Making a Cutting Board That Won't Warp

Most cutting boards are made so that the end grain is facing up. This is because the end grain is a lot harder than the side grain and it holds up a lot better after years of use, but it is kind of a pain to make one like that. So I wanted to make just a side grain cutting board as a gift for mother's day and I felt a little guilty about just cutting down a board for a cutting board. So in order to make this a little more unique and interesting, I re sawed some rough milled oak into thinner pieces of wood, glued those up into panels, and then glued those panels into a certain grain orientation so that it is like plywood. That "plywood" orientation of the grain will greatly prevent warpage/expansion and contraction that would normally occur from the wood soaking up moisture. There is a PDF below that you can print out and that will have a set of plans for you to follow if you want to make one yourself. Let's get started!

I cut down some small lumber from some oak a long time ago. Now that it's dry, I couldn't wait to use it up. So I re sawed it on my table saw to about 1/8" to 1/4" thick boards. I first ran it through with the blade less the half the height of the board. I did the same thing on the other side. Then, I raised the blade to above half the height of the board and got my first board. I just continued this process until I got enough boards. After that, I trimmed the outside edges to give me a nice straight edge for glueing.

Now if you print the PDF plans, you'll see what I'm talking about a little better, but I basically glue up three panels with two of them having the grain go lengthwise and one of them having the grain go widthwise. No tricks here. Just ran a bead of Titebond II wood glue along one edge and applied some clamping pressure. It helps to wrap a couple of boards in packing tape and clamp the panel in between them to keep everything flat.

Once the glue has dried, I used a hand plane to flatten off all the surfaces. After that, I glued the three layers together with the panels with lengthwise grain on the outside. I wanted to distribute the clamping pressure as evenly as I could, so I wrapped two pieces of plywood in wax paper and sandwiched the layers in between them. This helps evenly distribute clamping pressure and you won't have any dents on your cutting board from your clamps.

I then trimmed everything down to final size on the table saw and drilled a 1" hole for hanging it or picking it up. I used the bandsaw to round off the corners. I used a 1/4" round over bit in my router and eased over all the edges. I sanded from 150-400 and finished with beeswax and mineral oil. Beeswax mineral oil really needs to soak into the wood's pores for a durable finish, so I wiped it on kind of thick and then threw it in the oven for 20 minutes at a really low temperature to really melt the finish into the wood. I buffed it a little with a cloth rag and that was it! I hope this was helpful! Thank you for reading!