I am making a chopping block for "She who must be obeyed." Our old one is now an aquarium stand. Anyways my idea centers around using several different types of wood for end grain contrast colors with a groove for the juices. Underneath I plan on having storage. I would like to include the mixer lift that Rockler advertises so that she doesn't have to haul the mixer out of the cabinet. It is a kitchen aid and those things are heavy. So if you folks have any suggestions on various types of woods please pass them on.
When mixing woods, Bernie, remember that different woods have different rates of expansion and contraction, both radially (perpendicular to the annual rings) and tangentially (tangent to the annual rings). You can't simply choose for color alone, if you mix woods in a large project whose expansion and contraction rates are wildly disparate, the glued-up piece will eventually warp, split, and crack.
You can look up the expansion/contraction rates in the Wood Handbook, available from the Forest Products Laboratory. For hard maple, the radial movement rate is 4.8% and the tangential is 9.9%. I'd try to stay within one or two percent of those values for you darker woods. Red gum is pretty close, with 10.2% and 5.3%, respectively. Cherry would be a mediocre match at 7.1% and 3.7%, and mahogany would be poor at 4.1% and 3.0%.
In addition to finding woods that move at the same rates, you also need to pay careful attention to how you orient the pieces in the butcher block. You should align the annual rings so the radial and tangtential planes match as well as possible from piece to piece. Ideally, all the pieces should expand and contract radially in one direction (call it north-south) and tangentially in another (east-west).
Thanks for the advice. I have never made one of these before so I am looking at various designs and that explains why one that a friend of mine gave me split a long time ago. He used different woods. I cut them out and re-glued it. Hasn't split since. But back to my project. I think I will be sticking to just Maple. Should I try to mimic the rings of the tree or keep one direction. I was a little confused with your directions. I think you are telling me to use one main direction only.
Our old one is now an aquarium stand. Anyways my idea centers around using several different types of wood for end grain contrast colors with a groove for the juices. Underneath I plan on having storage. I would like to include the mixer lift that Rockler advertises so that she doesn't have to haul the mixer out of the cabinet. It is a kitchen aid and those things are heavy. So if you folks have any suggestions on various types of woods please pass them on.