Cheese Boards and Wooden Knives

Truth be told, I have a scrap bin and it.is.full. Cutting boards, or any other board, can be fairly basic. I wanted to add something a little different.

I have some maple planks and a little walnut but any hardwood will work.

Waterproof glue is an absolute must with any board that will be used and washed.

tablesaw

miter saw

clamps

scroll saw

In making my scrap bin a little less full, I thought I would try my hand at wooden knives. Thinking that I should be able to cut soft cheese with wood, the cheese board was born....again. I ripped some walnut about 7/8" thick and sandwiched it between 2 pieces of maple to make the blank for the board. I made 2 knives, one from maple and one from walnut, both from scrap pieces in my box. The board blanks are about 13" long and 8" wide. The knife blanks are about 6" long. For the knives I drew out a shaped I liked using the straight edge of the blank as a guide. For the boards, I taped a piece of paper to the blank and drew out one side using a roll of tape to make the radii (radiuses), then used the same tape roll to draw the curves at the top of the board.Fold the paper in half and cut out to make a pattern for the handle end.

I cut out the blanks with my scroll saw then used my disk sander to get the blades close. I then shaped the handle. Once I had the knives looking right, I used my orbital sander with 60 and 120 grit to sharpen the blades. The walnut took a sharp edge at 120 but I had to take the maple to 220 to make it feel sharp.

I used the paper pattern to cut out the cheese boards, then shaped them up with the belt/disk sander, Finish with orbital sander with 60 and 120 grit, Wipe with mineral oil and leave till dry. Wipe with a 50/50 mix of mineral oil and butcher block finish and leave till dry then wipe with just butcher block finish. With these boards, I decided to drill a hole in the handle, before it was finished, so I could tie a strap in to be able to hang it up.