Lesson #1 - Material Use - I've made quite a few long grain cutting boards. They're popular at Christmas and they make good use of the scrap material. As long as the piece of wood is as long as the cutting board you are creating, glue it to another piece and you're on your way. End grain boards are a bit different. They are typically thicker so there's more volume and you lose a bit since you have to make so many cuts to piece it together. It wasn't quite as bad as I thought though. Once I figured out the thickness of the final board and the thickness of the pieces that were going into it the total length of the starting boards was perhaps twice what I would have done with an end grain board. Not quite as efficient but at least I could still use scrap pieces.
Lesson #2 - Sanding - My main message here is to avoid at all costs. There is a reason end grain boards are more durable and it shows when you start to sand. It would take hours by hand and not much quicker using an orbital sander. There are two good options that I've seen. One is a block plane, that some believe is named for it's ability to plane butcher blocks flat. The other is an thickness sander.I only have the former so it was an easy decision for me.
Lesson #3 - Glue it up flat - In some ways this is a subset of #2. The flatter you glue things up the less sanding/planing you have to do. You also end up with a thicker cutting board in the end and it's a lot easier to keep the whole thing true if you're careful with your glue up.
The one I did above was maple and walnut with a mineral oil and wax finish. I didn't bother with warming the mineral oil and melting in bees wax but I think I will next time since it will reduce how frequently I have to renew the finish.
Nice looking board, I made a bunch of end grain as well as flat grain boards for Christmas gifts, they were a big hit.
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