Butchers Block

[Ryan - Ground Control Ltd]

Hey,

 

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you make a solid butchers block??

 

Like how do you get a block of wood that large that dry??

[Logrod]

most butchers blocks are made of laminates of strips an inch or so wide for that reason (plus it's cheaper than having to find a single piece of timber)

[Woodworks]

I happen to be in the process of making one at the moment. Not the size you see in the butchers but bigger than your average chopping board. 400mm X 520mm x 40mm thick. It's an end grain board made of maple. I will take pictures as I go along for you to see how I do it. I don't think there any special rules about them just a good tight grained and hard timber. I have used maple,beech and cheery in the past. I would not recommend more open grained species like oak, ash and elm as the open grain is more prone to holding food so un-hygienic. The ones you see in the butchers normally have a wood surround to hold the whole thing together sometimes with bolts going right through.

 

Literally just planned and glued these together. This only the first stage. Tomorrow I will cut this up re-glue to final shape as long as I have enough glue

[Ryan - Ground Control Ltd]

Awseome! Looking forward to seeing the end result there!

[Daniël Bos]

I've spoken to my friend the butcher about this.

 

The above is Not a butchers' block....

A proper butchers' block is constructed so you use it "on the end grain" so with all the bits of wood standing on end. It's also supposed to have squares of wood, arranged in a clever way so that no matter how hard the cleaver cleaves, a forced split can not "run".

(I believe it's achieved by turning the squares so the curves of their grain are "back to back"?)

It needs to be used on the end grain as this protects the finely honed edge of the butchers' knife/cleaver. as it comes down, the end grain can part slightly to accommodate the edge where a cut onto a "sideways grain" board would blunt the blade far quicker.

 

According to my friend the butcher...

[northcountryboy]

Yeah I've heard of the end grain method of construction of chopping boards too. I suppose unless your doing some heavy duty butchery in your kitchen woodworks design will suffice, most of the chopping boards and even the so called 'butchers blocks' are constructed using strips of timber biscuit jointed and glued together. I make a heavy duty chopping board in one piece of oak that is sanded down to a smooth finish that will take any amount of cutting and cleaving you can throw at it, just make sure you oil it frequently with a food grade oil.

[Gerbutt]

This one looks super...

 

[se7enthdevil]

I have some hornbeam if anyone is interested in making a proper butchers block...

[hedgesparrow]

one i Saw had 4inch square blocks on end all held together by metal bands round outside. as other posts stops the knives being blunt and can be cleaned by butcher. and it was made of beech.

[Tom D]

end grain maple, hornbeam or beech at a push I think is the way forward.