[HN Gopher] Cutting Board Designer
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Cutting Board Designer
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 63 points
Date : 2024-07-02 00:25 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cuttingboarddesigner.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cuttingboarddesigner.com)
| oldweaver wrote:
| I really like the simplicity of the UI, BOM, costing, the ability
| for the users to customize and ultimately the build steps
| itself(with images!). Myself worked on this idea of generational
| grid patterns, I am able to comprehend the design choices to make
| this an easy tool for every normal user. Kudos for making it
| simple
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Pretty cool. It immediately becomes apparent when looking at the
| build steps that the best way to make cutting boards is en masse.
| Building one is not significantly less work than building 10.
| dfc wrote:
| I am assuming you are not a woodworker? There are physical
| constraints that make it really hard to scale like that.
| Whether it's clamps, glue drying time, planer capacity, shop
| space etc. You also don't get the same economies of scale when
| you start to get to the end of the process, eg sanding, routing
| edges/ blood groves/handles, applying finish, etc.
| coryrc wrote:
| I am assuming you are not a woodworker?
|
| Of course it's way easier. You can fit ten cutting boards on
| one set of bar clamps. Adjusting the planer takes longer than
| sending one board through. You only have to change sanding
| paper 3 times instead of 3N. You only have to change your
| router bits twice instead of 2N. You only use one rag per
| finish pass.
| dfc wrote:
| The number of clamps you need for the first (long grain)
| glue ups depends on the number of lineal feet you are
| gluing up. How are you using the same set of clamps for the
| ten boards that would suffice for one board? All of the
| examples I saw are end grain cutting boards. So for the
| final glue up you need one complete set of clamps for each
| board. So you are either taking ten times as long to do
| that glue up or you need 10x clamps.
|
| Side note: what planer are you using that sending work
| through is quicker than adjusting the height? Every planer
| I have ever used takes less than 5 seconds to adjust the
| height.
| coryrc wrote:
| Make it twice as wide -- instead of 16x120 it's 32x60.
| Half as many clamps opened twice as wide. Repeat as
| necessary. Goes for every step.
|
| It only takes four seconds for a board to go through
| mine. Takes much longer to crank the wheel down from the
| 5" I had it at before.
| ok_dad wrote:
| You both have a point. Commercially, make ten boards
| because efficiency equals money. For pleasure, do it one
| at a time because that's more fun than an assembly line.
|
| I'm not a woodworker most of the time, but I am building
| a 35 foot privacy fence at my house from rough redwood
| that I have to prepare myself (flattening, ripping, etc),
| and I would rather die than prepare the wood for more
| than one section of the fence at a time. I like doing it
| the hard way where I just do a bit at a time because it's
| more enjoyable. If this were a job, I would certainly
| plane everything then cut everything then oil everything
| then drill all the holes then cut down the boards then I
| would bring that onsite to assemble it in a few days.
| Instead it's going to take three months.
| 1-more wrote:
| Another economy of scale for clamping is to put
| everything into a clamp rack, rather than onto your
| assembly table in parallel clamps
| https://www.jamesltaylor.com/product/8-panel-
| clamp-79f-8-pc/
| dymk wrote:
| Making large batches of the same board is absolutely faster;
| I'm having a hard time thinking of a single counterexample. I
| estimate each additional board I make is only 10% more work
| than the time to make a single.
|
| Best example I've got is an 3D cubes design. Took me a week
| to make one of them, took me a week and a half to make 12,
| with less wastage due to division remainders.
|
| Sanding, edge routing, handles - all goes so much faster when
| I only have to set up the drum sander once, the CNC once,
| each grit on the the palm sander once...
|
| As for clamps, those certainly are not the limiting factor.
| Harbor Freight clamps are less than $10, can be exchanged no
| questions asked if (when) they break, and you can never have
| enough of them anyways.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Translation for fellow British readers: chopping board for use in
| the kitchen :)
| rpearl wrote:
| genuine question: does "cutting board" mean something else? it
| seems like a reasonably unambiguous term so I'm curious what
| else it might refer to.
| lewispollard wrote:
| As a Brit the first thing I imagined was one of those large,
| thin plastic boards, usually green, with a grid of various
| measurements and angles printed on them, used for cutting
| fabric for sewing patterns.
| dekhn wrote:
| In the US those are usually called "self-healing cutting
| mats" made of PVC (indeed, a plastic).
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Me too - I think 'cutting' implies a level of precision
| that 'chopping' doesn't. After all, I don't think even
| Michelin-star restaurants require _that_ finely-sliced
| carrots!
| maxwell wrote:
| "Chopping" is a way of cutting.
| throw0101b wrote:
| End grain boards, while they may look nice, don't seem to be a
| good idea:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QdXvBtN3iE&t=4m44s
|
| Go with edge grain.
|
| Also: lean towards teak wood. It has a resin that naturally
| repels moisture (it's why it was used on boats for so long (until
| man-made material became popular)).
|
| There are also pros and cons to using wood versus plastic:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GETfxYaBj3w
|
| (Sanitation seems to be a non-issue, though if you have a dish
| washer, plastic may be more convenient.)
| whycome wrote:
| Do all these boards use glue to hold the different types of
| wood together?
| dfc wrote:
| I have never seen a cutting board that did not use glue for
| the lamination.
| dekhn wrote:
| Yes, commonly used Titebond II and III are both food-safe.
| e28eta wrote:
| Cutting Board Designer in Strips mode with "flip alternating
| rows" turned off works acceptably for designing edge grain,
| although the material estimations are off. So I guess all I use
| it for is visualizing different strip widths and overall size
| duped wrote:
| While teak is an awesome material it's also one of those
| hardwoods that's hard to source ethically (if you care about
| it). It's not as bad as the endangered hardwoods that are
| borderline impossible to source outside of personally salvaging
| it, but it's not great.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _While teak is an awesome material it 's also one of those
| hardwoods that's hard to source ethically (if you care about
| it)._
|
| The recommended wood-based product is from Teakhuas, who have
| a bunch of information on their sourcing:
|
| * https://teakhaus.com/blogs/why-
| teakhaus/tagged/certification...
| davexunit wrote:
| America's Test Kitchen is wrong. End grain is way better. They
| wear better as you aren't cross cutting the fibers of the wood.
| Sure they absorb more oil... So? I have both end grain and edge
| grain cutting boards.
| bsder wrote:
| The point is that the edge grain cutting board absorbs less
| liquid, period. You'd like your board to not absorb blood
| from meat too much while you are cutting it.
|
| As for strength and hardness, for the vast majority of people
| the difference will be negligible thanks to modern glues.
| _Maybe_ you 'll notice that your knives won't dull as fast
| with edge grain over end grain.
|
| About the only people it would really matter for are if you
| need an actual _butcher block_ which is going to be used for
| chopping continuously for 8 hours every day (do they even use
| them in commercial facilities still?). However, a genuine
| butcher block is a very different beast. If you find one it
| looks like it is made up of a hardwood (like maple) in 1x4ish
| lumber about 6 to 12 inches long. The rows are dovetailed in
| one direction and generally held together by a threaded rod
| in the other since hide glues sucked.
|
| In my experience, modern edge gain boards are a marketing
| optimization to hide crappy wood. You can use smaller wood
| chunks and use a lot more glue.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _America 's Test Kitchen is wrong. End grain is way
| better._
|
| ATK is basically a commercial kitchen that does a lot of
| volume with dozens of chefs/cooks. They've been recommending
| edge grain for at least a decade:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiCNB0fId0U
|
| I'm going to lean towards trusting their review process--that
| probably wails on these boards more than I ever will--more
| than anecdata.
|
| > _They wear better as you aren 't cross cutting the fibers
| of the wood._
|
| They did wear-testing with the help of Autodesk and a robotic
| arm (see 3m14s) that went at the boards thousands of times.
| This is in addition to the daily use they probably get at
| ATK.
|
| If there is a wearing difference is, I doubt I'll hit volumes
| high enough for it to matter as a home cook.
| WhitneyLand wrote:
| Could you use long strips as the individual pieces and soak each
| strip in stain for a progressively longer amount of time to
| create a gradient effect in the final product?
| pjot wrote:
| You really don't want to seal a cutting board with anything
| other than mineral oil and beeswax. Stain is pretty toxic -
| wouldn't want that to leach into your food.
| dekhn wrote:
| Stain is almost always for coloring, not finishing (not clear
| if you were implying otherwise). There are products marketed
| as "stain" which are made from linseed oil and beeswax, but
| they really only darken the wood a little. General Finishes
| sells a "food safe, oil-and-urethane-based" stain for turned
| wooden bowls, it says it's low-VOC and PFAS-free. Personally,
| I love the aesthetic of food-safe linseed or other nut/seed
| oils, and simply use wood of the color I desire.
| dymk wrote:
| You'd be better off selecting pieces of wood that are
| compatible with each other and have natural color variation,
| then order them from dark to light to achieve a gradient. Or
| change the width of strips to create a "dithering" effect. You
| certainly don't want to use stain on a food-grade surface.
| okramcivokram wrote:
| "Random" should have some sanity checking, I doubt anyone can
| make a board with thousands of stripes with micron thickness with
| twenty different woods. Looks good though.
| xnx wrote:
| Cool tool. Very surprised there isn't a "Buy" button. Would be a
| natural and welcome addition.
| dymk wrote:
| If you come up with a pattern you want, send me a ping (email
| in profile, and a gallery of example work) - I do customs.
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| Only very large commercial cutting board makers would be able
| to accommodate custom design orders from a tool like this. It
| would have to be extremely constrained in terms of the tools
| available to the ship (like the maximum capacity of sanders),
| availability of space and clamps, and most importantly
| availability of appropriate wood.
| Arainach wrote:
| To be clear, their listed costs are _material_ costs, not labor
| costs.
|
| Cutting boards are labor intensive and unless you can make
| dozens or hundreds of identical ones will never be profitable.
| The amount of work setting up different cuts, gluing
| repeatedly, sanding and sanding and sanding.....it's
| exhausting. Cutting boards are one of my favorite woodworking
| projects, but I make batches of them as _gifts_ once every few
| years - which is exactly as long as it takes me to forget how
| much labor goes into them.
| xnx wrote:
| Totally. I've seen a few dozen TikTok videos of the steps
| involved in making similar cutting boards. There still might
| be some takers for a custom cutting board for $450.
| quercusa wrote:
| From the About page:
|
| "The Cutting Board Designer does not support IE because I'm not
| at work and I don't have to "
| Arrath wrote:
| Yeah, that's valid.
| scoot wrote:
| Having said that, it's using Material UI which has only just
| committed PRs to remove IE support in a yet to be released
| version, so this probably works with IE even if the author
| doesn't intend to support it.
|
| Just an observation that the open source ecosystem has been
| very patient with Microsoft - no obligation on anyone to
| support anything that doesn't suit them!
| thih9 wrote:
| I love it, I enjoyed playing with different designs, I especially
| liked the random button.
|
| Also, I learned that the chevron pattern with rotation set to 90
| degrees is out of my price range, as the materials would cost
| $2,281,620,945,495,674,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 .
| dbg31415 wrote:
| If you're bored, and want to invest about $3k in tools and dust
| collection, cutting boards are a great project! (=
|
| Standard Board - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYBg-L3R9g8
|
| Chaos Board - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is7Qn5JuSV4
|
| Restoring Butcher Block Table -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R6Bmc3ztPg
| devilbunny wrote:
| Neat idea.
|
| Board makers, please make 11.5"x16.5" boards of whatever type.
| Despite use of US units, this is a universal size - it will fit
| in the bottom of a half-sheet pan (13"x18" top dimensions with
| sides tapering to bottom) which is AIUI an international
| standard. Standard size kitchen towel on counter, pan on towel,
| board in pan to catch any juices that spill off. Works best if
| board has feet to elevate it a bit and catch more volume.
|
| Obviously useful for large roasts, but also superb for
| watermelon. Also a good size for standalone use, but the sheet
| pan method really helps. If you buy one fancy-finished sheet pan,
| it looks good enough to use at the table for service and keeps
| things clean.
| fanatic2pope wrote:
| I love the idea of a cool cutting board and have myself made a
| few of them, but they are a consumable kitchen tool and don't
| last long with regular use unless you are really dainty with
| them. I use my cutting boards a _lot_ so I tend to save the fancy
| boards for presentation and serving and for actual daily use I
| make simple side grain domestic wood (maple, cherry, or birch)
| boards that I can make quickly and run through my planer when
| they get smelly, stained, or overly damaged. Eventually they get
| too thin and I make a new one.
| ericyd wrote:
| I cook 4-5 days a week every week and have never worn through a
| quality cutting board. Cheap plastic ones will die but good
| quality wood has lasted well for me. Epicurean also makes a
| composite board which has lasted many years for me 26th regular
| use.
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