#1 8.5" x 13"
Edward's solid bird's-eye maple cutting boards are unlike any you've seen. Each board is crafted by joining sections from a single piece of specially selected, figured bird's-eye maple, so the wood tone and figuring are consistent throughout. Each is precision-shaped and hand-beveled for graceful shape and balance. Individually hand-sanded and finished to a sensual silkiness, each board is an art object designed to add aesthetic and utilitarian pleasure to your daily life.
Some owners display their cutting boards as art and hesitate to use them. However, they are designed to provide many years of service and satisfaction; minimal care will preserve their appearance.
Bird's-eye maple
Hard maple is the obvious choice for my cutting boards both for practical and aesthetic reasons. It's extremely durable, and wears slowly and evenly. Craftsmen consider it highly "workable" – a pleasure to cut, shape and finish with precision. And it's a very stable wood, which means that it resists warping, cracking, swelling and splitting due to the stresses of temperature and humidity. With maple, I can achieve exactly the shapes I want, and be assured they'll stay that way.
Because of its high density and fine, even grain, hard maple resists marring from knife cuts, and absorbs relatively little moisture from food. It also provides a pleasing finish – a smooth, even surface with an attractive luster. This is important to me, as I work to achieve a finish that is virtually liquid in its smoothness.
All of my cutting boards are made from bird's-eye maple, which exhibits a pattern of hundreds of small oval figures resembling bird's eyes. Only one in perhaps 500 hard maple trees will exhibit this pattern, and experts are uncertain why it occurs. It may result from a fungus, or particular stresses on the growing tree. Because bird's-eye maple varies tremendously in color and pattern, I create each cutting board from custom-matched sections selected from a single piece of wood. This gives each board its distinctive appearance.
