Think your brown tinge might just be due to wood density difference within the maple, commonly causes blotching when finishing maple but looks amplified because your center squares are four pieces of maple put together from different areas.
Nice work, well presented. Trouble is, I spent most of my time marvelling at how clean and tidy your workshop and tools are. How the heck do you do that?? Is it always like that?😵💫
I spent a bunch of time looking at this design, because it's beautiful. Regarding material use, even if you don't count the typical excess cutoffs and kerf widths lost with any cutting board build, this build (by design) "throws away" about 55% of what you create in your first glue-up -- granted some of it might be salvageable for another project (though what would that be...). By my calculation, at today's prices for S2S lumber, the raw materials for this board (assuming you start with thick stock and don't need to throw away even more for re-sawing or planing) would be about 2bf of Cherry (~$20) + 3bf Walnut (~$45) + 1.5bf Maple (~$18) = $83. When you take into account that most folks will be getting this in either 4/4 or 5/4 stock, and then cutting down to the required thicknesses, the cost is likely even more. Because you can only get a single 0.75 thickness from 5/4 lumber -- it's not even possible to get the 3/4 and the 1/2 of the walnut from a single 5/4 board due to kerf on re-saw (plus the needed planing to surface it), So I could actually see the material cost going well over $100 to build this, if not $120. Mind you, I'm not complaining :) I just wanted to share this in case others are thinking of the economics of building it, especially if their intention is to sell it (will be very hard to break even, I would think, when considering labor). I may still build it!
This is a great design - thanks. I tried it on a smaller scale first - milled up enough wood to do 4 "composite" pieces 24 inches long and 4 gave me 7 inches of width in the final board so I put another piece of wood on each side to bring it up to 12 inches final width just to test it out. Looks great. Now i've just milled enough wood to make 8 composite pieces 24 inches long so now I can have a complete diamond board without any filler at around 14 inches wide with a complete pattern. There is a lot of waste. I was keen to see what you did with yours. I'm thinking of gluing all the triangles together into squares then laminate together and make some kind of end grain board with it? There's probably some way to do a fancy pattern... but I just want to use it because it was all awesome wood. P.S. I turned my blade on the table saw back to 90 for the last two cuts like some commenters mentioned. Worked fine.
Great video, it was very easy to follow & you did not over complicate the process. Thank you. It a simple design, with maximum effect. Think i'll have a crack at this.
When you are gluing for alignment in the final glue up, add a few grains of salt or sand between blocks, these will press in against and cut in to each block so the glue won't let the wood slip out of place. Nice board design though.
The brown tinge is likely from sanding of the mixed colors of wood. The dust gets mixed and can get into the different woods differently. The water from grain popping or the finish itself can pull into more into the wood grain, especially end grain. When finish is applied, the same darkening happens and it becomes a lot more noticeable. On mixed wood pieces with long stretches i’ve taken to careful sanding by hand to prevent this as much as possible, but it would be tough to do with the pattern here.
Hey mark! I also have noticed myself with using maple that it also does that. I have been told that it's the nature of the end grain of maple to get darker. I made several face grain boards with a hand cutout and matched a radius around the entire outside and it all darkened. I really did not like it. But I have sold a few! By the way nice board! And thanks for your donation for my wife!
I love this design... and just watched another video where the poster sprinkles salt on the glue of the final glue-up... gives just enough friction to prevent pieces from sliding as the clamps tighten
Thanks CG. I jointer a 14” wide board last week and it was an incredible experience. It actually opens up so much more lumber for me since I have always been limited by my 8” jointer.
Well deserved on 10k subs! I’m not sure why the maple always has the problem of darkening after the mineral oil but I always have the same issue. Give us an update when someone lets you know 🤙🏼
Really liked the design. I made it 5/8 and 3/8. Thinking I’ll make it again an 1/8 smaller. A lot more squares. Would actually save on waste as I have to resaw anyway. I used sapele instead of walnut. Thanks for the video.
After taking 2 of the angled cuts, what if you bring the table saw blade back up to 90° so you can save the material? Totally understand the safety you mentioned
Could it be that the maple has a sugar content in it that is reacting with the mineral oil? It could be the same reason that we see more burn marks when cutting maple when the heat from friction of the saw blade reacting to any sugar content still left in the wood.
I made an end grain board a few months ago out of maple, padauk, and purple heart. It seemed like the padauk kept "bleeding" into the maple. Maybe maple is just more susceptible to that?
Hey John, yes Padauk tends to do that. There are a few other species that also do that. There’s not a great way around that, but having good dust extraction on your sander and cleaning the surface of the board often can reduce these effects.
Very nice of you to share the dimensions and techniques. Thank you. So for the passes on the planer to bring the strips to square, you are planing off the 2 remaining peaks? It's hard to tell from the video. No planer issues with this? Never tried it...yet.
Yes, a few light passes to bring them into square. They are so small that it doesn't greatly impact the "peak" of each diamond. I hope this helps answer your question.
Hey Paul. I have mixed feelings about it. It’s a great planer, but I have had a lot of trouble keeping the jointer calibrated and co-planer. If shop space is tight, it’s a good space-saving machine, but I wouldn’t buy mine again. I am also finding the beds quite short for jointing longer lumber. One thing I do love about it is the digital gauge on the planer. It’s very accurate and has been a huge upgrade from my old benchtop planer
I’m guessing that because this is end grain, the wood will soak up more mineral oil and deeper into the fibers. The lighter color will appear to darken more than the already darker wood species…
I'm a bit late to the party, but hope you're still looking at comments... You started with the first glue up of 8 laminated pieces, but went to 7 squares for the second glue up. Wondering why you left out the last one. Love this design, but my OCD is killing me with the last section that is a triangle rather than a diamond.
Hey Mike, good catch. My son, who was four at the time, picked one piece up and dropped it and shattered it. It was a bummer for sure because it was damaged beyond repair.
Beautiful board. Very likely that I will begin building it today. Question... what were your final dimensions, relative to width and length? I like my finished boards to end up approximately 12" x 18", and the thicker the better. When I get to the stage where I am slicing the sandwiched stock at a size that will determine final board thickness, I'll likely start at 2".
I hope that isn’t discouraging. If it is, you should check out an older video… my shop has come a loooong way in the past 2 years. I started out with a dewalt job site table saw and a dewalt sander. What you’re seeing today is a far cry from where my journey began.
@Shotsmoky it was a legitimate question. Didn't intend on hurting your feelings. I'm looking for a tutorial from. Someone who doesn't have a cnc and every festool power tool.
I have a few hardwood suppliers here in Houston that have a good selection (e.g. Houston Hardwoods, Clark’s), but they can be expensive. I would recommend checking Facebook marketplace to see if there are any smaller hardwood dealers in your area. Sometime you can get some good deals on hard woods. Just be sure that the wood has been properly dried before buying (wet lumber can take a long time to dry out before it’s ready to use).
