Butcher Block Island Top

Woodworking Note: Technically the term "Butcher Block" refers to wood set on the end grain. To make an end grain tabletop the size I need would be incredibly time and glue intensive. Any weakness during gluing and the top wouldn't be stable. Any miscalculation in cutting and there will be gaps between the pieces. For my island top I will be using a combination of face grain and side grain. If used as a cutting surface, it would show knife marks more easily than an end grain tabletop, but I do not want to cut on it. It will be a work surface for making bread, cookies, and pie dough.

I should start at the beginning. The kitchen in our rental does not have a lot of counter space. Happily, there is room for an island. We looked at Ikea and the kitchen island I liked was around 65,000 yen (~$650). In other words, more than I wanted to spend. I started looking into making one myself and considered an all wood option versus a mix of wood and plumbing pipes. I taped off an "imaginary island" to get a feel for what size would be best for the space and used a clothes drying rack to help give the impression of something tall in the space. David and I created a game where we called each other out for 'stubbing our toes' or 'bruising our hip" if we walked into the "imaginary island" zone rather than around it.

One day I was making the trek through Ikea and I saw this BROR metal cart with a plywood top. It was close to the size I wanted and cost around 20,000 yen (~$200). At that price there was plenty of room left in the budget for me to make my own top for it. I had found my island base.

We brought it home and I created a cardboard mock up of the proposed tabletop dimensions for us to live with for a week or so. I also used various household items (boxes, a cutting board, etc.) to get an idea of how thick I wanted it be. We determined the final tabletop would be 25 inches by 37 inches. I wanted it to be at least 1.25 inches thick. The wood shop had 2 inch slabs of cherry wood available but the slab I wanted was not going to provide enough wood for the project. I needed to buy an additional 3/4 inch cherrywood board.

Woodworking Note: I considered buying a 3/4 inch maplewood board instead of the cherry to provide more visual contrast. It also would have been a little cheaper. However, since the tabletop will be exposed to strong humidity swings, I want to minimize the risk for warping as much as possible. Maple has a different hardness than cherry and will contract and expand at a different rate. As a precaution I decided to use the same species of wood throughout the project.

Using the miter saw I cut the wood into lengths 1 inch longer than the final goal (38 inches) to give me some wiggle room to square up the ends down the road.

The cut wood was run through the planer just enough times to get a flat surface. Then I attempted to use the jointer to create an additional flat surface at a 90 degree angle to the first. Unfortunately, I am not very good with the jointer yet. You need to apply just the right amount of pressure to get a straight edge that doesn't bow. The guy who runs the wood shop helped me out, but I am going to need to practice with the machine some more. Once I had my two straight edges I used the table saw to cut the 2 inch slab of cherry into as many 2 inch strips as I could. When I couldn't get any more 2 inch sections I cut 3/4 inch sections from the remaining wood. Then I cut the 3/4 inch board into 2 and 1/4 inch strips. The strips were cut 1/4 inch thicker than the other boards to allow for wiggle room when joining the pieces. Those strips were rotated 90 degrees and I started playing with the layout of my tabletop. In the picture below you can see 3/4 and 2 inch strips from the 2 inch thick cherry at the right versus the lighter colored 3/4 inch board rotated sideways.

Once I had a pattern I liked it was time to glue and clamp it together. I removed as much of the excess glue as I could after the clamps were tightened.

Woodworking Note: I needed to use a wood glue the FDA has deemed "food safe for indirect contact". I chose Titebond III for my project.

The finished table top is too wide for the planer so the table was assembled in two sections and allowed to dry overnight.

The next day both sides were planned smooth and joined with biscuits and wood glue.

After another day of drying I had an intact table top. The dark lines created by dried wood glue I was unable to remove from under the clamps the day before.

We ran the tabletop through the machine sander to get off the remaining wood glue.

Woodworking Note- If I did not have access to the machine sander I would have used a hand held belt sander.

Once the surface was smooth I trimmed the short edges to goal length using the panel saw. The width was already right at 25 inches. Ideally. I would have made the table top bigger from the beginning for wiggle room but ran out of wood and didn't want to buy more. I shaved just a little off of the long sides to square the top up and the final measurement was 24 7/8 by 37 inches. I suspect you and I are the only ones that will ever know it was meant to be 1/8 inch wider. I trimmed the top out by routing the edges with a rollover bit.

I was in the home stretch now. A little hand sanding with 220 then 330 grit sandpaper followed by 3 coats of butcher's block conditioner on all sides. She is a beauty if I do say so myself.

Woodworking Note: Cherrywood will darken over time. While the 3/4 inch board shows as a lighter color now, it may darken along with the rest of the table and become the same color in the future.

I want to share a few key points about how I mounted the table top to the cart. I created a plywood base using one large piece of 1/4 inch plywood and two strips of 1/4inch plywood glued to the base along the long sides. This leaves a gap in the center under the cherrywood to allow for airflow. I painted the top and sides of the plywood black to match the cart.

I drilled 3/8 inch holes through the plywood at each corner. The tabletop was placed upside down on the floor and the plywood was centered on top. I drilled the pilot holes into the tabletop a the center of the 3/8 inch holes. The wood screws I used were a much smaller diameter than the 3/8 inch holes, so I used a washer to help support the screws. When attaching the plywood base to the table I hand tightened the screws just enough to keep the washers from slipping around.

Woodworking Note: Wood will expand and contract as the humidity changes. By only hand tightening the screws and having large holes in the plywood I am hoping to allow the table to shift as the wood changes. If the wood is not able to shift easily the tabletop will crack in the future.

I attached the plywood base to cart with short screws.

I am so happy with how the island turned out. It has already been put to work making biscuits and scones. Time will tell how it will hold up to the changes in humidity. I can tell that the lighter strips of wood are starting to darken, and that is OK. It is part of the fun of working with wood.