The Steal Your Face Cutting Board photo log + video.

How I make it.

At first glance the process of making a cutting board might look easy, even extremely simple. That is a misperception. There are a lot of steps to take in order to turn raw cut wood into the cutting board. Here I will demonstrate how I made to order a custom Grateful Dead Steal Your Face board.

Usually I have some raw-cut, kiln-dried boards in stock. I need to select them by color and pattern in order to get the most attractive result. The selected board is then jointed, re-sawed, planed, and glued up for a wood panel.

In the next step the panel goes through the planer one more time, and after that it is ready to be cut into a chunk one more time.

The third step brings us closer to how the board will look. I glue up chunks to the panel one more time, but now the wood grain goes from bottom to top and that is why this type of board is called end grain.

Into the planer again and the board is cut to almost the exact dimensions of the final product.

In parallel with the main or base board I prepare thinner end grain pieces. They will be used for inlay. It depends how complicated the models are, but I might need up to ten models for inlay.

I prefer to work with the center of the board, so mark the center and prepare for CNC.

After each piece is glued up and the glue dried, I use my band saw to cut off extra wood. If the board is too big for the band saw, I use CNC.

Depending on the board size, sanding can take one to two hours. This includes drum sanding and an orbital sander with the finest sandpaper.

Next, the board is soaked in mineral oil for better oiling. The final step is to apply beeswax for sealing the board surfaces. 

Every cutting board takes 7 to 14 days to be transformed from raw cut wood to a high quality, personalized cutting board.

Thank you for your time!

Best wishes,

Nik.