re: First butcher block

Mike, I always thought the same thing and mainly I worry about stability and/or fragility of end grain boards. I’ve never made one but this is very high on my back burner list. I’m committed to one as a gift for my wife’s cousin who gave me 3 litres of homemade palinka when I was in Hungary this summer. And believe me, a cutting board doesn’t come close to the value of his gracious gift. :-)

Anyway, Tony, it looks good. You can share some pointers with me and other cutting board newbies after the glue up.

I can share one thing with you about a big glue up from my door making experiences. Those times I did 2 doors at once and stack them together for a single clamping requires some really fast work. First, just slop it on all over. Don’t try to be careful. You’re going to be sanding the crap out of it anyway. Slop the glue on and spread it quickly with a stick. Then when you get the clamps on it wipe off as much excess as you can with a damp rag, then beat it with a mallet to get them into alignment. You need a sturdy table, of course. But the glue should be OK for about 10 minutes. It will sort of set but not fully in that time, if you have enough glue. Too thin and it will set up quickly. Too much and you’ll have to sand a little more, but you’re going to be sanding a lot anyway, so taking excess glue off is really marginal in terms of how long you sand. The excess glue you need to prevent quick set up well squeeze out when you clamp it, so there will never really be too much glue, only too much cleaning and sanding. :-)