Wood & Marble Cutting Board

Guest post by Lindi Vanderschaaf of Love Create Celebrate

There are a few things that all woodworkers try at some point, and I think a “cutting board” is one of those things, lol. Although my husband couldn’t just do a typical wood cutting board. We used leftover tile to create this wood and marble cutting board, and I love the final look!

When we ordered tile samples from Jeffrey Court for our Modern Bathroom, we had a few leftovers that we didn’t go with. One of them was this 4″ by 16″ Italian Carrara Marble. It didn’t quite fit the vibe I wanted in our bathroom, but it’s a beautiful tile! So naturally we came up with a new DIY just so we could use it! lol.

Here’s what you need to make your cutting board:

• Maple – a 33″ 1×6 board
• One 4″ x 16″ Italian Carrara Marble tile
• PL Premium Glue
• Table Saw
• Drill (& 7/8″ Forstner bit)
• Router Table
• Sander
• Mineral Oil
• Titebond – Wood glue safe for food

How to Make a Wood & Marble Cutting Board:

I thought it would be easiest to lay out the steps in a grid, so I’ll explain the steps one by one (top left to bottom right):

1. Use your table saw to cut two 1″ by 6″ maple boards to size. Our boards were 0.75″ x 5.5″ by 16″.

2. You will be cutting a notch in each board for the tile to rest in. Our tile was 4″x16″x 0.5″, so we cut a horizontal line first on the table saw that was 2″ deep (half of the 4″ width).

3. Cut the vertical line for the notch 0.5″ deep.

4. & 5. Dry fit the tile into your wood boards to make sure that it fits nicely. You want to have some extra space around the tile for glue, so you may have to make the notch slightly larger to accommodate for this.

6. If you want to create a handle – draw this onto the board. We centered ours 5/8″ from the top of the board and made the opening 4″ by 7/8″.

7. & 8. Drill into each end of your handle – we used a 7/8″ forstner bit for this. Then use a jigsaw to connect the holes.

9. Use your router table to put an 1/8″ radius on all of the edges (handle and outer cutting board edges). You can sand the edge of your tile using a tile sanding block to match the radius of your wood.

10. Sand everything.

11. & 12. Using PL Premium Glue, attach your tile to your cutting board. Clamp it down and let it set overnight.

After the tile was secured in place, we needed to fill the slight gaps between the wood and the tile. We used a special wood glue (Titebond) that was safe for food, mixed it with saw dust (matching saw dust fresh from our sander!), and made our own DIY wood putty to fill the gaps.

When that was done we covered all of the wood in a layer of mineral oil so that the board would be ready for handling food!

I think the final results are beautiful! A high end cutting board, for a fraction of the cost! The long white marble tile was the perfect way to achieve this look!