Jake Broadbent Posted December 24, 2014 Report Share Posted December 24, 2014 Hi Everyone, I'm Jake and I am pastry chef here in Vegas and I have needed a constructive hobby for awhile and I'm pretty sure woodworking is for me. However I didnt have a lot of tools to just jump into it so I spent a lot of time watching Marc and a few others talk/walk me through the first steps to starting a project. Buying my tools took some time (3 months) but I've got enough to start on quite a few projects now. However I decided my first project was going to be some end-grain cutting boards #1. I needed christmas gifts, #2 I needed an excuse to buy all the tools #3 Im a chef and my current cutting board is seriously lacking. The Tools: I spent as much time researching tools and reading reviews as I did watching woodworking videos. I decided on a Ridigd Table Saw because I was able to use a 20% HF coupon at Home Depot and it got good reviews.I bought a Ridge Carbide saw blade for it online as well. I went with a DW734 Planer because its all lowes had and was able to get a good deal on it I had seriously considered the DW735 but I didn't want to spend the extra money when there were really no complaints about the DW734. I bought the Bosch 1617 router because i wanted a plunge router with more power than a hand-me-down I had but I don't see me needing a higher powered router until i need a router table in which case ill get a 3hp Dedicated router for the table. Finding a jointer was a real pain, there wasn't much in the way of jointers on craigslist and the ones that were were not great deals. So I figured i might as well have the lifetime warranty of Ridgid and went with that, It did need a lot of tweaking but I'm very happy, I almost went with a Jet Jointer/Planer but there were a lot of awful reviews.The only thing besides setting up the jointer that I had to do was re-enforce the feet with a sheet of birch plywood and put casters through them so I could move it around the garage plus I only have one 240v outlet in the garage so I need to be able to move everything around easily. The Project: I went with Walnut and Maple just because I really like the contrast and the lumber yard didn't have much of a selection of purpleheart. I need to plan out my glue-ups a little better but overall I'm happy with the results and I learned a lot making them. I'll also be buying some of the attachments for the router because I think the cove cut would have come out a little nicer and probably easier to avoid getting the couple of burn marks in the corners. I already have a few requests to make more, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted December 24, 2014 Report Share Posted December 24, 2014 Welcome ! Nice looking boards . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted December 24, 2014 Report Share Posted December 24, 2014 Jake, welcome to the WT forum! That's a helluva nice looking first project! Put that sucker to some good use and post the next project as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted December 24, 2014 Report Share Posted December 24, 2014 Hi Jake! Glad to have you join us. Sounds like you have a good start on your tool collection. Your boards look quite nice. I feel your pain in regards to the burning of the groove corners. I recently did one like that myself, and there is just no way to make that transition without stopping the router, always resulting in burn marks. I had to resort to taping some sandpaper over the eraser end of a pencil as a makeshift sanding pad, but it did a great job of removing the scorch without rounding the top edge of the groove. How did you take out the scorching? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted December 24, 2014 Report Share Posted December 24, 2014 Welcome to the forums Jake! Sweet looking cutting boards! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Broadbent Posted December 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 24, 2014 There's still a little bit of scorching left but its for my soon to be mother-in-law and my own mom as well so I didn't want to kill myself over fixing something they will probably think makes it unique. However I have a couple ideas for the scorching. I will use my fiancees dremel(bought it for her as her first tool) and using one of the curved sanding bits in there Or I read on another post about leaving 1/16th of an inch difference to your last depth cut so hopefully that will solve that problem. I'm also using cheap ryobi bits and I will be upgrading those as I get some more money. The other big mistake i made with the cutting board was cutting all my maple and then cutting all my walnut.. So for my 1.75" cuts my maple was maybe 1.74" and my walnut was maybe 1.76" .. I wound up using my planer to get all the wood the same size. It was a learning moment and realized i had goofed up but I was just excited to finally be using all my new tools. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardA Posted December 24, 2014 Report Share Posted December 24, 2014 Welcome Jake! Hell of a nice project for it being the first horse outa the barn. Stick around, there's a nice and helpful crowd here, keep us up to date on what you're doing sawdust wise, and there will be plenty of help along the path. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryMcK Posted December 24, 2014 Report Share Posted December 24, 2014 Welcome to the forum Jake. Nice looking boards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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