Cutting Boards with an Edge

Discover the natural wood beauty of real solid Pennsylvania hardwood cutting boards. Celebrate authentic hardwood beauty with our cutting, carving, or charcuterie boards that add excitement to every occasion.    

These thick boards are comfortable to work on, look great in the kitchen, and last a lifetime.  

                   

Meal Prep is more enjoyable with a solid wood cutting board that doesn’t slide around on the counter. Thick solid cherry, hard maple, and walnut cutting boards stay stable, resist warping, offer antimicrobial properties that inhibit bacterial growth, and are easy on expensive knife edges.

             

Barbeque. We love BBQ – smoked beef brisket or standing rib roast; our carving boards are ready to serve…in style. Charcuterie or pastries, our thick charcuterie and serving boards add organic appeal to any presentation.

ZimBoards make thick, solid-wood cutting boards; other makers make thin ones.  

   

Board Thickness is everything.

Board thickness establishes durability, look, feel, and space. It doesn’t matter whether your board is end-grain, edge-grain, or one-piece; thickness still matters.

Warping – All wood cutting boards 1.5” thick and less are much more vulnerable to warping than boards 2” thick or greater. Thin wood boards lack enough mass to slow a moisture imbalance during humidity changes. Thick wood cutting boards increase the distance moisture must travel to destabilize the board's entire cross-section, giving it time to dry evenly and avoiding internal stresses that can cause warping.

Durability – Thicker wood adds strength and lets you resurface the board to like-new condition dozens of times throughout its life.

Look – Do our thick, solid, one-piece wood cutting boards with continuous grain look better than the manufactured look of glued boards? You be the judge.

Feel – No thin wood cutting board can compare to the stability of a thick board. Thick boards with added weight are more stable and lift the cutting surface up off the counter, making cutting and slicing more comfortable.

Space – Wood cutting boards, regardless of construction type, must have adequate air circulation on all sides when stored, or they can warp. Our 2.25” wide board edges stand our boards up on edge stably – thin boards 1.5” thick and less do not.  

 

The Wood

We use only native Pennsylvania hardwoods for our cutting boards because of their grain structure and traceability. Cherry, Walnut, and Hard Maple are the established preferred hardwoods used to make premium cutting boards.

Benefit #1 – Knife-friendly woods: they are dense enough to resist deep gouging yet soft enough to prevent expensive knife edges from dulling quickly.

Benefit #2 – Their grain structure is tight and closed-grain, which minimizes moisture absorption and traps bacteria where they dry out and die off through capillary action.

Benefit #3 – Walnut, Cherry, and Hard Maple contain natural compounds like juglone and tannins that provide inherent antimicrobial benefits.

Which wood is best for you?

Hard Maple is the hardest (1,450 lbf Janka) of the three, making it the most durable and recommended for heavy, daily chopping.

Black Walnut is softer (1,010 lbf Janka) than hard maple, gentle on knives and features a dark coffee-brown heartwood with contrasting light-cream colored sapwood.

Black Cherry is the softest of the three (950 lbf Janka) and is the easiest on knife edges. It has a tight grain and smooth feel – as the wood ages and is exposed to sunlight, it darkens into a rich reddish-brown.

Exotic Wood 

Why use lesser exotic wood when the best wood for cutting boards grows locally? 

Teak has silica and is abrasive to knife edges, dulling knives much faster than walnut, cherry, and maple. The same natural oils in teak that make it waterproof also prevent food-safe oils from penetrating into the wood. Additionally, teak's natural oils make proper lamination difficult.

 

Much of the global teak supply comes from unsustainable forestry practices and illegal logging in Southeast Asia, unlike domestically managed North American hardwoods.

 

Acacia Wood is often considered less than ideal for cutting boards for two reasons: it contains silica, which dulls knives, and it’s too hard (1,700 – 2,000 lbf Janka). Acacia wood is cheaper and varies in quality, so it's hard to know what you’re getting.   

 

Bamboo is considered bad for cutting boards because of its extreme hardness comes from high silica content in the grass fibers and dulls knives quickly. Additionally, bamboo is technically a grass, not a solid piece of timber; boards are made by shredding or slicing the grass and gluing the pieces together. Cheap boards may use low-quality adhesives that can break down over time and potentially release unwanted chemicals.   

Glued Cutting Boards or One-Piece Solid Hardwood.

Which board construction is better, glued or one-piece? The truthful answer is neither. Both glued and one-piece cutting boards have their own merits and disadvantages.

   

Glued boards, like end-grain boards, are made of small blocks positioned vertically and glued together with alternating wood-grain directions. Many small pieces of wood with alternating grain directions help inhibit internal stress across the board, but the individual glued blocks can still expand and contract, which can cause glue seams to crack and open, rendering the board unsanitary.

                             

Additionally, end-grain boards, with their vertical grain orientation, allow the knife edge to slice between wood fibers instead of across them, which advocates claim reduces visible scarring. Glued boards have glue seams, giving them a manufactured look.

   

One-piece boards have a much higher chance of warping at board thicknesses of 1.5” and less. As stated above, thick boards 2” and greater have enough structural mass that their dry interior core can mechanically overpower the minor surface tension caused by external humidity fluctuations. Once again, thick wood cutting boards increase the distance moisture must travel to destabilize the board's entire cross-section, giving it time to dry evenly and avoiding internal stresses that can cause warping. One-piece boards without glue seams have continuous grain patterns and natural tones, which look natural.

                                 

Cutting Board Care

No matter which cutting board you choose, both budget and premium wood cutting boards need consistent care.

Food-grade mineral oil is widely recommended but isn't enough to properly protect a wood cutting board. You need a blend of essential oils and natural waxes. This two-part conditioning process lets the oils penetrate deep into the wood, while the waxes seal the surface.

Adequate air circulation is mandatory to minimize a moisture imbalance in the wood. Storing a wood cutting board flat on the counter exposes the top of the board to different environmental conditions (humidity) than the bottom. Our boards are thick, with a 2.25” wide edge, and stand stably on edge.

Have questions? Please contact us at info@zimboards.com or call 610-856-1223