hello,
I am almost finish my cutting board project, Consisting of 200 wooden block (2 inch by 4 inch, and 2 in thick). I have glued them together, but wanted to rest and glue this on a large piece of wood for more support. I was thinking plywood, but a friend said to use presswood, because it wont work like plywood. What wood would I best use? thanks
ken
Is this an end-grain cutting board? It sounds like it. You'll probably want to glue those pieces in rows at a time. I'd make some sort of gluing jig that allows you support two sides and clamp two sides. After they come out of the gluing jig, I'd square the rows with a jointer and table saw. Then you should be able to glue the board together. I'm not sure why you couldn't use plywood for a gluing base. Lay wax paper on top of it.
Cheers, Jeff
Hi Jeff,
The board is almost finish gluing. I did use strips , passed in the planar to make sure it is straight. ok here is my design, the plywood is not for building the board but will be pernanently glued. TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT TttttttttttttttttttttttttttttT TttttttttttttttttttttttttttttT TttttttttttttttttttttttttttttT TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT where the T are blockes with 2 inches in depth and the 't' are blocks with a 1.5 inch in depth. The plywood is there to solidify even more. Once it is glued, the board is flipped over and the plywood (or presswood), is no where to be seen. just want to know whch one to use, plywood will work in time? making cracks on the board? ken
Is that view from the top or the side? It looks like the edges are ten inches thick and the interior is 7.5 inches thick with plywood filling the difference. Did I get that right? If that's the case, the plywood serves as a spline. That is an acceptable use of plywood. I'm not sure why presswood would be superior. Maybe your friend knows something we don't...
remove 4 'T's at the end or the first and fifth line so as to make it a rectangle. But i see it ok in the reply windows, not sure why it is not the same way in view mode. It is a top view of the board where the plywood fits on the small 't' making the board 2 inch thick everywhere. He said that plywood can twist in time and press wood wont. Is this sounded?
klerameur wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@i12g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
You need to use a fixed width font for your reply window when doing drawings like this. My newsreader shows you're off by more than 4 T's. Most people use Courier as their fixed width font.
If you're using a font such as Times New Roman, the spaces between the characters will be compressed, which, while easier to read isn't good for ASCII art.
Oh, btw, my rule of thumb is to use plywood for anything that stands a chance of getting really wet. Good luck getting most other composite boards flat again.
Puckdropper
Personally, I'd use plywood but I'll defer to the group. I like to think I understand your design and I'm hard pressed to think you'll have a problem with it twisting. I'd like to know *why* he thinks it will.
Jeff
Presswood if your talking MDF wil swell when wet and would not be a good choice for a cutting board bottom if there is any chance of it getting wet. Plywood should not warp if you glue it to the bottom of the board, if it is not glued it may experence some slight warping but not as much problem as the MDF would have if it got wet. JMO
Ken, I think everyone is confused. Do you mean "plywood will work" or "plywood will warp" in time?
LLB
My friend said that plywood will not work because it will bend and twist with time, thus causing crack on the board I will take a picture of the unfinish board tonight. I agree with press wood will not be good if it has water on it, then again, I dont need to use the board as a raft, It will be setting on 6 or eight legs on the counter, so away from water... I think, unless I am forgetting something
ken
Unless your blocks are perfectly sealed they are going to swell and contract over time with changes in humidity. I would not recommend glueing them to a substrate. The thickness you are describing should not warp if you attach it to a plywood or high density particle board substrate. I would secure the substrate to the support (cabinet?). I would then drill slightly oversize holes in the substrate and use just a few screws near the perimeter to keep the block from sliding. The idea is to keep it secure while letting it move a little as it swells and shrinks. Regards, Dave G.
You're gonna have to wash the board.
Lumpy
How do you do that AM radio voice? Doesn't matter. Nobody listens to AM anymore.
Am I missing something obvious? I don't understand why you would put anything on the bottom of a 1.5 or 2 inch thick end grain cutting board. If properly glued wouldn't this have all the strength needed? Also, no matter what is attached on the bottom won't the board itself want to expand and contract across the grain and either split if the backer is glued on or at least come unglued? I would think you would just want a 2" endgrain slab.
Washing? _____________
How big is this thing anyway?
You said you used 200 blocks each 2x4x2 inches and that it is 2 inches thick. That means the surface area is 1600 square inches (2*4*200). That's better than 11 square feet!!! Are you making a chopping board or a counter top?
Whether or not it needs some sort of sub-base for support really depends on how big it is. For a normally sized chopping block - even a big one - 6-8 feet would be more than adequate support. Of course, if the surface area is really 11+ square feet and you are chopping up sides of beef with an axe then the feet aren't going to "cut" it.
chopping. I really like doing this project . I posted two pictures:
If I"m seeing that picture right, you have a number of blocks that are 4" long by 2" wide that are both edge-glued and end-glued that looks (loosely) like the diagram below. Is that correct?
Is there anything other than glue holding the endgrain joints together, like dowels or biscuits?
If it's just glue, I can't see that supporting its own weight. Even with dowels, I don't know how strong it would be.
Maybe I'm not reading that pic right. _______ | | | | | | | | |__ |__|_ | | | | | | | | | |_ |___|_ | | | | | | | | | |__|__|__ | | | | | | | | | |_ |__|__|
can see from the first picture that the left and right column are thicker blocks. It is as suck to hide the plywood once the table is flipped over. It will act as a counter top and cutting board. Now the table is a bit warped, I wetted it down again and added some weights. k
Alright, I am pretty sure I see what it is now.
But end grain can't be glued to end grain with any assurance that it will hold for any period of time.
You've got them in neat columns and rows, and no staggering of the pieces.
If the pieces had been staggered, then you would have had long grain to long grain all along the sides, and it would have helped the end grain gluing.
But I see this thing failing at each of the end grain joints.
However, I read back from your original posts in November, and someone said that end to end gluing is possible. Maybe, but my take from the pictures is that if you put each end of this thing on raised blocks, say 12", and stand on it...it's going to break along those endgrain glued lines.
It looks like you *really* wet it down. My best advice is...
STOP DOING THAT
As thick as that is - and as wet as it appears you have made it - it is going to take weeks if not months to dry out and reach some semplance of stability.
To get it dry again, put a layer of brown wrapping paper on something flat; put your project on the paper; put another layer of paper on top; put a sheet of plywood on the very top and add wrights. Concrete blocks would work. Tomorrow, unpack all, throw away the papers from top and bottom; turn the project over and repeat with new paper. Do that every day; flipping it each day, until such time as it is truly dry - as I said, that will be weeks.
Once it is dry (next summer?) afix it to plywood by bedding it in a layer of mastic such as liquid nails, silicone caulk, et al. Additionally, screw through the plywood into it. Use LOTS of screws and drive them at a steep angle so they penetrate at least an inch into the blocks. If the blocks have any tendency to warp, the plywood will NOT keep them from doing so. Hell, ply warps and twists all by itself without help from anything. That means you would be best off firmly affixing the finished project - blocks + ply - to the existing countertop or removing the existing one and replacing it with your butcher block top. The latter option is the more logical IMO.
well the board is dry now, but wow, major twist to it. look at the pics
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