Today I’m going to show you how I made this cutting board on the CNC machine.
We do have plans available for it on our website so be sure to check that link in the description
so that you can make it for yourself. It's time to get started on a new project.
We're going to be making a cherry cutting board and need to get it held down on the CNC.
For that I’m using the vacuum table on the StepCraft M.1000 CNC machine and you can see
that it sucks down that board really well and it's going absolutely nowhere. So the StepCraft has a
pneumatic dust boot on it, so it lowers and rides on the surface of the material,
so no matter how long your bit is, it's going to get maximum suction in that area.
I’m using the RC-2265 three-wing insert carbide flattening bit to go through here and flatten off
the top surface. You do have the plans for this available on our website so be sure
to check that out. It does have lessons that will apply to other projects as well
throughout the instructions included in the plans. So we did the exact same thing on the back side
after getting it flipped over and we can pick up the 45624-K 60-degree Spectra-coated V-bit.
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And for this we're going to carve in some text on this cutting board. So we're just going to go
through here and it did a really nice job. I left a little bit of fuzzies on some of these edges
as this is the absolute worst case scenario for this bit, cutting cross grain on cherry, but it
did a really nice job. There's zero chip-out or anything like that, so it was super simple
to clean up and get ready for some epoxy. But overall it did a really nice job with this text.
So we got that all done and you can see those fuzzies that I was talking about right there,
but like I said it's very minimal. So we got it pulled off the CNC over to the workbench and
with like 15 seconds of sanding and 220 grit sandpaper we have a perfectly clean carve,
and I just used some zinzer seal coat. So this is to seal up the grain for when we pour epoxy
in it that way we don't have any sort of bleeding. So I’m using some Total Boat two-to-one epoxy with
some black diamond pigments Bora Bora here, and it filled in really nicely. I love the color of this
so after that is done we can get the tape removed that I used for the sanding sealer.
I’m going to put this back on the CNC to flatten off most of the epoxy to make the sanding process
easier. I’m using a piece of paper with two pieces of painters’ tape on top of it
to act as a offset, so that way I’m not going to cut into the wood at all, and this will give me
enough height there that I can sand back down, but remove the majority of epoxy. That way I
don't create any divots or anything like that. So I set my Z height there and then we'll get to
cutting through the epoxy. It did a really nice job flattening off using the same bit uh that I
used to flatten the entire boards, and you can see that we have some really nice shavings coming off
of that epoxy. I realized that I should probably just use a single piece of tape, so I removed one,
re-zeroed everything off, and then we just took another little light pass to make sure that we
got all of the epoxy down nice and flush as we could, without actually cutting into the wood.
So that part is done and again, like I said, you got some nice shavings there that's exactly what
you want to see from epoxy. We'll get that removed from the CNC and then we'll take it back over to
the workbench and just sand off that area. I was careful to make sure that I had sanded the
entire board not just this area in particular so that way we don't create a divot there.
So it turned out really nice, super happy with the way that the text on the
cutting board turned out. So after this is done we'll get it put back on the CNC
and we'll use the RC-45711 90-degree V insert bit to go through and add a chamfer along the edge of
this cutting board. It's really a nice way to do it on the CNC, and I can do this before I
do the profile cut. So I have this set up to do a profile cut on the line and that gives
me a really nice area that I can chamfer, and then later I’ll cut the profile down right up
next to it and we'll have a nice chamfer there. It did a really nice job on the end grain even,
leaving perfectly clean cuts so that was definitely really nice to see. And
you can see how big the chips are, and that's exactly what you want to see. You want chips
not sawdust when using bits like this to cut wood. So now I've got it switched out for the 45914 5/16
inch radius core box bit to go through here and do a juice groove, going through in two passes so
that way it's a little bit less stress on the bit and we're ending on a final pass of 0.4 inches.
Really like the way that this juice groove came out. It definitely looks
really nice there. So this is complete. So now one of the things that I really
want to do is actually pop the grain on the CNC and use that bit to go back through to minimize
the amount of sanding that I need to do. So I just pop the grain with water. That will raise
the grain. I need to do this anyways for cutting boards, so it's nice to do this on the CNC. That
way I can take a full pass depth. So this is cutting at the full height that we did before
and you can see it just removing some really tiny little shavings there. That's exactly what we
want. This minimizes the amount of sanding that's necessary and I’m going to do it one more time
just to be sure that we got as much grain popped as we could, as it's definitely going
to speed up the sanding process considerably. So we went back through again, and again,
you can see those really fine shavings coming off, and on the CNC we were able to achieve
a cut that needs absolutely zero sanding and doesn't need to be popped again going forward.
So really happy with that, and really like the way that that turned out
so this juice groove is done and we can move on to cutting the profile around the outside.
For that I’m going to be using the 46321-K quarter-inch up-cut bit. The up-cut is going
to evacuate chips quite a bit better and it's going to make sure that we have a nice clean cut.
I definitely should have done a final pass where I took a inside step to remove any of the lines
there. I didn't realize that I didn't do that until after I had already pulled it off of the
CNC, but that would be one way to avoid uh showing those lines there on the edge. But anyways it
turned out really nice and I’m happy with the way that it worked, it just required a little bit of
extra sanding as any CNC machine is going to leave those lines as it's going down in multiple passes.
So this is done. Left a nice clean cut on the bottom edge, which is exactly what you
want from an upcut bit. So we can get that removed from the CNC. You can see those lines
that I was talking about right there, but it's not a huge deal because we are still
going to pop the grain on everything else. So as I explained before, the water is going
to pre-pop that grain so that way when you contact the surface with water when you're
actually using the cutting board, the grain does not stand back up, and you get a nice
smooth finish that doesn't get affected when you actually get water on the cutting board.
So after a couple swipes with 220 grit sandpaper we have a really nice edge. I’ll go back and do
this again later on in the process, but I want to match the edge that I have on the front side,
with a chamfer the same size on the back side. So I’m using the 47306 three flute 45-degree
chamfer bit to do that on the router table. So I’m just going to take a single pass here using
the micro jig grip block to keep my hands away from the bit, and keep things nice and safe.
So we went through and did the cut along the entire backside surface to leave the matching
chamfer on the front edge. Even on the end grain we're left with really smooth cuts.
With that done I switched the M.1000 vacuum table out for the vertical clamping table,
and this allows me to work on the end grain on this piece. So I got everything clamped
in nice and secure, and then leveled each side out using just a 90-degree square to make sure
that I had it perfectly level with the table. This is a really unique feature on this CNC,
not a whole lot of CNCs are able to have vertical clamping tables but this M.1000 has a ton of
different things that you can do with it. I sort of made a mistake and should have
done the chamfer later and had to try to line up with my chamfered edge since I didn't have
a back edge that I could easily line up with. So I used the rc-45711 90-degree V insert bit
to go through here and make a couple test lines. That first one was about 1/16 of an inch off
so I had to move my Y zero position back about a 16th of an inch. We got it perfectly centered,
so now we can go pick up the core box bit. This is the same one that we used to cut the juice
groove and we can go down through here in three passes to get to the final depth. I didn't want to
put a ton of stress on the vertical clamping table so I went with smaller step downs, so that way we
made sure that everything stayed nice and secure. So we're going through like I said in three passes
to get to that final depth. And on this one we're going to do the exact
same thing that we did with the juice groove. I really like the fit of this and it fit really
nice in the hand. So we're going to go through and pop the grain on the CNC, and then we'll
come back with the bit running at a full depth. I used an air compressor to dry that really quickly,
that way there was a little bit less downtime. So I went with a full depth pass here again
just to remove that grain that had popped up and we're left with a groove that needs no additional
sanding at all even after popping the grain. So we'll get it removed from the CNC again.
Since a lot of CNC machines are not capable of doing a vertical clamping like that here's
another way to do the finger holds on a router table. We will have a full build video on this
jig as well as the plans available here shortly, but I figured it'd be cool to show it in here too.
So I made this and it has a couple stops on it that allows you to set the uh length that you
want of the finger hold and it has a backing that allows you to make sure that you keep it
nice and square to the router table. Typically these are fairly not safe to do on a router
table without some sort of jig like this. I took it in two passes and it definitely
worked really well. For this I’m using the 45916 5/16 radius core box. The big
difference between this one is that it's a half inch shank instead of a quarter inch
shank like the one that I was using on the CNC. So we got that cut in there and it worked out
really nice. I’ll just pop the grain on that one and then do a bit of sanding in there.
Using the gator micro zip I was able to sand over all of the sharper edges that were still
left and then I sanded the entire board down to 220 grit before applying the Walrus Oil.
I got everything blown off and used the Walrus Oil cutting board oil for the finish on here. I just
spread it around by hand and put a nice thick coat on there, and then I let it sit on there overnight
before buffing it off the next morning. So it looks really nice and I’m super
happy with the way that the Walrus Oil made the grain pop. These finger holds work really well
for being able to pick it up and we have the cutting board in its final resting location.
The back side of this cutting board actually has the map of the Lake the Ozarks which is
where we're at. We will also have a full video on the back side of this cutting board as well,
as it's definitely amazing. So the scenery out here is pretty awesome and it definitely fits with
the cutting board and the theme of it as well. So we're getting the first use on the cutting
board and couldn't be happier with the way that the finish turned out
and the way that it looks in its environment. So this one is done. Be sure to check out the
plans available for making this for yourself. But hopefully you guys enjoyed this one. We
will catch you guys back out here in the next one. Have a great day everybody.
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