Following some requests from patrons in New Jersey, I made some new cutting boards this week. I also took some time to refurbish some that I have already made. This is the story of the design and build.

I made this cutting board in the ninth grade when I took a shop class at school. I had just turned 15, some 28 years ago. I have resurfaced it twice and finally the center glue line gave out so I trimmed it up and stuck a piece of Sepele in between the two oak parts.

This design addition met with a thematic concept that I had been experimenting with in a previous build of cutting boards.

This board demonstrates the markings of four years of family use. It has laced stripes of eastern maple (more white and harder), Western Maple (more reddish and softer), Walnut, and Sepele (the darkest stripes).

In contrast to cutting boards, I sometimes make charcuterie boards. This one has been one that we have used for about four years. It is composed of Purple Heart, Sapele, walnut, eastern Maple, and Peruvian walnut. The discs are Cherry.

One major difference is the depth of the board. Here are the three previously mentioned boards in comparison.

New boards

Building on the walnut, maple, and Sapele theme the following boards were designed with a common motif—almost rhythm.

This board has eastern maple on the edges, but one edge goes directly into western Maple and the other goes into Sapele before it goes into Western Maple. inside the western maple is an alternation of Sapele and Hickory.

Almost rhythm no.2 is made from eastern maple, a dark, walnut, and Sapele. I’ve wanted to experiment with diagonal stripes for a long time, but I chose this positioning on this particular board, because it adds an interesting way to break what the brain wants to do in two directions. The two thin Sapele stripes, make the brain want to expect a third thin stripe to keep the harmony. The thick, thin combination of stripes make the brain either want a thick or a even thinner stripe to create some sort of pattern. Thus this side of the board builds a visual tension. The other side of the board then defies categories by allowing the visual flow of the white maple to pass through the black walnut. A different type of visual tension that is not repeated and juxtaposed with the first set of visual tension. But just as in life there are things that seem not to go together, this pair of visual patterns come together to create a single functional cutting board.

Almost rhythm no.3 is a beautiful large charcuterie, board, composed of eastern maple and Sapele.

It holds the form of symmetry, but reminds us that form and composition are both part of symmetry. The four stripes are all Sapele, but the one strip is from a part of the tree that is closer to the bark and contains less of the rich brown color. It may be that in time it will darken like the others, but only time will tell. There are many applications in life—we don’t all need to look the same to be part of a team doing great things.

Western Maple on the outside, as spalted maple, followed by walnut, and then angelim Pedra for the stripy wood.

Symmetry

The center stripe is a walnut, I believe it is a Peruvian walnut. The other stripes are all Sapele while the white part is all eastern maple.

Walnut on the outside, eastern maple, more walnut, western maple, Sapele, and eastern maple.

Eastern maple on the outside, followed by walnut, black stripes, more eastern maple with Hickory then Sapele and the sinner stripe is likely Bubinga (but might be Purple Heart).

These were designed to match with Almost rhythm no.5.