Good Morning Friends,

If you are making end grain cutting boards, what woods are good for such a project?

I like using ash, walnut, cherry, hickory, maple and jarrah.  I just found a source where I can get a lot of scrap jarrah and some maple for the students to work with.  The jarrah puts in some nice color but my supplier says they will be phasing it out over the next couple years due to short supply from Australia.  They will be replacing it with purpleheart which should be nice to use also.  Now if I can just figure out an easier way to sand the end grain.

Woods with tight grains.

Some folks say use only wood from trees that produce edible products. Maple and walnut are two acceptable choice. 

Good Morning Roy and Lewis,

You both are dead on target with your answers for any board with a tight end grain can be used for the glue up of the different segments to make a cutting board interesting rather then the checker board square idea.

Roy to sand your blocks mount a block on the end of the table to allow the cutting board to rest against while you are using your belt sander to make the cutting board level and even. Never attempt to run them through a planer.

Thanks for your support.

I've been using the drum sander to flatten them out, then a ROS to get them smoothed out to the final.  It just takes so long to do it, wish there was a faster way.