Chopping Blocks

My Grandpa passed away in May of 2010. Grandpa worked for for the railroad most of his career. Grandpa built the house that he raised four kids in. Even though it wasn't my everyday home, I grew up there too.

So, you can imagine that the house and garage were FULL. Over 50 years worth of our family life was lived in that house. One of the things I got from the house was a chopping block one of his hobbies was wood working.

So, as you can imagine he had LOTS of wood in the garage when we were cleaning things out. My husband, mom and I hauled 3 truck loads full of wood that could not be used to a burn pile. We donated some to the local high school for the shop teacher to use but we still had a nice pile.

I thought and thought about what we could do with some of the wood and said to Heath that we should make some cutting boards like the one grandpa made.

So we made a trip down to the house when no one was around and picked up some wood.

Heath bought a piece of walnut to add to the lighter colored oak that we had and we got the rest of our supplies.

We laid out the wood.

Then, started gluing.

It may look a little rough looking after we glued it but that's okay because what we didn't get wiped off the surface was sanded away.

Then we clamped.

We left the boards clamped for a week. They could have been cut sooner but we wanted to make sure they were nice and stuck besides we didn't have time during the week.

Then we cut.

Then we were ready to sand and oil.

After the first oiling.

I read that the boards need to be oiled once a day for a week, once a week for a month and once a month for as long as they are used. We used mineral oil because it is the only oil that we will not go rancid. I bought 3 bottles from the pharmacy area of the store.

The finished product after being given to my mom and dad for Christmas.

In all we spent under $60 for all the supplies (except for the wood, which was free). We made three large cutting boards and a smaller cutting board.

I gave one to my parents and one to each of my brothers and sister-in-law. Now they have something that was inspired by grandpa but made by Heath and I. And while it may appear that Heath did all of the work, he did not. I just had camera duty and trust me, there was glue and saw dust and mineral on my camera from being on my hands.

Sorry this post was so delayed. I wanted to wait until after the gifts were given for Christmas and then we got into house hunting mode. And now I am typing this from my craigslist find of a desk in my new office in my new house (more on that to come).

So, what do you think? Do the new ones look like the original (at the top) that grandpa made?