Cat Shelves

Here's a quick, easy project for all you feline fanatics out there.  Cats need a place to jump, climb, and scratch, and if you don't give it to them, they will jump, climb, and scratch all over your furniture.  We recently adopted a new kitty, and to welcome her to our home I decided to build a set of "cat shelves" (for lack of a better word), to give her a place to climb around in our living room.

The idea is rather simple, and I didn't think of it on my own.  There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing floating around the internet, I just adapted it to the available space and decor of the room in which I wanted to install it.

I made the shelves out of inexpensive 1"x8" pine boards that you can pick up at any big-box hardware store, or if you're like me, you might even have some lying around in your scrap lumber pile.  I measured the area, put my design down on paper, and cut the boards to the desired lengths.

Next I pulled out a router with a Roman ogee bit to add a little decorative detail to the edges.  I made a couple of passes around the three exposed edges of each board, and then went over the whole board with 220 grit sandpaper to prepare it for painting.

I painted the bottom face as well as the three routed edges, first with primer, then with two coats of flat white interior paint.  Once the paint was dry it was time to install the carpet for the top of the shelves.



I stopped by a local carpet store, told them what I was doing, and asked if they had any remnants they could sell me.  Instead they showed me some scrap they had lying around and told me I could take what I needed from that, so the carpet cost me nothing.

I cut the pieces I needed with a razor blade, and trimmed them up with scissors.  I used Liquid Nails to adhere the carpet to the pine board, which I may have done differently if I had it to do over again.  The Liquid Nails bonds excellently, but it has a seven day cure time, and stinks of solvent the whole time it is curing, so it delayed me bringing these into the house for longer than I had planned.

As for how to mount the cat shelves on the wall, I left the decision up to my wife.  She picked these decorative brackets from Amazon, and I think they compliment the room excellently.  It's important to take one's time and use a level to make sure the shelves are mounted in a visually appealing fashion.


In addition to the shelves, I also added a "climbing wall" to the area.  I had a couple of 2'x'2 carpet tiles lying around that I cut into sections and mounted to the wall by using drywall screws through the carpet and into studs behind the drywall.  The cat can then climb up the carpet on the wall to reach one of the platforms.  This provides her exercise, as well as gives her a chance to scratch something other than the furniture.


I hope you've enjoyed this short but entertaining project.  Hopefully it will inspire some of you to build your own cat-play-area.  If you have any questions about adapting this design to your own space, please let me know in the comments below.  Thanks for reading.

Voyeur Bluebird House with a Raspberry Pi

     Previous readers of my blog may remember my initial foray into filming birds using the Raspberry Pi.  That first experience was inspired by coincidence, as a family of wrens made their nest on the windowsill of my basement workshop, and proceeded to raise five young babies.  I built a small wooden enclosure to house a Pi, motion detector, and camera, and set it on the windowsill adjacent to the nest.  Each time the mother flew in to feed the babies, or the babies started to move outside the nest, the camera would turn on, and continue to film until movement had ceased.  I enjoyed the process of filming these birds so much, that I decided to try to recreate the project.  This time, however, I doubted I could rely on fate to deliver another family of birds to my windowsill.

     I decided the best way to ensure birds would nest in a place suitable for filming would be to build a birdhouse, and install a camera inside.  I decided on Bluebirds as the species of bird I wanted to film, and a quick Google search told me the dimensions of the birdhouse and opening I would need to attract that specific variety of bird.

     If you are not interested in how this project was done, and would just like to see a video of the chickadee that originally settled in the birdhouse, as well as the final video of the baby bluebirds, just scroll down to the section entitled "Filming the Birds", and watch the two YouTube videos.  I would hate to see people get bored by the technical specifics of the project and stop reading before they get to the videos of the birds.  If you are interested in how I built this project, or would like to build one yourself, please continue reading.

Building the Birdhouse

     I chose cedar as the species of wood to build the birdhouse due to its resistance to insects and rot.  I purchased cedar that was rough-sawn on one side to give the birds a surface that they could easily sink their claws into.  I also chose not to build a perch outside the entrance hole.  Instead, I flipped a piece of the cedar so that the rough-sawn surface was facing outward, allowing the bluebirds to grip the surface with their claws, but making it less suitable for predators, or other species of bird that would likely kill the bluebirds and steal their house, such as sparrows.  Also, since I was concerned about potential heat generated inside the birdhouse by the Raspberry Pi, I decided to add a small sheltered area to the back of the birdhouse that could protect the Pi from the elements, but also keep me from having to place it inside the actual birdhouse.  Since there are literally thousands of birdhouse plans available on the internet, and anyone emulating this project will need to pick a species native to their geographical location, I won't go into great detail on the construction of the birdhouse here.  If anyone has questions on the specifics of how the birdhouse was built, please feel free to ask in the comments at the end of this post.


      One thing to keep in mind as you are assembling your birdhouse is that you don't want to make the top of the birdhouse airtight.  Instead, make sure to leave some air-gaps, and even drill a few holes in the side near the top as well as in the bottom to allow cool air to flow in through the bottom of the birdhouse and hot air to escape out the top so it doesn't get too hot in your birdhouse during the summer months.  Also, keeping in mind the way my first project filming birds ended (see the end of this post), I made sure to do everything in my power to protect the birdhouse from predators.  I covered the mounting post with PVC pipe to make it more difficult to climb, and I added a squirrel baffle between the PVC and the birdhouse to keep anything that was able to climb the PVC from reaching the house (this is not the exact baffle I purchased, but it is similar.)  If a squirrel or other large rodent was able to reach the birdhouse, the double wall around the opening would make it more difficult for anything to widen the opening by clawing at it.

Installing the Hardware

     With the birdhouse constructed, it was time to figure out how to film the birds.  Since it was going to be dark inside the birdhouse, I decided to use a infrared night vision camera.  I also needed to find one with an adjustable focus, since the birds would be very close to the camera.  Here is the link to the particular camera I purchased for this project.  In addition, I was going to need an infrared motion detector that could be powered by 5V DC, but would be capable of sending a 3.3V signal to the Raspberry Pi, which I found here.  Finally I decided to add an LM75A Temperature Sensor inside the birdhouse so I could ensure that all the electronics did not cause the temperature inside to get too hot.

     With hardware in hand, I needed to find a way to mount the camera, motion detector, infrared LED, and temperature sensor inside the birdhouse.  For the camera and infrared LED, I settled on using a small piece of clear acrylic that I cut and drilled to fit.  I then epoxied some 12 awg insulated solid copper wire to the bottom of the acrylic so that I could mount the wire to the back of the birdhouse, and then bend it to point the camera in the exact direction I needed it to point.  Once the acrylic was in place and focused towards the center of the birdhouse, I wedged the motion detector between the acrylic and the side of the birdhouse.  A couple of drops from the hot glue gun made sure everything stayed in place.  I allowed the temperature sensor to hang slightly below the rest of the electronics to allow it to measure the temperature closer to where the birds would be nesting.

     The Raspberry Pi model I chose for this project was the Raspberry Pi Zero W, because of it's much lower price point, and it's smaller size.  I purchased it in a kit that came with a plastic case, so that I could mount the case inside the enclosure on the back of the birdhouse, and easily remove the Pi from the case for maintenance.  I then ran the camera ribbon cable from the Pi on the back of the birdhouse to the camera inside the birdhouse.  A few more wires to get power and signal to the motion detector, power and signal to the temperature sensor, plus power wires for the infrared LED, and the Pi was ready to go.  Feel free to use any of the GPIO pins on the Pi you would like to use, just be sure that the pins referenced in the Python script match the pins used on the Pi.



     I used a 16GB USB flash drive as a hard-drive to store the video files.  Other options would have been to use the SD card that held the operating system, but that would have limited space, and could shorten the life of the SD card.  Alternatively I could have just automatically sent the video files to my file server, but that would involve another point of failure, so even if the Pi was up and running, if something knocked the server offline or the power flickered and the server powered down, then any files being sent from the Pi would be lost.  The flash drive seemed to be the simplest solution, and as long as I transferred the video files remotely and wiped the USB drive at some point before I collected 16GB of video, I should be OK.

     One last detail, in order to be able to plug in the power supply for the Raspberry Pi without having to worry about the length of the power cord, I mounted a 120V AC outlet inside an outdoor enclosure on the back of the birdhouse.  I then attached a piece of outdoor-rated flexible power cable with a three pronged plug to the outlet.  I could now power the outlet using this power cable, and just plug the Raspberry Pi power supply into the outlet on the birdhouse directly below it.

Writing the Software

     With the hardware complete, all I had to do was to write the software, which is pretty much the exact same Python script I used in my last post where I filmed the birds in the windowsill with an added bit of code for the temperature sensor.  Regardless, in case you would like to copy the script for use in your own project, I will post it below.  Don't forget to add a line to /etc/rc.local to tell the Pi to run the script on boot.  Here it is:

 #!/usr/bin/env python  
   
 import RPi.GPIO as GPIO  
 import picamera  
 import time  
 import smbus # lets us access the i2c bus  
   
 MOTION_PIN = 4  
 BUS_NUM = 1 # 1 is the I2C bus (board pins 3 and 5)  
 TEMP_SENSOR1 = 0x48  
 EMAIL_THRESHOLD = 98  
 GMAIL_USER = 'email1@gmail.com' # email account used to send email  
 GMAIL_PASS = 'emailpass' # password for email account used to send email  
 SENT_FROM = GMAIL_USER  
 SEND_TO = 'email2@gmail.com, email3@gmail.com' # email recipient for alerts  
   
   
 def take_video(channel):  
      print 'motion detected' # for troubleshooting only  
      timestamp = time.strftime("%m-%d-%y-%H-%M-%S")  
      #camera.annotate_background = picamera.Color('black')  
      #camera.annotate_text = timestamp  
      camera.start_recording('bvid%s.h264' % timestamp)  
      print 'recording started'  
      camera.wait_recording(10)  
      while GPIO.input(MOTION_PIN):  
           camera.wait_recording(5)  
      camera.stop_recording()  
      print 'recording stoped'  
   
 def WRITE_TO_FILE(temp):  
     print 'writing to file' # for troubleshooting only  
     timestamp = time.strftime("%y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")  
   
     f=open('/mnt/usb/temperature.txt', 'a') # this opens a file for writing.  
                          # the 'a' means append, which will   
                          # add anything written to the end  
                          # of the file.  
   
           # The line below writes to the file we are appending  
     f.write('%s %d \n' % (timestamp, temp))  
     f.close() # This closes the file we just appended.  
   
   
 def CtoF( Ctemp ): # this function converts the Celcius temperature passed  
                       # to the funtion to Fahrenheit and returns it.  
     return((Ctemp*9.0/5.0)+32)  
   
             
 def GET_TEMPS( sensor_add ):  
   print 'getting temp'  
   Ctemp1 = bus.read_byte(sensor_add)  
   Ftemp1 = CtoF(Ctemp1)  
   return Ftemp1  
        
        
 def SEND_EMAIL ( temperature ): # This function sends an email  
   
     timestamp = time.strftime("%m-%d-%y %H:%M:%S")  
     subject = 'Birdhouse Temperature Too High' % (location) + timestamp  
     body = 'The temperature in the birdhouse is %d degrees.' % (temperature)  
   
     msg = MIMEText(body)  
     msg['From'] = SENT_FROM  
     msg['To'] = SEND_TO  
     msg['Subject'] = subject  
   
     try:  
       server = smtplib.SMTP_SSL('smtp.gmail.com', 465)  
       server.ehlo()  
       server.login(GMAIL_USER, GMAIL_PASS)  
        server.sendmail(SENT_FROM, SEND_TO, msg.as_string())  
        server.close()  
        print 'email sent' # for troubleshooting only  
     except:  
       print 'email atempted and failed' # for troubleshooting only  
             
 # Begining of Program  
   
   
 bus = smbus.SMBus(BUS_NUM) # sets the variable bus to refer to I2C bus 1  
   
 camera = picamera.PiCamera()  
 camera.led = False  
   
 GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)  
 GPIO.setup(MOTION_PIN, GPIO.IN)  
   
 GPIO.add_event_detect(MOTION_PIN, GPIO.RISING, callback=take_video, bouncetime=1000)  
   
 while True:  
      Ftemp_1 = GET_TEMPS ( TEMP_SENSOR1 )  
      if Ftemp_1 > EMAIL_THRESHOLD:  
           SEND_EMAIL (Ftemp_1)  
      WRITE_TO_FILE(Ftemp_1)  
      time.sleep(300)  
             

Filming the Birds

     So that's the how-to, and now onto the fun part: filming the birds.  I set the birdhouse up outside my house in August of 2017 and plugged it into one of our outdoor outlets.  Honestly, after a few months I had forgotten all about it.  One day in late spring of 2018, my wife Courtney saw a bird fly out of the birdhouse and asked me to check the camera.  Much to my surprise, the Raspberry Pi was still up and running from 8 or 9 months prior, and had captured plenty of video.  All that time outside in the winter weather hadn't cause any issues with the Pi at all (that's some well made hardware!).  Upon examination of the video, it appeared we had a chickadee moving into our bluebird house.  Well, I'm not one to discriminate, I was just happy to have a bird enjoying the birdhouse, and I was even happier that the video recorder was working.

     We continued to check the camera from time to time, watching the chickadee as it gathered it's nest building materials and meticulously arranged them just so.  Then one day, all of a sudden, there was a bluebird in the birdhouse.  I reviewed the videos, and narrowed it down to the change, but there was no "event".  One video showed the chickadee working on it's nest, and the next video showed a bluebird checking out his new pad.  If there was an altercation it must have happened outside the birdhouse.  Alternatively the bluebird may have just moved in, and when the chickadee returned to find a bigger bird in his house, he just decided to move on.  Regardless, I was now filming bluebirds, which was my original intention.

     Fast-forward about a month, and the blue bird had completely revamped the nest, and laid some eggs.  I was very excited to see them hatch.  Unfortunately, I underestimated how often I would need to clean off the USB flash drive that was holding the video once the bird had laid eggs.  When the birds were building the nests, they would make an appearance here and there, and then go back out to forage for food, and find more nesting materials, which only created a limited number of videos.  Once the eggs were laid, the bluebird spent most of her time sitting on the eggs inside the birdhouse, and consequently the flash drive filled up with video in just a few days.  Once it was full, it stopped saving the recordings, so unfortunately I missed the moment of hatching while we were out of town for a weekend.  Once I returned home and realized what had happened I quickly downloaded the existing video and erased the drive, so I was at least able to film the majority of the young birds' infancy.

      Below is a montage of the baby bluebirds I put together .  The total span of the videos is only a couple weeks, so you can see that they grew quickly.  I lost my infrared LED a few days after the babies hatched, so the lighting is a little off in the second half of the video, but of course I couldn't get into the birdhouse to change the LED until after the birds had vacated the nest.  It still turned out great in my opinion.  My wife Courtney thinks these little guys are cute, but personally I think they're ugly little spuds before their feathers fully grow in.

Building Cedar Planters With My Wife

I challenged my wife to come up with a project that she would like to have done that we could do together.  Her answer was two large planters for the back yard.  I thought this was an excellent suggestion.  The project would be just long enough to be worth doing, and just short enough that she wouldn't swear off working in the shop forever.

I decided on red cedar for the wood due to it's rot resistance (we are going to be filling these with soil after all.)  I chose a very basic design, and based the measurements for this project on the dimensions of the cedar boards that were readily available and reasonably priced.  I'll give the measurements for this project as well as a cut list for anyone wanting to replicate it, but I don't see any reason that anyone should feel the need to use the exact same measurements.  This project is easy enough to adapt to your specific environment  or available materials.

Cut List
(8) 22" x 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" (legs)

(16) 16-3/4" x 3/4" x 2" (top and bottom rail for sides)
(24) 18" x 3/4" x 5-1/2" (side slats)
(6) 16-3/4" x 3/4" x 5-1/2" (bottom slats)
(8) 15-1/4" x 3/4" x 3/4" (ledge for the bottom slats to rest on)

So here are the measurements.  At this point I hadn't decided what type of border I was going to use for the top, so you won't see it in the cut list.  I wanted to see what the planters looked like before I made that decision, so I just bought an extra 8ft 1x6 board and set it aside to be cut later.

This is proof that my wife actually helped to build these.  She did most of the cutting on the radial arm saw, although she shied away from ripping on the table saw.  One step at a time.

So here are the planters assembled sans the top border.  This should go without saying, but this should be glued as well as screwed together.  For outdoor projects always be sure to use an appropriately waterproof glue like Titebond III, and exterior wood screws.

Now it was time to make the border for the top.  I thought that using the router to make any sort of rounded detail would look out of place on this project, so I decided to just cut a 60 degree chamfer on the table saw.

Here is the finished product.  We lined the inside of the side panels with garden fabric before filling with soil to keep the soil from dripping out the spaces between the slats in the side panels when watered.  We didn't put any garden fabric in the bottom, and actually drilled some holes in the bottom slats to aid in drainage.  The bottom pieces are not actually glued or screwed to the rest of the planter, so they are easily replaced if they start to lose their structural integrity.

Experiments with Lichtenberg Figures on Hardwood

     In one of my earlier blog posts on Lichtenberg Figures I made the observation that they did not work well on hardwoods.  However, after continuing experimentation and my success with the mahogany tealight holders, I decided that I simply had not perfected the technique required for burning figures into hardwood.  When I finished the tealight holders I decided to do a little more experimentation before retiring the Lichtenberg machine back to the shelf.  I chose four species of wood: red oak, mahogany, ambrosia maple, and walnut.  I used two pieces of each species, and in an attempt to be as scientific as possible, I planed and cut all the pieces to the same dimensions, approximately 10" x 3-1/2" x 3/8".  For the electrolyte solution I used 1-1/3 tablespoons of baking soda to 1 cup of hot water.  It seems that the trick for getting hardwoods to work is to make sure that they are thoroughly saturated with electrolyte solution, so two coats are necessary before burning, and then additional coats are required throughout burning as the heat from the procedure dries out the wood.  I presoaked all of the pieces by brushing on a liberal amount of solution while avoiding the edges of the pieces.  I did the second coat of electrolyte immediately before burning, concentrating more solution around the area where the electrodes will connect.  In the video below you can see that in almost all instances the pieces will dry out around the electrodes first and will require constant re-wetting throughout the process.

     Now that all of the pieces are finished, it looks like red oak turned out the best (upper left in the picture below), followed by mahogany (upper right), then walnut (lower left), then maple (lower right) respectively.  By best I mean they had more detail, and less thick, deep burns.  This is subjective of course, and other people might be looking for a different effect.

     My hypothesis was that the harder the wood, the more detail would show up, and the softer the wood, the deeper and thicker the burn would be.  While this seems to be generally true (pine and MDF burn thicker and deeper with less detail than hardwoods), between hardwoods there seems to be other factors effecting the pattern.  Confirming my theory, Red Oak is the hardest of the woods I tested, and it did have the most detail.  Maple is the softest, consequently having the least detail.  Walnut, however, is harder than the Mahogany by a significant degree, but it burned decisively deeper lines with less detail than the Mahogany.  Further experimentation along with additional research into the characteristics of the woods will be necessary to determine what factors other than hardness effect the burn patterns on various species of wood.


     Now that the experiment is over, and the Lichtenberg machine has been relegated to it's spot on the shelf, I am once again left with a bunch of wood panels with neat designs but no real purpose.  This time I decided to do something with them.  I was not overly impressed with the Maple, so I set it aside and proceeded to finish the other panels with four coats of polyurethane.  With some brass hooks and eyelets, and a length of brass chain, I connected the panels together to create a simple wall hanging.  I think it turned out nicely.

Tealight Candle Holder Featuring Lichtenberg Figures

     After my initial foray into Lichtenberg Figures, the machine ended up being put on a shelf to gather dust as predicted.  While it was inexplicably enjoyable to electrocute wood, the end results were underwhelming to me.  What do I do with a bunch of wood panels with Lichtenberg Figures on them?  By themselves they didn't merit hanging on a wall or giving as gifts.  In fact, the only piece that I was overly pleased with was my hiking stick with the figures burned at the top.  I decided that the best use for the Lichtenberg machine would be to add a decorative touch to pieces that were functional or decorative in their own right.

     As summer approaches and yard work threatens to monopolize my time, large projects in the shop have to take a back seat.  Faced with a little free time over last weekend I decided I could squeeze in a small weekend project, and maybe even find a way to incorporate Lichtenberg figures.  After taking stock of the materials I had on hand, I decided to make a tealight candle holder, since I had some tealights leftover from lathe projects I had done in the past.  As always, the first question to answer is what wood to use, so my first step was to do a little experimenting.

     The first pieces I cut were two pieces of poplar and a piece of mahogany.  These were chosen because they were small cut-off pieces from other projects that were already about the right thickness, and they were close to the top of my wood pile.  I also pulled out some small pieces of maple and walnut, but they would need to be planed, so I saved those for batch two.  I cut the wood to size and drilled the holes for the tealight candles.  I found in previous experiments that in order for the figures to work well in harder woods they needed two or three coats of electrolyte solution, and time to absorb between coats, so I went ahead and prepped the wood for burning.  Below are my experiments and observations burning the first three pieces.  I really do learn something new every time I get this machine out.

     The top piece in the picture above was the first piece.  The problem seemed to be that too much of the electrolyte solution dripped over and soaked into the edges of the piece, causing most of the burning to take place on the edge, not the surface.  The bottom piece above was the second burn.  For this one I made sure not to paint the electrolyte all the way to the edge, leaving a thin, dry boarder around the edge of the surface.  Unfortunately the poplar proved too eager to catch fire and burn, leaving thick smudgy lines, which was not the desired effect.  So far, two pieces burned, two lessons learned.  Just when I was getting a little discouraged, the third piece (in the middle above) brought me a pleasant surprise.  While I was hoping for a little more detail, the mahogany burned like no other wood I had tried previously.  On other woods the pattern started at both electrodes and snaked through the wood until the two ends got close enough to arc.  On the mahogany, the burn seemed to start instantaneously all throughout the wood and quickly begin to arc.

     Based on that experiment, I decided that Mahogany might be the wood to use for this project.  On the bright side, I happen to have some lying around, but on the other side, it is very expensive, and I hate to use it on a dinky little project like this.  In the long run I decided to go ahead and use a little of the Mahogany I had on hand.  What's the point in having it if I never use it for anything, waiting for that perfect project that never comes.  I ripped a length of it, planed it down to a little over a quarter inch, and cut that length into four pieces ready to be burned.  Below is the result.

     I was very pleased with the way these turned out.  You'll notice in the picture that each of these pieces has a lighter area around the boarder.  This is a result of not painting the electrolyte solution all the way to the edge.  I learned early on in the experimenting process that the electrolyte solution always discolors the wood after the electricity has been applied.  It doesn't have the same effect without the electricity, so I can't just go back and apply more around the edges after the burning.  In this case I kinda like the effect, so I don't mind it so much, but it's something to keep in mind.  The other thing to take away from this is that the patterns got better as I went along.  In the picture above, the top piece was done first, and they continue down in chronological order.  I did the first coat of electrolyte on all of them at the same time, and then went back and did the second coat immediately before burning.  This means that the pieces towards the bottom had longer for the first coat to soak in than the top pieces.  This seems to have resulted in a better burn pattern, but also a deeper discoloration from the electrolyte solution.  So it seems to be a trade-off, but the main takeaway is that on harder woods, it is better to give it a little more time to let the first coat of electrolyte solution soak in thoroughly before applying the second coat and burning. 

       OK, so now the burning is done.  Time to put the machine back on the shelf and finish up the project.  I needed some sort of legs or base to hold the mahogany up high enough for the tealights fit down through the holes.  I had a couple of ebony turning blanks that I had purchased because they were on sale, and I think the black color of ebony will go great with the mahogany.  After squaring, cutting, and drilling the ebony, the only thing left is to add a little polyurethane and do the final assembly.

     Typically I would spray-finish this type of project with lacquer or something similar, but I was out of lacquer and I had some polyurethane-type finish lying around.  Since I had never experimented with spraying this particular finish I decided to brush it on... big mistake.  Between the dry-time, the sanding, and the 3-4 re-coats the finishing took forever.  A weekend to build, a week to finish.  It's time to go get some more lacquer.

And here we have the finished product.  I think they turned out well, and they gave me a chance to play with my Lichtenberg machine again, so all-in-all I'm very pleased with this project.

End Grain Cutting Board

     End grain cutting boards make great gifts, and are not incredibly difficult to make if you take the time to make sure all measurements and cuts are precise.  The basic concept is to have the wood grains line up vertically so that the knife's edge actually goes down between the grains  instead of cutting across them.  This improves the life of the cutting board, and keeps your kitchen knives sharper for longer.

      The first consideration when planning out a cutting board is to pick the woods that will be used.  While it's good to think about the contrast and color coordination of the wood, there are other important factors.  Most importantly, some woods can cause allergic reactions, and even be directly toxic, which makes them a poor choice for use in a cutting board.  The second consideration is the hardness of the wood.  It is important to use a dense hardwood to extend the longevity of the board, and it is also good to make sure that the woods don't vary too much in hardness to keep the joints from stressing as the wood moves over time.  I always like to use Hard Maple in my cutting boards as it is very easy to work with, and it also has innate anti-bacterial properties.  I chose Purple Heart as the contrast wood, mainly because I like the color, and I have used it before along with Maple to make end grain boards.

       One more quick note about my wood choices, it's always good to know the characteristics of the wood that one is working with.  While Purple Heart is a pretty wood, it does like to chip and tear-out, which can be annoying, but it's not a show stopper.  Be sure to make shallow passes on both the planer and jointer to minimize tear-out, and maybe start with the wood a little thicker than needed in case it takes a couple of extra passes through the planer to get rid of tear-out.  The Hard Maple won't have as many issues with tear-out as the Purple Heart, but it does tend to get burn marks when sawing, especially when cutting two inch thick pieces like we will be doing here.  My trick to dealing with the burn marks is to cut pieces 1/16 to 1/8 inch wider than needed, and then make a second cut on each side of the piece, only taking 1/16 to 1/32 off on the second cut.  This will get rid of the burn marks, and typically will not make new burns when cutting such a small amount.

      OK, time to stop rambling and get to building...

     I was able to get some nice 8/4 Hard Maple stock for this project, but I was unable to find any 8/4 Purple Heart, so a couple of Purple Heart 2"x2" turning blanks will have to suffice.  There was no need to start planing down the whole slab of Maple, so I cut what I needed on the radial arm saw.  There is always waste on a project like this, so it is important to cut a little longer than I think I will need.

     Once the boards are cut, it's time to run them through the planer.  Everything needs to be absolutely flat on both sides and uniform thickness.

     Once the boards are flat, use the jointer to get one edge perfectly flat and perpendicular to the planed surface.  No need to worry about the other edge, we'll get that on the table saw.

     I know I mentioned it previously, but precision is key to making one of these cutting boards turn out well.  It is important to make sure that everything is perfectly square on both the table saw and the jointer or it will stick out like a sore thumb on the finished product.

Now that the board is flat and square it is time to rip some 2x2 strips on the table saw.  Pretty self explanatory.

Next cross-cut the strips to length.  I'm not worried about the length being perfectly precise, or else I would use a sled with a stop, or set a stop against fence, but if the length is not perfect it can be cleaned up after the first gluing with the table saw.

I like to line everything up before getting ready to glue, just to make sure there are no gaps, and everything lines up correctly.

Time for the first gluing.  I'm not the best at this step.  The strips always seem to want to slide and move on me while I am trying to clamp them.  Consider this step practice for the second gluing.  If things aren't perfect after this step they can be cleaned up on the planer and the table saw.  If things aren't perfect after the second gluing then either the project will go into the scrap heap, or be prepared to spend days sanding.  Let the glue dry for 24 hours.

I didn't take any pictures of the clean-up work after the first gluing, but if you've seen one board go through the planer, you've seen them all.  First I cleaned up the glue that squeezed out from in between the strips with a razor blade. Then I ran the glue-ups through the planer again to get all the rest of the glue, and make sure that they were perfectly flat.  This step is very important because sometimes, if the first glue-up is clamped too tight, it will cause the whole piece to bow upward in the middle, which can cause major problems with the second glue-up.  Once the glued-up boards are flat, use the table saw to get one flat edge, perpendicular to the lengthwise strips.

Time to cut the second set of strips.  Technically we are cross-cutting here, but I'm using the ripping fence to get uniform strips, so I'm not sure what you would call this exactly.  Cross-ripping?

You can see the burn marks on the maple I was talking about earlier.  This is where you want to cut these strips a little wider than you need, and then go back and cut off 1/32 to 1/16 of an inch to get rid of the burn marks.  Trust me, nobody wants to be sanding burn marks out of the end-grain after the glue-up, it would take forever.

As I pointed out before, always line up your pieces the way you want them before gluing, and this is an example of why.  If you look closely in the picture above, you can see that the edges of the new strips aren't perfectly parallel, so they leave thin little gaps between the strips at the top and bottom.  This is because I didn't get the boards perfectly flat on the planer after the first glue up.  Luckily, I can use the table saw to fix this at this point.  If I had gone straight to gluing, it would be too late, and the whole thing would end up in the scrap heap.  There is not much that can be done if you end up with gaps between the boards after gluing.  Gaps will leave places for bacteria to grow, hence making the cutting board possibly hazardous to your health, not to mention unsightly.  So let's get this fixed up and move on.

This is much better.  No gaps.  Let's take it over to the gluing bench.

This gluing needs to be as perfect as humanly possible.  Sanding end-grain is an extremely slow and tedious process.  It is already going to take a lot of sanding just to remove the excess glue that won't come off with a razor blade, but if your boards are off by even a little bit be prepared to sand for days.

No pictures of the sanding process either, so you'll have to use your imagination.  Imagine a 48" belt sander with an 80-grit belt.  You would think it would chew through wood faster than you could feed it, but not on end-grain.  Make slow even passes until all the glue marks are gone.  Don't assume that you will get those last few marks during clean-up sanding because you will just end up going back to the belt sander after wasting hours with the hand sander.  Once I am satisfied with both faces of the board, I change the belt to 120 grit to get the sides of the board.  I also round the corners of the board on the belt sander, just for aesthetics.

 After the belt sander, and before I do the final sanding, I like to use a hand router to round over or chamfer the edges on both faces of the board.  This is not only aesthetic, but also helps to get ones fingers under the board when picking it up off of a flat surface.  To clean up the scratches from the belt sander I use a random orbit sander starting with 60 grit, followed by 80, then 120, then 220.  When the sanding is done, take a break, you deserve it.

This particular cutting board is going to be a gift, so I thought I'd personalize it with a little bit of wood burning.  This should be done on the side of the board so as not to mar the cutting surface, and it is much easier to do before oiling the board.

I like to take several days to oil the boards to make sure the wood is fully saturated.  Always use food grade mineral oil, and if it is a gift, it doesn't hurt to give a small bottle of mineral oil with the board so the recipient can add some oil from time to time.  Since I had the oil out, I grabbed a cutting board from the kitchen that I made for my wife years ago so I could freshen up the oil on that one too.  Apply the mineral oil liberally and allow to soak for 30 mins to an hour minimum.  Flip the board over and repeat, and repeat, and repeat.  After doing this for a few days I am satisfied that the board is saturated.  I do the last two coats with a product called "Butcher Block Conditioner", which is made from bees wax and mineral oil.  It is very thick when it first comes out of the bottle, and you have to heat it up to melt the wax.  The wax helps to seal the cutting board so that it doesn't dry out as quickly.  Speaking of drying, I will let this board air out for a few days before gift wrapping it, otherwise the recipient might unwrap an oily mess.

And that's all there is to it.  Mark and Kara, if you are reading this, I hope you don't mind me making a blog post out of your wedding present.  We had a great time in Lewisburg, and I wish you both all the happiness in the world.