Now where was I...
The metal straight edged bars worked a treat and the glued half cutting boards had straight edges. This is putting 2 of them together. The thinnest cross cut strips are only 3mm thick and very fragile and some went on now. 2 on each outer edge went on with the oak surround and 3 in the middle now.
vertical alignment was a problem sometimes due to dried glue drips. I did take the worst off before glueing
Needed encouragement so a run over with the sander and a wash with white spirit
2 at one go in glue up. Start of the oak framing.
So on to flattening and no pictures of the bit in between where I finished edging the boards with oak and then edged them again with some OSB or a bit of MDF as sacrificial edges. I had a 2 x 4 ft lump of 25mm veneered MDF in the shed so that became the bed of my 'mill'. I planed and thicknessed 2 pieces of CLS timber and clamped them to the panel. Then I realised I could clamp the cutting board with the battens.
Thought it might be nice to be able to see through the 'bridge' with the router mounted to it so i use a piece of clear polycarbonate as the base. The sides are MDF. It almost worked but the polcarb was a bit springy and let the router wobble slightly. fitting the guide bars and wood packer sorted it. marks on 20mm pitch gave me something to look at. i used a 25mm cutter.
After a pass
Surface finish was a bit coarse but OK
I took 1mm cuts by putting a ruler on top of the battens to lift the 'bridge' the lowered the cutter (router off) on to the work and locked the height. remove the rulers and back to work. Took a few passes sometimes.
Slow job but satisfying that it works
Got there in the end. These blocks stopped me machining the battens
It was a messy job as the extraction didn't pick up that much
There were cutter lines but they were very shallow
OSB removed
Sanding with the ROS then a thin coat of clear resin to fill the odd hole and to seal the darker wood which is softer than the maple. Also makes it look good
Before and after type picture
I've sanded all but what soaked in of that resin off now but that's as far as I've got so they look like the before shots again now but pop when they have a finish applied. I'm making something else now so these are on hold but I'll update when i get them finished.