Ever need to make a quick gift?  Serving boards are great gifts that you can make relatively quickly, with just a few tools. I gave myself just a couple of hours to make a serving platter from a locust slab.  I milled up a locust tree a few years ago so I have a bunch of slabs ready to be turned into something.  Some people may say “two hours? So what?”.  That may be true depending on the quality of the wood that you have. If you have wood that is already surfaced smooth and cut into boards then two hours should be no problem. But in my case, I’m using a rough slab and this particular one had the pith in it, meaning that as it dried there were quite a few cracks in it, which took some time to fill. 

 What I really like about serving boards is that you can make them in all shapes and sizes. Really have fun with it! I loved how the grain flowed down to a central point. It made sense to have that be the handle. This slab was too thick for my jig saw.  I also broke my 3/4” bandsaw blade and only had a very thin blade in the shop, which I didn’t think would get the job done.  I ended up using my circular saw to cut the serving board down to rough size so that I could mill it thinner.  Once it was a bit thinner, then I used the jig saw to cut out the final shape.  I hope that this shows that there’s always more than one way to do something. Never let lack of a specific tool hold you back from making something.

 I ended up making this serving board much thinner than the original slab. The final thickness is about 1-1/4”. For some, that’s too thin, but I think it’s important to consider the wood species. Locust is really dense and heavy. The serving board felt too heavy until I got it down to about this thickness. Planing the board down also removed the pith from the board, which is a good thing. If you are unfamiliar, the pith is the center point of the log. Because the growth rings are circular and tight together, as the wood dries it shrinks in multiple directions and causes cracks. When working with boards or lumber, you always want to avoid using material with the pith. I removed the pith when thinning out the board, but I still had some cracks left over. I filled those with black CA glue.

The handle needed to have a comfortable feel. Again, there is more than one way to tackle curving the handle. A draw knife would be great for this. Instead, I went really simple and used a sander and some 80 grit sandpaper. I shaped the handle until it felt right in the hand, and then I spent some time rounding over all of the edges to give the serving board a soft feel. I also drilled a hole in the handle so it can be hung up when not in use.

The serving board was topped with Osmo oil and left to dry overnight.  Osmo is a good hard wax finish that works well for serving boards. If I needed something even faster then I would have opted for an oil/wax combo or shellac. 

I recommend giving this project a shot. They can be made fairly quickly and people love them as gifts.

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