In this article we will explain our crafting of a Maple carving/cutting board. Of course like any project, the first thing we must do is create the design. In this project we want to create something that is not specific to anyone and has something that is pleasurable to anyone. I searched the Internet and found a quote by someone that we thought would be perfect for a generic cutting board. The quote is “Food is the Ingredient that Binds Us Together”. That is perfect! Next, we want to find some simple outline designs of a fork, knife and spoon. Once again, google that and I found tons of drawings that fit. So I selected one. Next we build the project in our CNC design software. After the design and placement, we setup toolpaths to carve the graphics and letters and the software creates a near-perfect visual of what the project will look like after the carve. See the pictures below. Remember, this is the front of the board only. And it is carving the female portion of the inlay. The male portion of of the carving is done separately, with a different species of wood.
Once we are satisfied with the design of this project, we order the wood. Most of our exotic wood suppliers are located throughout the north central USA, it sometimes takes quite a few days to arrive. We do not purchase pre-made boards. They are too expensive and usually the quality is not the same. We order the Maple wood pieces in square blanks that are usually 1 1/2″ x 1″ by around 18″ long. We also plan and order the inlay wood which comes in small pieces that are 1/4″ thick and about 1 1/2″ x 9″ which we plane and glue together four of them to make a 6″ x 9″ inlay board. As noted, we ordered Hard Maple blanks for the complete board. And we also ordered the inlay blanks and plan to use Walnut for the letters and Padauk for the utensils. On this project, we plan to make this board a face-grain board. We could not do an inlay if it was an end-grain finished board.
After the wood arrives, we plane them all so they are level and ready to glue together. We normally wait 24 hours for the glue to dry and set completely. Once the glue is dried on all pieces for this project, we normally first carve the inlay male pieces first. They are carved and cut out of the wood and ready to be glued to the board after an intense cleanup of the pieces.
Then we setup the actual board on the machine. Our normal process on face-grain Inlay carving/cutting board is to work on the bottom first. We plane the surface very lightly to make sure it is level and cleaned up. The handles are carved first. In this early version we carved the handles on the edges so it can be picked up easily. Later versions we just do a carve finger holes on the bottom of each side.
We then turn the board over and do a light surface clean up of the board and then we start the carving of the project, as seen in the next few pictures.
Once the board is complete with the female carving of the letters and utensils, we glue the male pieces and again, we wait 24 hours for the glue to dry and set completely.
After the glue is dried completely, we normally set the board back onto the machine and once again surface-shave the board to remove the excess of the Inlay wood to have the board ready for finish.
The finish process is pretty simple, but also takes some time. The first thing we like to do is take a very fine sand paper of about 800, 1000 and 2000 grit to have a nice smooth surface. Then we apply several coats of Mineral Oil and let that soak into the grain over night to bring us to the finished project!
We hope you enjoyed learning of our process of making a really nice face-grain Maple Carving/Cutting Board with Walnut and Padauk wood inlay.
If you would like to have you own custom board made, please feel free to hit the Contact Us and we can work with you on nearly any ideas that you may have.
Thanks and have a Blessed Day….
~ Ed & Lisa 