One for the chop...

Maple...hard, rock maple.  Nice timber but I don't happen to use much of it, though I did just happen to have a decent, longish board around 140mm wide and 50 thick.

At least I thought it was a decent board until I started to machine it...and thats when all the tiny splits and checks appeared, so as far as using it for a bit of furniture, it might as well have been some kindling because that's all it was really fit for.

However, I've had a bit of hankering for some time now for a nice chunkable chopping board to accompany the knives I bought earlier in the year in Japan, so rather than burn this bit of maple, why not turn it into a thick cutting board?...after all, the splits and cracks won't really matter.

The board was then ripped, planed, skimmed and re-jointed with a double row of biscuits on each glue line... that's 36 of the things in total!  I also flipped each piece through 90deg so that the entire chopping surface is now quarter sawn and it was finished with a chamfer all round.

Having finished it this morning, I can think of one or two things that could be sliced up on it...