Step 4 – Ripping Wood Strips

The best way to approach this type of cutting board is by ripping strips of wood that are longer than each of the “weaves” on the board. You need to plan ahead and create each of these “weaves” or “bands” that you’ll eventually cross-cut to length.

The dark bands are pretty easy to do, you’ll cut these to exactly 1-1/2″ wide. Again, be sure they are longer than you need. It’s also important to pay attention to the grain direction for this design. If you look closely at the pictures, the Purpleheart that I used for my dark blocks runs along the “long” length of the board. So those strips should be about 18″ long in my case (the final board is 16-1/2″ long).

Next you need rip the “light” colored material. In this case these strips need to be a bit narrower because the total width of the narrow strip plus the edging needs to be 1-1/2″. In my example, I’ve used 1-1/4″ wide Maple. It’s important to note that in this case I cut two long strips (about 18″ long) and four shorter strips (about 12″ long) which follows the pattern and grain that I’ll need for my design.

Finally I ripped thin strips (3/16″ wide) of Walnut that get pre-glued to the edges of the lighter material (Maple). I made the Walnut 3/16″ wide and not 1/8″ wide because I wanted them to be a bit “big” so that I can trim them down after they are glued to the Maple. This is the only way to ensure that the assembly of Maple and Walnut is exactly 1-1/2″ like the previously cut Purpleheart.

TIP: Cutting thin strips can be quite dangerous on the table saw. I recommend either using a tool like the GRR-Ripper or building a thin strip ripping jig (I’m going to have an article on this in the near future).

As you can see in the photo above, I started with the dark pieces that are all squares. If you look closely, all the grain is running along the length of the board. The pieces in each row were cut from the same strip. In fact, where the gaps exist, I cut out that block and tossed it. This ensures that the grain in each piece is where it would have been along the strip if the pieces were truly “woven” together.

To cut these pieces you can do it one of two ways. The first way is using a miter gauge along with a stop block setup on the fence. Once you get the fence in the right place so it cuts the length you want the pieces should all be exactly the same. The other method which I prefer is using a cross-cut sled (I have an article on how to build one in the workshop section if you’re interested in building one). Regardless of how you cross-cut the pieces, it’s really critical that you be precise. As you can see below, I was able to get my pieces within 0.001″ of the same width and length.

After cutting the squares I moved on to cutting the pieces of Maple with the Walnut edging. Before removing the stop block for the Purpleheart squares I cut six pieces of the Maple the same size (NOTE: be sure that you cut those six pieces off the strips that will be used for the adjacent longer pieces and keep track of which row they go in). Then I used the cross-cut sled with a stop block and a scrap piece of wood until I had a piece cut to 4-1/2″ (the width of 3 blocks).

Step 5 – 1st Glue-Up: Light Colored Wood and Dark Edge Strips

Before assembling the cutting board I chose to glue the Walnut strips to the edges of the Maple strips. I use Titebond III which is food safe and works very well for cutting boards. It’s very important to clamp all the pieces tight and also use culls to keep the pieces flat until they dry.

Material Preparation

The key to successfully building a basket weave cutting board is making sure that you have very precise cuts so the “puzzle” fits together with perfect joints. In order to accomplish that you really need to take your time and use the proper tools in the proper sequence.

The first step in building the basket weave cutting board is cutting material down to a rough size. This can be down with a table saw and/or bandsaw. The material I used for the board was cut down from 8/4 material so I used my bandsaw to split the boards in half and make them thinner.

When you rough size the material be sure to leave extra for planing and finishing. I like to leave at least 1/8″ to 3/16″ of inch extra so I have plenty of wiggle room.