♪upbeat country♪ - Hi I'm Suzy Phillips.

- And I'm Scott Phillips.

And are you ready to have a party?

Because that's what we're doing today on "The American Woodshop" we're getting ready for a party.

We need cutting boards and... - Charcuterie boards.

- Okay so learn all those tips today to make your very own.

Stay around.

The American Woodshop with Scott Phillips is brought to you by... Woodcraft since 1928.

Providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft- helping you make wood work.

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- Now what are the best woods to use in your kitchen?

Well you can't beat hard maple think- - And Walnut.

- Yeah and they take great food safe finishes.

And you'll see more on that in a second but we're going to cut out this pattern right here.

Go to the woods find a neat leaf, blow it up to the size you want.

And you can have a cutting board on one side or a ladle rest on the other.

We'll do a glued up cutting board as it were and... - A charcuterie board, which is great for serving meats, cheeses.

It's a totally stress-free party.

- Okay.

- So it's really easy and it's a beautiful display.

- So it's time to get to it in the wood shop but first a word about shop safety.

Be sure to read, understand and follow the instructions that come with the tools and products you use.

Now let's make these.

- Alright.

I've got the perfect walnut board.

Well perfect except for this little check mark that I'm gonna cut out and sculpt it, but it's gonna make a beautiful charcuterie board.

So I'll cut it out on the band saw, using a three eighths inch blade.

(band saw machine sound) Now Suzy that's a perfect looking board.

- Thanks.

- I'm using a handheld planer because I love my wife.

But this is going to save you a ton of sanding time.

- Thank you.

- You could sand straight to this rough sawn board, but boy it'd take forever.

So I'll get this planed down, both sides.

And then it's on to you for a sanding workshop.

(machine sound) Now Suzy I have both sides planed for you.

- Thank you.

- Sanding workshop, take it away.

- All right okay.

I've got three sanders here.

I've got a five-inch random orbital sander.

I've got a smaller one, and I've got a detailing sander here that I like to use along the edges and to knock off the edges here and on the sides.

So make sure you have all your safety gear.

I've got my hearing protection, my dust mask, my safety glasses and a shield.

So I'm gonna get to it.

And also I'm starting with 80 grit.

Then I'll go to 100 and then 150.

And then you can buff it, whatever you wanna do.

Depends on how smooth the board is.

So time to get started.

Scott, if you will take these, get all this ready.

Put this over here.

And here we go.

(machine sound with upbeat country music) Okay after about three hours sanding, I've got it finished.

And I think this is the perfect side.

So I've got a salad bowl finish which is food safe.

I tacked it off too, just to get all the dust particles off.

And I am gonna brush it on.

And this is when all the magic happens.

I get so excited when it's time to finish it because you can really see the beautiful grain come out.

I mean look at that.

Wow I love it, I love it.

- So, while she was out there sanding, I made another smaller version right here.

And so I'm bringing the grain up of this knot and that's what you want with your boards.

You want a lot of character.

- Oh yeah.

- And so we'll brush this out both sides.

Whenever you're working with things like this, for food contact you need to seal all the edges, the bottom as well to preserve it.

And the other thing about salad bowl finish, you can rejuvenate this, a light sanding, clean it and bring it back up.

So once we get this dry, we'll attach hardware and you'll see how this stacks up.

And so Suzy I'm going to let you show that to camera because this is a glory board.

- Okay it's just awesome I'm so excited.

- Yes it is.

-It's gonna be beautiful swing it around and get the other side.

- Okay so you have this under control.

- I do.

- Stir the finish well for it to work properly and give it about a week of drying before food contact and you're in business.

So it's off to the band saw to make a great little cutting board out of a maple leaf pattern.

How about that?

Now on a band saw, you can use a quarter inch blade to cut this out.

It's hard maple- sugar or rock hard.

You name it, all the same tree.

The stuff you get maple syrup from.

And that's a piece of cherry, but this is the mating rock-hard maple board glued up with a good waterproof food safe glue, wood glue.

And now what I'm going to do is cut it out.

And with that quarter inch six tooth blade, and dust collection.

On we go.

And you can dial it in a perfect speed.

3950 right here.

And look at how quickly, this comes into form.

(machine sound) Now when you come into a tight spot, cut out, set the scraps safely, not on the floor, but safely nearby.

And in no time you'll have your pattern.

You never want to back out of a cut on the band saw, that's bad form, you can pinch the blade.

And when you pinch the blade you're going to pull it forward and it's going to come off, hit the guard, and that's just bad news.

The other thing is you want to make sure the stem, that's the handle, runs with the grain, not across the grain.

If it's across the grain, it'll break right out.

So once I get this cut out it's outside to sculpt it.

It's so much fun.

Band saws are my favorite tool.

Well, I love my wood lathe.

So that's how the leaf shapes up from the band saw.

Suzy wants this for her ladle on her oven.

So I need to scallop this out to hold that.

N-95 dust mask required because we're going to use tungsten carbide cutters to scallop this out.

We could use hand chisels.

There are a bunch of different ways to do this.

There are different types of cutters, different grits.

We're using a coarse today.

Sleeves rolled up, leather apron, never gloves, but the guard is still on the grinder.

And when you use this, both hands are always on the grinder.

You put your elbows to your side and this is how you can work this around.

Very carefully.

(grinder machine sound) So now I'll take this right on down and make it scalloped out and then I'll use some sanders to smooth it out.

And then it's inside to see if the finish is dry on her project.

(grinder machine sound) Boy, that's looking good, Suzy.

- Yeah they both are.

- Okay so you have that flipped over.

You're working on the feet- - Yep - But before we go down that road, what do you think?

- Oh, that's pretty.

I love it.

- Okay.

- That's great.

And then I can use the other side cutting board or trivet, whichever.

- Exactly.

- Beautiful - Okay and so here's some other ideas.

When you go to hollow things like this, they sell different types of cutters.

I always go with the red tungsten carbide.

That's my favorite.

Blue works as well, different grits.

And then for your angle grinder, they also sell these sanding discs that you can really smooth things out.

And then to polish it, let's say you don't have fancy polishers.

You can put a padded disc on your drill and these are peel and stick.

And what's nice about this.

You can really flex that foam-backed disc - Yeah and get in those grooves.

- And really sand and sculpt it out.

So we'll put a different finish on this in a second, but what are you working on right now?

- I am drilling, putting the feet on.

I've got this one on and drilling a pilot hole right here.

So I got a little marking line right there.

So I'm gonna drill that.

- Now just a second here because if this grain was running this way on this piece and you put it here on this long running board, that would be called cross grain fastening.

And that would lead to checks in this top board because this board gonna expand and contract a lot.

So you want the grain running harmoniously.

So what you do is harmonious grain long grain running this way on both pieces.

And I did a bunch of glue ups and then just cut them up and then cut them in half to come up with feet.

So now when she fixes this to the bottom of the board, it'll never split out the top.

- Right.

- So you're lined up.

Go ahead and finish this.

- Thank you, okay.

Just gonna drill a little pilot hole right in here.

(drill machine sound) - Okay now that's set.

The point goes all the way through.

So line right back up, and now you're gonna use the driver.

Okay again wax on the screw.

That way- - For sure.

- You can back it out if you need to.

- There we go.

- That looks really good.

- Yeah.

- Okay now the next thing that we're working on, let's flip that or show them what that looks like.

- Good.

- Look at that.

And so that raises it.

You don't need handles under that because of the feet that are on.

- Right.

- That looks so cool babe.

Are you happy with it?

- Yeah I'm very happy.

- Okay.

- Yeah it's gorgeous.

- Now for this one that we can stack on top, again, the whole idea is something unusual to be more festive.

- Right.

- So the hardware here on this since this one won't have feet.

I have to pre drill everything and so to do that, I have to take her driver bit out and I have this bit with the stop and you could use some tape on this.

And I go until that stops like that.

And I use this template to fix the position of the hole for the hardware.

These are handy because they work with whatever hardware you're working on.

Now I can flip that over to the back and then I can, because I have the hole all the way through dimple this down.

And now I can fix the handles as it were.

So this goes up and on if we've done this right, just like that, good tight fit.

And it gets screwed in from the back.

- [Suzy] Very cool.

- Okay so I'll do that on the other end as well.

Now to do the final buff on this, talk about the butcher block conditioner here.

- Yeah after we did the salad bowl finish, then you can add the butcher block conditioner to it.

You can't do the reverse.

You can't do the, the butcher block conditioner then add the finish, that doesn't work.

But this is great.

It's got wax in there, bees wax and food grade mineral oil and just really bring up the sheen.

Boy, that looks good.

- And so she put her glove on- - Right, the right way.

- With food grade finishes like this one, it's totally safe to use on your hands.

Okay so I'll let you get that finished.

- Thank you.

- Okay.

Man, look at that grain.

It's on fire.

- Oh, it's awesome.

Okay, so that's her- what do you call this again?

- My charcuterie board.

- Easy for you to say.

(both laugh) Now okay let's go do a glued up live edge, butcher block cutting board of our own.

Okay.

- Oh yeah.

- Get that finished.

Looking good.

- Get to work!

- See these?

These are maple plugs.

They're like a mini cork and the small end's three eights of an inch in diameter and where I have counter bored holes that are deeper than counter sunk holes that are flushed to the surface.

(hammering sound) You tap that home and that finishes the edge.

Now, these feet are longer but it's still not cross grain.

The grain is harmonious on the feet and on the glued up top.

I want you to look at this.

Okay and that's a cutting board.

And that's a hard maple center for the cutting and the sides for your foods for your layout.

So life's too short to have ugly cutting boards.

Now to do that we need a band saw.

We need some wood.

I've got a beautiful piece of figured hard maple right here for the middle.

And then, on this live edge chunk of air dried walnut, I've had this for 20 years.

Couldn't figure out what to do with it.

It has a knot in the middle one.

You cannot have knots and checks in cutting boards because if you do, what happens is that can be a place that food can get into and bacteria can grow so it has to be solid wood.

The other thing is on live edge.

You can't have any bark.

As pretty as it is, not when you're using it to serve food.

So okay now to work with this piece of walnut, I'm using that hold fast to hold it down and we're gonna get that bark off.

No bark on cutting boards.

And so you lay the bevel down just like that.

And you chisel away the bark.

I'm trying not to get into the wood.

It's all going to be sanded down, and you get the bark off.

Okay so that's important.

And then what I do is I use a good rule and a white marking pencil.

White marks on dark wood, a whole lot easier to work with.

And we're going to release the knot right here because that can't be used in food contact.

And to do that we're going to use the bandsaw.

And I'm going to set this up with a three-quarter inch blade.

The wider the blade, the better the cut.

Okay when you're doing a straight cut.

And so with that, this is three teeth per inch on a three-quarter inch blade.

And this is unpowered and locked off.

So it can't accidentally start up.

Let me just show you how easy it is to tune up your bandsaw.

This is important.

Because if you're going to use a band saw and it's a go-to tool in any shop, I have to release the tension of the blade.

That's right there.

Now I take the blade off.

Like so.

Okay so now I have to bring that up and on.

Being careful with it all.

And have to make some adjustments here ease it up onto the tires looking good like that.

Now I have to back the tire down a bit like that.

Bring the blade up and on.

Adjust the no-tool blade supports the bearing.

The tooless blade supports right here.

And now what I can do is put tension back on it, throw the tension arm up.

Bring it up.

And then I have to track the blade.

Now when I spin this, I always keep my finger on the outside of the upper wheel.

Never on the inside like that.

Okay that's for safety.

Do you hear anything right now?

No and that's the way it's supposed to be.

Nothing should be touching that blade.

And to track it, so that the center of the blade is on the center of the top of the tire.

I just crank this knob on the back.

If I want the blade to come forward, I crank the knob towards me.

If I want the blade to go back I crank it away from me.

Now that's perfect right there and I lock it in place.

Now how do you tension the blade?

Wrong question.

What you have to do right now I'm going to crank this up just a bit and I'm going to lock the column.

And again you don't hear metal on metal, it's free.

So what I'm going to do with decent tension on it right now, I'm gonna add a little bit more.

Okay and the scale is only gonna get me in the ballpark.

I'll show you how to use your fingers, with it unplugged, to determine exactly what you want.

So I'm going to bring the side bearings up and just gently kiss the blade well behind the valley of the gullet.

Okay and then I bring forward the thrust bearing until it almost touches but not quite.

So now I'll spin it and that's perfect right there.

And I have to do the same thing below the table to control that blade.

And most people don't go below the table.

They think, "Oh I got that taken care of above."

Well no same thing below that's up above.

And I love the fact that I don't have to go out and grab any wrenches to adjust those bearings.

That means you're gonna do them the right way.

Now that's good.

Swing the door up and on.

Guard up locked in place.

Everything's locked there.

Leveling key in the cast iron plate locks back in, keeps everything flush and smooth.

Swing this guard shut lock it in place.

And now as I spin it, you can hear metal on metal, except it's the bearings rolling.

So here's the test drive right now.

Everything's good.

And remember I told you I was gonna tell you how to tension it.

Now watch when I put good side pressure on that blade about 20 pounds of pressure, that shouldn't flex more than a 16th of an inch.

If it does, add a little bit more tension.

And then at the end of the job make sure you back the tension off at the end of the day, when it's not running when it's unplugged and you're in business.

Now let's make some cuts.

Here we go.

Safety gear up and on.

These are safety glasses.

That's important, hearing protection.

I'll turn on dust collection.

And another thing for control and safety.

You want this guide block assembly which is what this is called or guide bearing assembly to be within a quarter of an inch of the surface of the board.

The top surface that's going to take flex out of the blade and I'll give you a straighter cut.

So dust collection on, we'll make those cuts.

And then it's over to the jointer.

(machine sound) Now don't tell Suzy that I used the planer and the joiner to save hours of work, but that's what happens in the wood shop.

Now I'm using a silicone pad on my bench, and if I get a little bit of glue on the work bench, I'm not worried about it.

I just use a card scraper and half an hour it comes right off without damaging the bench.

So I'm using a wonderful waterproof glue that's food safe for indirect contact.

And now I just clamp it all up.

And I want clamps on.

See that glue bead right there, clamps on smooth edges for one hour.

And then I can trim off the ends.

But remember all this is predicated on first jointing those edges.

So you have perfect seams that come together.

So joint those good true square straight edges.

And then I run it through the planer to make the boards perfect.

And so I get glue ups just like this.

Once the glue up was dry, I took it to the band saw and I sculpted these two graceful ends and then did a bit of sanding and Suzy those finished - Thank you.

- boards are awesome.

- I love them.

This one with the handle.

You can put it on blocks if you wanna raise it up.

Or the long one with the blocks underneath, just beautiful.

Look at that grain.

I mean, wow!

Can't wait to have a party.

Are you ready?

- I'm ready.

And one tip on using any of these wiping finishes.

Again this is completely food safe, bees wax and food grade mineral oil, is you want to put it on the rag and then wipe it out.

It'll give you a better result.

- Beautiful.

- Now that's it for this week on The American Woodshop and Suzy next week tell us about your table.

- Oh it's pretty wild.

It is a beautiful sycamore root.

So wait till you see it.

It's different.

- And then I'll be using mixed medium materials, a lot of metal bases with wood tops so.

Hey, that's it for this week from The American Woodshop.

Now go spice up your kitchen.

Woodcraft since 1928.

Providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft- helping you make wood work.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Pro Tools.

For Tool Pros.

(dramatic music) RIKON Tools.

- [Narrator] WOODCRAFT magazine: Projects plans and web links.

Designed to help you make wood work.

PS WOOD.

Home of TIMBER WOLF Swedish Silicon Steel Band Saw Blades and super sharp scroll saw blades.

A bed to sleep on.

A table to share meals.

A house that feels like a home.

The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio.

Providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- For more information on tips behind The American Woodshop and watch free episodes 24/7, check us out online and like us on Facebook.

(upbeat music)