I ran through your flickr log of the construction the other day and was struck by how much time you put into it. At the time I considered posting some suggestions about simplifying the process, but elected to. Probably because I'm lazy.
Since you brought it up though...
Don't you have a planer?
Just rip stock to the width needed for the cubes +1/8" and then plane both widths to the correct width. Then cut them down to height on a chop saw using a fence stop. This should make for a big sack of perfectly sized cubes. Glue them all up in a form, and then, if necessary run the glued planks through the planer again to remove any variations in height from the glue up. Then just finish sand if you feel it's necessary (it shouldn't be for a cutting board, and oil.
The only problem that I foresee is the chance that the planar may chatter enough on an end grain cut to split the material or seperate the glue, but I don't think that would happen.
Also, I think making them like candy pieces and cutting a single board of a stock block of cutting board cube sounds like a huge hassle that will never work right. That's just an opinion though.
Fair enough, and you might be right, but I do have a 7' tall, 18" band saw with a 1" wide blade. It's meant for cutting big stuff cleanly. I don't think I want to do whole boards anymore, though. I was going with 20x22 piece @ 0.5" square for 10"x11" boards, which would clear the saw's throat, but that's really pushing it for my saw. Then I decided to go with 3/4" square sticks, which bumps it to 15"x16". No way that's going through the saw. However, if I do top and bottom half blocks separately, it's only 7.5" tall chunks. The saw is meant to cut through things like that with no problem, and I've used it enough to know that I'll get a flat enough surface that I'll only need to sand at that point, after joining up the halves
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Yeah, I probably know the suggestions, but I had reasons. Regardless of whether I use quality bar/parallel clamps by Bessey, or C or spring clamps, blocks always shift while clamping them. If you want professional woodworker results, you have to have a system for holding them in alignment while you clamp, or you have to keep loosening, noodling, and tightening. I could have simply put an entire row together in one shot, but the glue becomes too tacky to slide within about 2 minutes, and even wetting glue and pieces only helps a little. The first time you clamp tightly, they're pretty much frozen, so I'd hone in. Nothing is more frustrating to me with end-grain boards than the slightly misaligned corners between pieces. So unprofessional. I got each pair, and then each pair of pairs to where you couldn't feel a lip between them on the full length of opposing sides. The one thing that still cropped up that I hadn't fully expected (sorta felt it coming) was that each cube compressed a little bit differently through the clampings such
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Since you brought it up though...
Don't you have a planer?
Just rip stock to the width needed for the cubes +1/8" and then plane both widths to the correct width. Then cut them down to height on a chop saw using a fence stop. This should make for a big sack of perfectly sized cubes. Glue them all up in a form, and then, if necessary run the glued planks through the planer again to remove any variations in height from the glue up. Then just finish sand if you feel it's necessary (it shouldn't be for a cutting board, and oil.
The only problem that I foresee is the chance that the planar may chatter enough on an end grain cut to split the material or seperate the glue, but I don't think that would happen.
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