These strips were assembled in the proper order, glued, and clamped (Fig. Here are the strips laid out for two boards (Fig. Strips of varying thickness were cut from these blanks as per the plan. These strips are rotated 90 degrees so that the end grain is facing upward. This dimension will determine the thickness of the cutting board. We then cut a number of 1-3/4″ strips from each of these panels (Fig. Note that these panels are color opposites of each other.Īfter the glue dried overnight we cleaned them up by planing each panel to the same thickness. Once the strips are cut and planed we glued them up into panels (Figs 1 and 2) using Titebond III (waterproof). Don’t use a Sharpie because it will soak into the wood and may be visible later. As we planed the strips we marked the thickness on each with pink chalk so that it would show up well on both the light and dark wood. It’s very critical that all strips of the same size be planed to exactly the same thickness. Oversize a little to allow planing of each strip. Plan to lose about 5″ of board width when making these cuts. 42 strips were cut, so there was a considerable amount of waste just due to the blade kerf. Once the stock was milled we cut 30″ strips according to the plan on the table saw. We also had to establish a clean edge using a jointer. Our stock was rough 8/4 so we planed all of it to 1-3/4″. We built these boards with hard maple and black walnut, but you can use other woods as long as there is a distinctive color difference. If you want to work in millimeters then no conversion is necessary. This is important because the plan is in metric dimensions, and SketchUp will let you convert to imperial measurements with whatever granularity you require.

As a bonus you can also download a SketchUp model of the cutting board. The plan is very detailed and is an excellent instructional with all of the information you need to successfully build this board. There are many other plans you can download as well. The plan is freely downloadable from, although you will need to register on the website in order to download the plan. Building this cutting board is not hard, but it requires accuracy.

3d blocks cutting board plans