As the Holidays are fast approaching, I am rapidly trying to knock a few items off the big old To-Do list, including making a few handmade gifts. This year has been a tough one to produce a lot of homemade gifts. Both El Granto and I have been working long hours at our day jobs, and by the time we get home we’d rather snuggle up on the sofa together than go back out to the garage and get to work.
This past weekend with nothing planned on the calendar, we decided to take a trip to the lumber yard, and start making some cutting boards for holiday host/hostess gifts.
After we had cut up all our wood, I noticed a few spare pieces too small to make into another cutting board, but rather than just toss them into the scrap bin pile, I opted to make a little side project.
Here’s what I did:
Set the miter saw to a 45. Took two scrap pieces of oak, stacked them on top of each other and cut a 45 through both of them at the same time. I then cut the same 45 at the other end of the pieces, again cutting through both boards at the same time.
This made two pieces of wood about 9″ long that were EXACTLY the same. (the exactly the same is important.)
I then took those two boards, added glue, and clamped them together.
Once they were dry, I sanded, got the wood wet, let it dry, then sanded again. Why get the wood wet? It raises the grain, so you can sand it down again. If you don’t do this, then the first time the board is washed, the grain will raise and the wood will become rough again. It still may raise in the future, but at least you’ve sanded off the worst of it.
After everything is nice and sanded, I gave it a few coats of mineral oil, then followed up with some cutting board oil/wax.
Ta da: Hipster Chevron Cheese Board
El Granto had the brilliant idea that we should make a few of these, then we can slide them together at parties to make larger boards. I see another trip to the lumber yard, and more parallelograms in my future.