Saga of the cutting board

[Deanus]

My wife asked me to fix her cutting board which had bowed due to her using one side only. The other side remained sealed. (bought board)
So me being me, I decided to maker her a new one.
Then I thought it would be a good Idea to inlay something to make it a bit more interesting.
How do you inlay? That's where the internet comes in handy.
Alright, I can do it the hard way, by cutting out the shapes, cutting holes in the board and inlay them, OR, I could get a CNC to do it.
Checked out if my little home made CNC could do it, and yes, indeed I could. However, my CNC would not fit a cutting size board in under the fixed gantry. (moving bed)
OK, I've been meaning to update to a larger CNC so I'll build a bigger one, so I set about making a CNC. Pic included. It turned out rather large 500mm across the X and 800mm Y. Two man lift jobby. Now the CNC was too big to fit on a bench anywhere, so I set about making a movable base for it. Wait, if I think about it a bit, I could put draws under the CNC to hold CNC bits and tools. Good Idea !, I'll do that, and if I can, I'll put the computer down the bottom so that it's a self contained moveable tool (on casters).
So after being built, The computer at the bottom was not a good idea for a 66 year old, having to bend down all the time when turning on / off & transferring files to the CNC.
The computer was therefor located on it's side on the bench along side. The whole CNC machine cabinet module was too big to move all the time anyhow. So I removed an old bench and replaced it with the CNC setup.
Now I can do the inlaying I thought. Great.
However, after some testing, I found that to do inlaying, the board that you are inlaying to needs to be very flat. and, the inlay also needs to be flat on both sides so that when you mount it on the CNC, the surface that the CNC is going to cut is a flat surface, otherwise the cutting bit will have an uneven surface to cut.

CNC milling machine s.jpg

Dam'n it gunna have to build a sander / thickness-er. A drum sander I thought, can't be too hard.
I can have it with a feed section that lifts up and down on screws in each corner, the feed mechanism feeds the wood under the drum. What holds the wood down?, got it, the feed rollers can be spring loaded on each side. The feed can be on both sides of the drum so that the wood also gets fed out after sanding.
And it I work it right, I can sand on the top of the drum as well, Why not put a 8" disc sander on the end of the Drum shaft?
So after thinking about it, came up with the sander shape represented in the picture. Of course the neighbor comes to visit and says with those gears and belts, it looks like and old type machine. I thought yea, why not paint it like that. So I added some glue dobs for rivets on the gears and proceeded to distress it. So much so. when my wife saw it, she said that she thought I was a bit slack in my cleaning attempt on a machine that I had acquired.
Now I had to make a moving castor base for that. It didn't take long, a quick box with casters on the bottom. I need casters on everything because my shed floor space is so small I need to move stuff outside to be able to work inside.

Drum Sander.jpg

Woo hoo, I can now make the cutting board.
Ended up making the Cutting board from Tasmanian Oak inlay-ed with Jarrah.
It ended up taking three days to make, Have to wait for the glue to dry twice, once for the center section, and once for the border.
The inlays range from 3mm deep in the middle to next to nothing at the edge. The borders are 3mm deep.
And after all this, and here's the kicker, my wife won't use it, apparently, it's too good.

Cutting board.jpg

Any guesses what My wifes name is?

Regards Dean

[Pac man]

Wife’s name is Patience?

just joking - Rose

[woodPixel]

I don't get it. Isn't the normal progress of any small project?

[russ57]

Did I ever tell you the story of what happened when I found a hole in my bucket....

Russ

[Christos]

I love the cutting board.

Alas I am a bit concern about your process I think you could refine it a little to shorten the time in the build. In regards to the next one you might consider no inlay in the middle of the piece.

[Deanus]

Hi Guys,
Love the comments, Patience should be her name, and to the other replies, yes, it is a long winded way to do it, but look at all the thinking I had to do in the shed by myself, alone with no one to bother me, but buy a new cutting board as in the bucket, ( Spit ) NEVER, that's too easy.