The tail of “A Pastry Board”:
“I love baking, but my table has a seam in it, and when I roll out pie crusts, it messes up what I am doing, all my cutting boards are too small. I want a BIG cutting board about 18” x 24”. I want a PASTRY board. Oh and could you make it beautiful?”
Every project begins with selecting the right lumber for the job:
A quality product begins with selecting the best of the best. We begin at the local saw mill. There, we hand sort though the piles of lumber for the perfect pieces for your project.
We buy our stock lumber kiln dried and rough sawn to either 4/4 (4 quarters of an inch) or 8/4 (8 quarters of an inch). Other dimensions are available if we need to buy it some other way, but these sizes are what I prefer to have on hand for smaller projects.
Being picky is important:
Following the requirement to make it beautiful, I selected Curly Maple and Curly Cherry. The raw lumber hints at what is hiding beneath, however, until its surfaced you cant be sure.
Back at our shop, we inspect for cracks and flaws after the initial processing of the wood. Then further trim down the wood to the initial shape and rough dimensions.
Decision making:
After rough cutting the lumber and a bit of surfacing, I can begin to see what the figure of the wood is underneath. This allows me to pick and choose which sections of the pieces of wood make the grade and will be selected to move on to the next round. From here, I mark out the best bits, decided where they will live in the final product, and continue cutting the pieces down to closer to their final width and length.
Putting it together:
Layers to last. I chose 1/4” oak dowels to provide extra strength and alignment during the assembly process. Each row received 3 oak reinforcing dowels, glued with food-safe waterproof glue along the entire seam.
Inch by Inch, row by row
Waiting for the glue to dry, and working on the next section.
