Thread: Year 12 major piece, advice please.

Hi Kelly Wecome to the forum.

I am the chief cook & bottle washer in our house & so I think I can help you a bit.

IF I WERE USING THE BLOCK YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT:

1. For me, I would not want glass on the top as glass bluntens knives & I hate blunt knives, so I would not want the recipie on the block & under glass. also, this idea would only work if the recipie was on a flat shhet & not a book.

2 Removeable chopping board is good. To build an end grain board, you start with some stock & pine is good for this, that is wide x narrow. Glue lengths of stock together on the wide face. Cut across you glue joints about 6 or so mm longer than your desired thickness of your board. Reglue back together on the narrow faces but offset 1/2 the thicness of your original stock to stagger the joints like a brick wall. To flatten, see this thread http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ad.php?t=49176

3. Knife block. I have never done this, but if you take a piece of timber & slice it on the Bandsaw, making a book match pair, hollow out where your knives will go with a router of chisel, on both pieces & reglue it back together, should be easy enough.

4. Airatted draws. I have a spud & ouion box on a shelf on mine with a couple 25mm holes in the back & a bit of mesc over them. Works a treat.

Here is one I made a few years ago. It is pretty basic compared to your ideas, but I think it shows how well the Jarrah & Pine look together.
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...256#post205256

Good luck Kelly.

Steve

mate, what you want to do is make something that is usually fabricated or cast from metal in timber, it will blow your teachers away...... trust me... think outside the box

Hi Kellya01

Sounds like a great project. I like the idea of the knife block built in. I've seen this done once. The knives were along one edge of the frame/base with just the handles sticking out.

The cutting block needs to be removeable so you can get it to the sink occasionally. The one I have is about 500 x 500 mm and about 50 mm deep. It's heavy. I wouldn't make it much bigger.

And, I'd use a hardwood of some sort - what ever is easiest to get that doesn't have a strong smell or is known to be toxic. Pine will cut up too quickly, I think.

I've been using the hardwood one I have solidly for about 20 years and it still is in real good nick - and I use it every day. Just oil it occasionally. As soon as a chopping board starts getting cut up with fibres showing, it starts to get unsafe to use - it harbours bacteria. So I'd recommend hardwood - though I have never used a pine end grain block.

I've made some smaller ones out of standard F17 hardwood that you get from Bunnies and they came up nicely.

Back to your design, though. I think your greatest challenge will be to work out how to attach a book/recipe holder. Some suggestions - put it in a pullout drawer just below the block. Or make a sleeve (open book sized box) out of perspex, say, and hang it from a metal rod on the side. When not in use it hangs straight down. When it needs to be consulted the user swivels it up to horizontal to read then drops it back down. Just some thoughts.

Good luck with it. Let us know how it turns out.

Many thanks guys, great help so far. Will start throwing some drawings around soon and have a chat with my teacher.

I also had a bit of an idea to use a router or similar and rebate a cutout for each knife in the set into the side of actual block and put a clear perspex/glass outer on it so each knife can be seen from the outside with the handles coming out the top. Rebating the actual shape of each knife might be hard to do without making it look choppy though.

Kelly,
the only bit that has to be neat is the bit around the handle, The top face. Inside, it could be 10mm oversize, & it wouldn't matter. As for the block, the reason that soft woodcan work is because it is end grain. This is self healing due the knife parting the fibers not cutting them. There is no reason you should or should not use hard or soft woof as far as the block it self is oncerned, only the amount of work involved in sanding it. you will not thing that soft wood is too soft after spending a couple hours sanding it on the end grain.

Steve

Have you thought about something that relates to your major piece? For a outcome task (major piece)... don't you have to do another outcome task that relates to your first one?

Maybe do your chopping board for the other outcome task that relates to ur major piece

As with anything kitchen watch out for gaps and cleaning. Try to design it with out any gaps or holes showing. Built in knife block sounds cool but with my luck I'm always going to be fishing out a carrot peel or pea from a knife block hole. Same with removable chopping board - make sure that when it is removed you can easily clean the recess it came out of - nothing worse than blood or something sweet and sticky getting into corners. Round out all corner recesses so they can be easily cleaned.

As for the recipe holder I would go for a multi-armed thingo like a dentists or surgical lamp that sits where you put it. The other would be to use a goose-neck or articulated lamp fitting. It would be good if it could be arranged to fold and tuck away when not in use.

Cheers

thanks guys!

Had a quick bash tonight first time at sketch up.
The knife holder and the recipe book holder were tricky, i will try another approach tomorrow or something, but if anyone has any other suggestions or wants to have a bash at the block, i can email the sketchup file. Pics below.

my 2 bobs worth.
Id make the removable chopping board larger than what your've got ie full size
Also if it was 60mm thick, about 30mm down Id cut back all sides so that it overlapped its frame and that way no dirt can get in the edges.
With your knives think about small kids and their fingers, perhaps cover the area with removable perspex.
go for it young man half ya luck

Thanks tonto, that's a great idea to make the chopping board overlap and keep the dirt etc out.

Anyone got any ideas about timber?

just so you know - you can attatch sketchup files. good luck with your peice

Picking up from Bob- the knife slots on the edge seem likely to pick up spills etc. IMHO I would put the knife block under the tabletop to be pulled out when needed on a hinge or slides. It also avoids the problem of handles sticking out and reducing access to the working surface. It does not have to be vertical either, a drawer with vertical slots would be fine also.

I would not have a drawer where it is as scraps will inevitably fall in. I would replace that with a scrap bin/trough so you can just swipe the waste off the board into the bin. Suspend the trough and have a lift off lid on it.

You also need to make the cutting board reversable so you can avoid cross food contamination - especially from fish and chicken.

Looks a good project anyway - good luck and enjoy it.

Pusser

Making the chopping board reversable but also able to be suspended in the actual table top will be hard if i want to make it overlap and prevent bits/crumbs falling into the cavity.

I will go with another design tonight. I tried to attach the sketchup file but it is approx 80kb oversize, does anyone know how to reduce them?

Cheers,