Smith & Co. Custom Tap Handles: Christmas Cutting Board Gifts

I decided to make some cutting boards for some Christmas gifts, including a big end-grain board for my wife. The first four are made from Maple, Cherry, and Walnut. They are made from varying thicknesses of all of the woods arranged into the pattern. They are about 1'' thick with handles routed into the underside for easy carrying. The finish is just mineral oil.

The next board is my wife's. It is also made out of Maple, Cherry, and Walnut, but I also used some scraps of Cocobolo that I had left over from the handles that I posted about earlier. When I was buying the wood, I found a piece of maple that was a little spalted, giving it a tan/grey figure that weaves through part of the board. This added to the accents, breaking up the squares and rectangles visually.

The process to make the board started similar to the above four, but involved several more steps. Basically I started by making nine small boards, each with a different random pattern. Next I cut those boards up into two inch strips. Then I re-glued pieces of each of the boards together into chunks that would become a eighth of the finished board. Then it was trimming and re-gluing all of the chunks into the finished board. After some planing and sanding, it was done. The finished board is a little over 12''x20'' and about 1.75'' thick. This board is beautiful and should last forever.

In the foreground is the Anchor 2012 Christmas beer. This year is really fantastic. A little lighter on the spicing and very drinkable now. I'm still going to hang on to some to compare in a couple years. Cheers to the folks at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco. Behind the bottle and glass is one of the nine boards the finished board was made from.

Here are all nine boards cut up and stacked, ready to be re-glued

Two of the "chunks", one-eighth of the finished board

While I have no intention of going into the cutting board business, I guess if anyone is interested in a board like one of these or in any other wood or pattern, please contact me and I give you an estimate.