Larry, The Wood Database is a very good source that describes these woods and many others. Jarrah is a great wood to work with. Tineo is harder to find but is also great to work with. Red Cumaru is a nice wood. I try to stick with tight grain hardwoods for the End grain boards. I stay away from open pore woods such as
Red Oak, Hickory, Ash, etc. and very oily woods such as Bubinga, Olive wood, Lace wood, etc.
Gary, I agree, branding iron on the side. I am leaning towards that method. Also, I hand out a copy of the care instructions with each board. It usually takes a little while before people use them.
Barry, what I have done to improve on the time to make a board is:
1. (Bandsaw) boards to length, and height. The widths vary, I want to offset the lines so it does not look like a checkerboard. My personal preference.
2. Incorporated the use of soft wood (pine) caulks. As they are clamped in place they will (swim) on you. Soft cauls will not damage hardwood. This minimizes the clean up process.
3. I used to use my router sled to flatten both sides. It worked great to flatten, but too much tear out. Now I use a VERITAS bevel up smoothing plane on the end grain. It really cuts down on the sanding. That alone took hours of sanding off.
4. I built a V-Drum sander based on the Stockroom supply design. You can buy a kit or design your own. I have heard that a drum sander works well also. Be careful, heat build up with that method. I start with 80 grit and switch over to 320, when the end grain cleans up.
5. I then radius the corners, then 1/4" round over all sides (my preference)
6, I then finish with a palm sander using 320 grit to smooth radius ends and round over. Then I go to 400 grit till it is SLICK AS ....
This is how I do it. It went from 10-13 hrs To 6-7 hrs total work hours, over 3 days.
Thanks everyone for the great compliments. It is really appreciated.
Ellery Becnel
