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Not Another Chevron Cutting Board
By Nick Engler
Copyright © 2021 Bookworks, Inc.

I wanted to make something different. Something

unique, a cutting board that no one has ever seen
before. I love patterned cutting boards – I religiously
save scraps of beautiful woods from large projects,
and then repurpose them as kitchen stuff. But I’ve
made enough chevron and herringbone cutting
boards to last a dozen chefs a dozen lifetimes.
Then my shop-buddy Travis saw a quilt with a hypnotic pattern that we’ve yet to see in wood.
It wasn’t long before we figured out how to recreate it in wood, using some lonesome pieces
of curly maple and purpleheart we had lying around. The results are what you see above – a
mind bender, no doubt about it. But what do you call it? Is this the “Falling Into An Endless
Tunnel” cutting board? The “Look At It Long Enough and Your Eyes Will Cross” cutting
board? The “Mesmerizing and Slightly Unsettling” cutting board? All Travis and I could come
up with is that it’s definitely not another chevron cutting board. So that’s what we’re calling it.
And there’s something else unique about this cutting board besides its striking pattern. You
can’t build just one. Seriously. When you get done with this project, you’ll have two boards,
one the reverse and the negative of the other!

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Not Another Chevron Cutting Board Page 2

1. Cut the wood strips. each width, dark and light, except for the
Select two species of wood of strongly 1/2-inch wide strips. Cut four of those, two
contrasting colors. As I mentioned, the dark and two light.
boards you see pictured here are curly
Tip: Cut the strips a little wide, and then
maple and purpleheart. We’ve also made
plane them to final width. This will insure
these boards from walnut and white ash to
the widths match precisely.
good effect. The wood should at least 1/8”
(3 mm) thicker than the final thickness you
2. Glue up the strips.
want for your cutting boards. If you’re
Arrange the strips to form two boards, 34”
aiming for 3/4”-thick (19 mm) boards, the
(86.5 cm) long and 8” (20.25 cm) wide.
wood you start out with should be at least
Start each board with a 1/2”-wide (13 mm)
7/8” (22 mm) thick.
strip, then a 1/8”-wide (3 mm) strip,
Cut 15 strips of varying widths from each followed by strips in ascending widths until
type of wood. Start with two strips 1/8” you get to the 1”-wide (25 mm) strip. The
wide, one dark and one light. Then cut strips must alternate colors, light-dark-light-
3/16”-wide strips, 1/4” wide, and so on dark. When properly arranged, the boards
through 5/16”, 3/8”, 7/16”, 1/2”, 9/16”, 5/8”, will be negative images of each other. One
11/16”, 3/4”, 13/16”, 7/8” and 1”. (If you’re will have dark strips at the edges, the other
working in metric, see the drawings at the light. Glue the strips together with a water-
end of this plan.) You need two strips of resistant glue.

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sanding drum. This will let you “bury” the

Not Another Chevron Cutting
drums Board
in the table as you work. Page 3

3. Cut the boards into squares..

Let the glue dry overnight, and then scrape
away any excess squeeze-out. Plane the
boards flat, trying to remove no more than
1/16” (1.5 mm) of thickness. (You’ll have to
remove more later on.) Then cut each
board into four squares. When done, you
should have eight 8” by 8” (20.25 cm by
20.25 cm) squares.

5. Cut the squares in half diagonally.

Cut the squares into two equilateral
triangles exactly the same size. To do this,
you’ll have to line up the cut so the saw
kerf splits the wood at the corners. I made
a special jig – a miter sled – to hold and
position the squares at exactly 45 degrees
to the saw blade. If you don’t want to go to
the trouble of making a sled, you could
also make a special fence for your miter
gauge to guide the squares.
Warning! Whatever you do, be aware that
the rotation of the saw blade will drive both
halves of the square back into the notch
that’s holding and guiding it. This will pinch
the blade, burning the wood and making
the cuts less than straight. To avoid this, I
stuck pieces of 50# sandpaper to my sled
and pushed down firmly as I fed the sled
forward. This kept the squares from sliding
back as they were being cut. The blade
wasn’t pinched; the wood didn’t burn; and
the cuts remained straight.
After cutting, number the triangles as
shown – 1, 2, 3, and 4.

6. Turn and flip the triangles, and then

glue them together.
Take two #1 triangles. Flip one front-for-
back and rotate it 90 degrees. The strips of
wood should match up and appear to make
a bend. Glue the two triangles together,
forming a square. Do the same for the
remaining triangles, always gluing the
same numbers (1, 2, 3, or 4) together.

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Not Another Chevron Cutting Board Page 4

7. Glue the squares together.

Scrape away the glue squeeze-out and
arrange the squares so the odds (1 and 3)
and the evens (2 and 4) butt against one
another, forming four rectangles. This time,
the strips should not match up. The dark
strips of any given width should butt up
against a light strip of the same width. The
widths should be continuous, but the colors
should appear to switch in the middle of
the board. Glue the squares together.

8. Glue the rectangles together.

Once again, scrape away the glue. You
may also wish to “joint” the inside edges
that you will soon be gluing together.
Throughout this process, it’s most
important that the strips align – the widths
must appear continuous, even if the colors
aren’t. During the last two glue-ups, it’s
more than possible that the squares and
rectangles will have developed small steps
along the edges as you struggled to do
this. If this is the case, joint the outside
edges where you have long grain, then rip
the inside edges on your table saw, making 10. Apply a finish
them straight and true. Remove as little Finish sand the completed cutting boards
stock as possible. and apply the finish of your choice. The
traditional choice is walnut oil or mineral oil
Take one of the 1-3 rectangles, rotate it
because they are both non-toxic. But
180 degrees and butt it up against the
neither of them cure, and they must be re-
other 1-3 rectangle. Do the same for the
applied from time to time.
2-4 rectangles. Glue the adjoining edges
together as shown. Make two boards, each You might also consider a “hot wax” finish.
just under 16” (40.5 cm) square. Most paste waxes are made from paraffin,
beeswax, and carnuba wax – all non-toxic,
9. Chamfer the edges. except for the solvent or “carrier.” Spread a
Scrape away the glue – yet again – and thick coat of wax on your cutting board,
flatten the boards. I removed the tiny steps then gently heat the surfaces with a heat
between the boards with a smoothing gun or hair dryer. The solvent evaporates
plane, and then finished up with an orbital into the air while the liquefied wax soaks
sander. When the boards are flat, rout a deep into the wood, protecting it from
1/8” (3 mm) chamfer in the edges, top and moisture. And when you buff out the wax, it
bottom. You might also create these has an attractive sheen that you can’t get
chamfers with a block plane. from non-drying oils.

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Not Another Chevron Cutting Board Page 5

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Not Another Chevron Cutting Board Page 6

Once more, in metric:

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Not Another Chevron Cutting Board Page 7

Board 1 Pattern

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Not Another Chevron Cutting Board Page 8

Untrimmed
Board 2 Pattern
Not only are the colors reversed on the
second board, so are the widths – the widths
get progressively smaller as you go out from
the center. Because of this, you may want to
trim the outboard strips from 1/2” (13 mm)
wide to 1/16” (1.5 mm). Some folks find the
wide strips at the edges interfere with the
optical illusion if left untrimmed.

Trimmed
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