Basket Weave Cutting Board

By Todd Fratzel on Woodworking

3D Basket Weave Cutting Board – Maple, Walnut & Purpleheart

3D cutting boards are quite the rage in the woodworking arena these days. If you’ve never seen some of these you’re really missing out. Once you see them you too will want to jump on the bandwagon and make your own. As far as cutting boards go the “basket weave” design is one of the more challenging ones requiring lots of patience and skill.

Basket Weave Cutting Board with Apples and Knife

In this article I want to share my design with you along with some tips for making this type of cutting board. In this particular case I’ve made this with face grain to help with the 3D illusion. You could make this with an end grain design to make it more durable but the 3D illusion would be drastically reduced with the lack of a consistent grain running along the length of the board.

Basket Weave Cutting Board Design

This certainly isn’t a unique concept or design on my part. If you go online you can find hundreds if not thousands of similar designs for “3D” cutting boards. The “basket weave” cutting board design is really fun and also a bit challenging which is nice for woodworkers looking to step up their game a bit compared to some of the basic end grain boards.

UntitledAbove is the design that I used for my cutting board. You can make them any size you’d like but there are a few things to keep in mind. As you can see from the dimensions, it’s really important to keep everything in a modular size format or you’ll likely go a bit crazy keeping track of the sizes of the pieces as you build it. For example, each row is 1-1/2″ total width. So the dark pieces of 1-1/2″ wide, and the lighter pieces are also 1-1/2″ wide AFTER the dark side strips are attached. Otherwise the pattern won’t really look like what I’ve shown here.

For this board I chose to make it a bit thinner than some of the end grain boards I’ve made. I did this to cut down on weight and also to save on material. My finished board is about 3/4″ thick which I really like.

Basket Weave Cutting Board Maple Walnut Purpleheart

For my design I used Purpleheart for the dark squares, Maple for the light squares and Walnut for the edging along the maple strips. The key is choosing a good contrast in colors that will help highlight the design.

About the author

Todd Fratzel

I'm full time builder for a large construction company in New Hampshire. I run their design-build division that specializes in custom homes, commercial design-build projects and sub-divisions. I'm also a licensed civil and structural engineer with extensive experience in civil and structural design and home construction. My hope is that I can share my experience in the home construction, home improvement and home renovation profession with other builders and home owners. I'm also the Editor-in-Chief and Founder of Tool Box Buzz. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, suggestions or you'd like to inquire about advertising on this site.

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19 Comments

  1. cutting board builder says:

    I am an experienced cutting board builder and I can honestly that is one of the coolest designs I have seen in a long time. At first it looks like it would take for ever but once I read the instructions it realized any one with adequate woodworking skills could build cutting board. I urge all of the readers interested in building a cutting, try this one and than you can tell everyone that you have your very own handmade custom cutting board, and you made it yourself.

  2. I wish I had found your video a month ago. I am currently sanding out a basket weave bowl, cut on a scroll saw. My three glued up pieces ended up being slightly wider than planned, but I wasn’t smart enough to run them thru the table saw. That resulted in having to adjust the squares. Glue up was a disaster. I started in the center and worked outward. After that mess I figured the best approach was to use a 90 degree form, like you did.
    I would have liked to have seen another shot or two of your finished glue up. I wanted to see how you clamped it all together.
    Thanks for your video as it answered a lot of my questions.

  3. Brian barrell says:

    I like your work and it is pleasing to know someone can share there good work,I will be making this board as I have made a few others,thankyou.

  4. Michael Everman says:

    Hello, I have a question regarding the sizes of the wood you need to cut before, I made a model in Sketchup but when I add the sizes and look at it, it the thin strips of the walnut wood do not feel like 1/4, The walnut wood looks a bit too thick, I would like to check before I attempt to make this if the thickness for the walnut is 1/4 or if it is less.
    Thanks,

  5. Bob Hood says:

    any issue with grains going different directions

  6. Monsoon says:

    May I post part of this on my personal blog if I place a reference to this website?
    Monsoon http://www.monsoondressestore.com

  7. Wayne says:

    Beautiful board. I’m going to start one tomorrow. This will be my first basket weave board. I build end grain boards. Just curious. Have you run the finished board through a planner? Wondering if the different grain directions would plane ok.

  8. Jason says:

    Nice, Im getting to work on this today. I have everything planned out and I’m using purple heart, walnut and oak. Thanks for the great tutorial!

  9. Neal says:

    Great timing Todd. I’m making Christmas gifts of all kinds. Cutting boards were definitely in the mix. I enjoyed your step by step instructions including the tips! My only wish was for some pictures together with the text. I’ve always been a visual kinda guy, I can build just about anything if I see it I can build it.

    I’m still going to give it a shot because the end result is awesome. So thank you for your time, great job!

  10. Pat Meeuwissen says:

    Jason, is there anywhere to see your finished result?

  11. Andy Lord says:

    Hi Todd,
    I just made one from maple with cherry edges, with walnut for the cross squares. I just took it out of glue up and there are 2 hairline light gaps between a few squares. I ran all of the pieces through my tablesaw during one operation with no change to the fence. So the squares are all the same size and the longer pieces are equally wide. How did you get the longer pieces to be exactly three times the length? I think that is my issue.

  12. John Dudeck says:

    Great job
    What blade did you use on your table saw??
    Thanks

  13. John Dudeck says:

    When you did your glue up did you have time to spread the glue evenly or did you not ?
    Very nice work.

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