Cutting boards-new design, discussion, and plans

Hi Everyone,

Well, I got a new garage door today, to replace the old, much patched one. This one is insulated and should make for both  a warmer home in winter and a cooler one this summer.

As soon as work finished on the door, I got to work on a new breadboard. My old ones were round, flat, and not much else. Since both sides of the board have to be turned and worked on, I didn't have a method for attaching the board blank to the lathe without drilling holes in or cutting a tenon. This results in a cutting board with holes on the top-not a very satisfactory situation.

Then I remembered turner's tape. Turning tape is a heavy duty, cloth tape that is sticky on both sides. It's so sticky that if you touch it its like trying to get unstuck from super glue. This enables a wood turner to attach a blank to a faceplate and then to the lathe without drilling holes at all. So one face of the board will be solid and smooth. Let's take a look:

I had a very wide piece of white ash in the wood pile that was too thin to turn into a tray or a dish but would be just right for a cutting board.   I fished it out and measured it and cut it into a big circle

The tape is first applied to the face of the faceplate. The surface has to be perfectly clean and the wood has to be smooth and dust free:

Next I placed the face plate exactly in the center of the blank and pushed down:

Since this type of tape is pressure sensitive, I placed several bricks on top of the faceplate and let that whole thing sit for about 20 minutes:

I've taken the bricks off and mounted the blank on the lathe. This seems very sturdy even though there are no screws holding the plate and the blank together. I'm going to sharper my tools and take very gentle shallow cuts to flatten and smooth the surface. In this photo you can also see that I've cut a shallow tenon for the 4 jaw chuck to attach to when I turn it over:

Here we are after about 30 minutes of work. I've cut a small cove for fingers to grab onto, and smoothed and sanded the surface. The tenon is still there.

I flipped over the blank and attached it to the chuck and turned the surface. It had to be smoothed and flattened, another cove cut at the edge for fingers to grip on and a juice groove along the edge. This is the top of the cutting board...

...and this is the bottom.

I am going to re-attach it to the faceplate with tape again and tune off the mortise and tenon and very gently dish out the center of the board then sand it smooth. I suspect by doing this the board will continue to sit flat and stable if warps a little bit. 

So I'm going to break for coffee and lunch and I'll be back shortly.

VW