Hey Tim! Great to hear from you and nice work on the cooler box, that’s fantastic! Best of luck on all your other projects. Cheers

Sorry for the late response. I never got an email saying you responded to my comment. That hole would be off center, something like the bottom right area. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to attempt it. I live in Chicago and have to head to the suburbs to work on projects. I also haven’t seen the type of wood I want, so it’s been on the back burner. But I did make the cooler box this weekend. I need to finish staining it which I’ll do next weekend. I’m looking forward to trying a few other projects from your site.

So my brother in law and I made a couple Butcher Block Cutting Boards for my wife & sister for Christmas 2015, before I ever found
DIYPETE. One of the things we did was (while the pieces were still rough cut)
drill 3 holes through the entire board, except for the two end pieces. Then, at
final assembly, along with the glue, we ran some “all thread” through
the holes and tightened from both end with nut/washers and trimmed off the
excess all thread. Finally, we drilled counter sink holes in the two end pieces
to accommodate the nuts, glued them on then clamped the whole thing together.

This process serves three purposes…

1. Prevents warping (addresses ajmitchell436’s issue)

2. Continues to hold the whole thing together well after
the glue decides to break down and let the board to start cracking at the seams

3. The all thread adds a significant amount of weight
making the board much heftier than the wood alone. No rubber feet needed.

Mine is ~21.25×18.5x.75 inches of poplar, oak, walnut, & cherry. My wife is afraid to mess it up so she hasn’t used it yet.

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a8a875ee2b343ccac27fe032efcaa0b253fb73a703671b9e39ee5fbda0897c5c.jpg

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/67a6c74a597ff5740d06e3b204412a3601bfe6febaf9fe4d7cad2f87ddbfaf1c.jpg

Sorry to hear that this happened! It could be a couple of things, but a couple of things I’d like to point out are that, when gluing up different species of wood like this with varying grain, you’ll want to look at the end of the boards and alternate the end grain. Meaning that if one strip has grain flowing upwards, alternate that next board’s end grain to be opposite, pointing down. This will helping with cupping, they won’t all cup the same way like what has happened to you. Wood will always move, especially when still curing and with humidity. I’m surprised to hear that pre-glueup everything looked fine and now its all warped, though.

You could always try to get a couple of flat boards across the top of the butcher block and them clamp them down to a work surface to help push the warp/cupping out. You may break a joint or two, but you can always reglue that and would then give you opportunity to alternate the end grain. Again, sorry this happened and good luck!

Tim, thats a really good idea! Would that hole be off-center? This joinery makes for a really secure hold and yes, I have seen holes up to about 3″ in diameter cut into these butcher block boards. Would be an excellent build! Are you going to make it?

I have been building frame for your outdoor bar all day today and back and fourth staining concrete top. I am really liking it! I cant wait to show finished. It is a little different than yours, but I think you might like it…. I have had people ask me If I bought the table I posted on your sight, didn’t know if you saw it. I tell them about you and your sight… Cant wait for concrete project, I really enjoy working with it..