To End Grain or Not to End Grain...

The butcher block countertop is not completely done yet, but Chris has made amazing progress on it.  It is turning out beautiful!  Once it is sanded and oiled, it will be so stunning, I'm not sure I will want to use it!

When considering butcher block, there are two types: edge grain and end grain.  What's the difference? The pictures below should hopefully help explain it.

With end grain, the wood fibers run vertical.  Imagine a bunch of toothpicks standing vertical bunched together.  The toothpicks represent the wood fibers.  As you chop, the knife actually slips between the wood fibers.

With edge grain, the wood fibers run horizontally and the knife cuts across the fibers.

The butcher block cutting board featured in the above pictures is end grain, which is what our counter top will be.  The advantages of end grain are that it is more durable, self-healing, and it doesn't ruin your knife.  It's also more sanitary.  With regular applications of butcher block oil, knife marks go away and the wood looks new again.

Edge grain, on the other hand, has the exact opposite problems.  The only real advantage with edge grain is that it "looks" prettier and is cheaper.  End grain butcher block is generally more expensive and extremely labor intensive to make.

Our counter top will be end grain.  For as much as we cook, it makes way more sense.

Here's some pictures of the progress.  The darker wood is black walnut and the lighter is maple.

In other exciting news, this Saturday is D-Day!  That's right, demolition day is upon us!  We will be sure to post pictures.  And let's be honest, that's the good stuff!  :)

Until then, our last meal that will be cooked in the old kitchen:

And finally some last good-byes....

Good-bye ugly window that doesn't open or close... 

Good-bye door that has to be jammed shut and knob that doesn't work....

Good-bye old stove whose oven temperature is just slightly off and drawer that doesn't work right....

Good-bye dishwasher that has to be rolled and hooked up to the sink....

Good-bye pots and pans rack....   :(

Good-bye, Chanel....

CHRISTOPHER!!!!!!!!!

Lots more work done

I've been hitting it pretty hard in the shop for the last week.  All the drawer boxes are built, the doors have been bored to accept the cup hinges, and I've spent a considerable amount of time working on the countertop that will be along the stove wall.  We decided to go with wood counters along that wall, and never being one to accept good enough I'm building the most difficult kind.  I'm attempting to build an end grain butcher block style countertop.  Because we will have so much light color in the kitchen with white cabinets, off white backsplash and white ceilings we wanted to add some dark colors.  The counter will be made primarily of black walnut, with maple highlights to add some interest.  Here's a drawing of what I'm trying to build.

The counter will be 2" thick, for stability and to add to the look of the butcher block.  The counter will be made of approximately 420 2" blocks of wood.  It takes a lot of clamps and even more glue to pull that off.  To try and keep it as flat and square as possible it is glued up in many small steps.  I bought 8/4 rough sawn lumber.  That will give the most ability to mill it dead flat and square.  But it is a lot of work and time, and creates tons of chips.

To ease the process of the milling and gluing I cut each plank to 4', and ripped the ones wider than 8" down so they could be passed through the jointer.

Each board was run through the jointer to flatten one face, and then planed to flatten the opposite parallel and square to the first.

Each board was then run through the jointer again to flatten an edge square to the faces, and ripped to the table saw to the appropriate widths.  Each plank is made up of 9 boards glued together.  It is near impossible to control more than 2 or three edges when gluing up a plank so I'm doing it in stages.  

First three boards are glued up at a time, then the three sections are scraped of glue squeeze out and the joints are flushed up with a hand plane.  Each section gets run once through the jointer again to ensure a straight glue edge, and the three sections are glued together to create one 4' long plank.  This is then scrapped again and hand planned to flush the edges and flatten it more.  I have to make 3 of these 4' long planks.  

The planks will then be crosscut in 2" wide strips, turned on end, every other strip will be flipped end for end and then re-glued together.  They will be flattened one last time, and sanded smooth.  That will have to wait until Tuesday so the planks that were glued together today have time to cure to full strength.   

Here's a couple pics of the drawers and doors with the holes for cups for hinges.

I also had some problems.  I've been following an article in Fine Homebuilding to help build the base lazy susan.  It recommended using 1/4" maple to band around the turn tables to create a finished edge on the plywood and a lip on top so stuff doesn't fly off when spun around.  The maple plank i have is a little over 8', which is just a little to long to run through the jointer because of my work bench and dust collector.  So I had to plane one edge straight and square by hand.  It took a little while, but was kind of fun doing it old school.  I've recently got into traditional woodworking techniques, hand saws, planes and chisels and such.  This was the first time I needed to plane a large plank straight.  

I ripped a piece to glue to the turntable, spread the glue and used a band clamp to tighten it around.

It seemed like it took a lot of force on the ratchet to tighten it up, but I was following an article written by a cabinet maker so I went with it.  I waited a full 24 hours to take off the clamp, and when I did, POW the maple flew off.  DAMN!  I was a little peeved, so I left it alone for a day or so, and then re-attacked the problem.  I decided to try a technique that I've seen done many times but never tried called bend lamination.  Basically instead of one thick piece I cut three very skinny pieces (1/16") and they are all glued together around the turntable at once.  In theory each piece keeps the next from wanting to straighten.  

I again waited 24hrs to remove the clamps, this time the lamination stayed in a good round shape, but again if popped off the turntable.  I thought that this was probably due to the tim involved to spread glue on all the surfaces and get the clamps in place.  I think the glue on the plywood skimmed over and wasn't able to bond to the maple.  I banded it a third time with plenty of a different kind of glue and waited a day.  It held great,  and I added the pieces in the cutout, hand cut and planned the miters and sanded it clean.