Master an End-Grain Butcher's Block

One of the youngest members of the Forest 2 Home family, Annalee, recently made an intricate End-Grain Butcher Block and shared with us how she did it! One tip she shared was to lay out the boards to get the design you want. Once you’re happy with the design, glue it together end grain up! For her full build instructions, see below: 

Step 1
First part of design is to decide on a layout. Using wood from Forest to Home makes this super easy, because the pieces were are dimensional 1” x 2”. I used 1" x 2" x 24" pieces to start, which turns into a butcher's block that is 24" long, 12" wide, and 3" thick.

Step 2
First glue up. You can see in this picture two parts: 1 Ash, 2 Cherry, 1 Ash vertical and 2 Ash glued horizontal. I repeated this with: Maple, Cherry>, Maple and 2 Maple and again with Cherry, Ash, Cherry and 2 Cherry.

Step 3
Square and glue the corresponding flat pieces to match the outer vertical pieces. At the end of this step, you have you will have 3 pieces 3” tall x 4” wide.

Step 4
Edge grain glue up. I just glued the two matching pieces to make a 4” piece.

Step 5
Face grain glue up. This is gluing the vertical to horizontal pieces.

Your last glue up before cutting and flipping to end-grain to get your design should look like this.

Step 6
Glue those 3 pieces.

Step 7
Cut the blank to thickness you want. The final board I did is 2” thick.

Step 8
Flatten and sand to 220 grit.

Step 9
Oil it and it’s ready to use.

Want to see more projects Annalee has completed? Check her out on Instagram: @AnniesWoodworks.