This year I started making cutting boards.

It's quite addictive.

Cutting boards are quick projects. You can put together a simple side-grain cutting board in an hour or two in the shop. An end-grain board is a lot more difficult, but still the time demands are not onerous.

They're also fairly inexpensive. I mostly raided my scrap pile -- make that, my stash of valuable "shorts". Just grab a bunch of short maple, oak, purpleheart or other hardwoods, and mix and match to your hearts content. They make nice gifts, which is what I did with all of these.

Round One

Round one involved one board with maple/walnut strips, with the walnut strips getting progressively thinner. Another featured maple, cherry, and walnut pieces in an interesting combination. Maple and purpleheart make a nice contrat, as does throwing some cherry into the mix.

Round Two

A few months later for round two I picked up some oak and walnut pieces and cut them into boards 1"x1" and I forget how long. This time I learned how to make endgrain boards. It involves a lot more cutting and finicky glueing and clamping, but the results can be stunning.

Round Three

A few months later, Christmas was starting to looom on the horizon, so I got busy and produced a few more boards. I made a few more end-grain boards, this time mixing maple and oak in one, and another with oak and walnut again, though in a different arrangement. I also tried more side-grain arrangements, creating one with maple and purpleheart again with the progressively narrower strips, and another where I tried mixing in some yellowheart to give a nice contrast.