How to Maintain and Care for Your Cutting Board

Learn how to maintain and care for your cutting board with a simple routine for cleaning, oiling, and protecting it. A practical guide to keeping wooden cutting boards looking good and lasting longer.

Learn how to maintain and care for your cutting board with a simple routine for cleaning, oiling, and protecting it. A practical guide to keeping wooden cutting boards looking good and lasting longer.

Learn how to choose the right cutting board size and thickness for your project. A practical guide to cutting board dimensions, layout tips, and what works best for everyday kitchen use.

Learn how to prep wood for cutting boards starting from rough boards or slabs. A practical guide to flattening, straightening, planing, and getting stock ready for a clean glue-up.

Discover different types of cutting boards and how to make them, from simple beginner builds to more advanced patterned designs. A practical guide to cutting board styles, ideas, and build options for woodworkers.

Learn how to make a wooden chess board step by step — from milling and glue-up to cutting clean squares, sanding flat, and applying a smooth finish that makes the pattern pop.

Handles make a cutting board much easier (and more comfortable) to pick up — especially bigger boards. In this guide, I’ll show the handle styles I use most (cutouts, finger grips, and side slots), which router bits work best, and how to route them cleanly without tear-out or burn marks.

Roundover and chamfer are two of the best edge profiles for cutting boards — simple to make and they instantly give a board a more professional look. In this guide, I’ll compare roundover vs chamfer, show which router bits work best for each, and share practical tips for clean edges (tear-out prevention, burn mark fixes, and a quick sanding finish).

Here’s how I refinished a heavily used cutting board and brought it back to a like-new finish—flattening the surface, reshaping the juice groove, sanding smooth, then re-oiling and waxing (with clear before-and-after results).