitchens from the period have built in cutting boards. The one I'm to replace has long ago passed it's useful life. They slide in under the counter top and are cantilevered out in use and slid into the cabinetry when not.

Thanks for everyone's input.

With that tid-bit of additional information, I might suggest that the end grain approach would be wrong. This approach would subject the glue joints to impact forces (downward pressures) that they might not withstand. I would want the pull-out board to have glue joints that run perpendicular to the cabinet in which it is stored.

[JPG]

How about an end grain veneer(think checkerboard)(thicker the better) over what Dusty suggested?

[Mike907]

The USDA doesn't have a problem with wood cutting boards, but according to this info, you may want to investigate using bamboo as a material.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connec ... OD=AJPERES

Mike

[reible]

The house before this one was an oldie but goodie. It had a county kitchen and pantry off to the side. It also had the slide in/out cutting board. It was thin and with the cantilever you would have a major effort to use end-grain for that application. Ours also slid out so it was not necessary to use it sticking out but still awfully thin for end grain. It has been some years but as I recall the thickness was like 3/4".

We have a bamboo board which we purchase quite cheap that we use for breads mostly. We have one plastic board we use for meat and onions and another for other things. We have one thin role up one that my wife used for making breads etc. Then of course several smaller ones for cheese etc. I can't imagine a kitchen with out several cutting boards.

Ed

I asked the question because I was told that end grain use more stock and I didn't see it, but after reading the responses it's pretty clear.

As to why make/use a wooden one. In my case this is a commission. My customer owns an 1920's bungalow and the kitchen, like many kitchens from the period have built in cutting boards. The one I'm to replace has long ago passed it's useful life. They slide in under the counter top and are cantilevered out in use and slid into the cabinetry when not.

Thanks for everyone's input.

With that tid-bit of additional information, I might suggest that the end grain approach would be wrong. This approach would subject the glue joints to impact forces (downward pressures) that they might not withstand. I would want the pull-out board to have glue joints that run perpendicular to the cabinet in which it is stored.