You may be scrolling through our offerings, surprised by size of our pieces. Why, you may ask, are Wooded boards so thick when compared to other makers or discount sellers? This is one of our favorite topics, so strap-in for our big wood manifesto!

We love curves, but not in our boards!

This is the crux of the issue, really: to prevent warping. As we mentioned in our discussion on grain orientations, wood is ultimately a bunch of fibrous grains smooshed together, designed to transport moisture and nutrients through the tree it comes from. It is absorbent by its very nature, and we don’t desire or have the ability to alter its nature.

That absorption of moisture causes wood surfaces to be naturally unstable to some degree. As moisture is absorbed into the wood (through direct contact or humidity in the air), the fibers swell and jostle each other around. The moisture that’s absorbed is not perfectly distributed, so the movement is naturally uneven. This causes certain parts of the wood surface to bulge more than others, creating warping and unevenness.

How does thickness impact this

Knowing that wood, as hard as we try to keep it dry, is going to experience these cycles of expansion or contraction, we turn to thicker surfaces for buffer room. By crafting a thicker surface, we increase the volume of fibers, giving each fiber more neighbors on either side to help counteract the fibers that are expanding and changing shapes as they digest and attempt to transport moisture. In thin boards, that moisture often penetrates to the core, and the fibers all begin to alter their shape with less resistance, creating a bend in the entire surface of the wood, commonly known as a “warp”, “bow”, “cup”, or similar terminology describing the totality of a wood surface bending away from a straight and flat state. For the chef using the cutting board, this results in a board that rocks around, an annoyance similar to a table or chair that isn’t flat.

How thick is thick enough?

That depends on your circumstances and who you ask. We follow a rule of 8 inches, which to be clear is our own made-up rule of thumb (as far as we know).

For our favorite simple rectangular-shaped board, if you divide the width dimension by 8, the board should be that thickness, at a minimum! To put it another way, every inch of thickness should support no more than 8 inches of width. We find that in most circumstances, with basic precautions, this will result in a board that tends to stay flatter.

As an example, a common width of a cutting board is 12 inches. Divide that by 8 and you’ll get 1.5 inches. So at Wooded, we would lean toward a 1.75 or 2 inch thickness (with 1.5 inches as an absolute minimum), to provide you with a board that will be stable and stay flat. 

Compare that to a discount / imported offering, where we see boards that size at 1 inch or even thinner. This is nearly always a decision to save costs; every fraction of an inch of thickness adds a significant amount of expensive hardwood and makes the board more costly to produce and ship (especially if it's shipping across the world in a hot cargo container, but that's another topic). 

These thin boards may seem appealing for their lower cost, but will be rocking and rolling in a short period of time. Not only may these boards become uneven, but they have much thinner glue joints that can become separated more easily as the board expands and contracts, further weakening the board. 

At Wooded, we believe your board should be a decades-long investment with care. Which is why we lean toward thicker, old-fashioned butcher block construction, even at the expense of cost and a little extra weight. 

What about charcuterie boards?

It's important to distinguish between cutting boards (which we believe should always be end-grain) and charcuterie boards. The former should be designed for heavier duty cycles; more frequent use and exposure to liquid from chopping and rinsing. Charcuterie boards, on the other hand, are generally used for serving and presentation. So a thinner board here may make more sense and our 8 inch logic doesn't strictly apply.

That said, we would never recommend or sell a board thinner than 1 inch, and would certainly urge buyers of thin charcuterie boards to purchase one with feet that elevate the bottom of the board off of potentially wet surfaces. 

How else can I keep my board flat?

Even a well-built, girthy board will deform with enough moisture in the right circumstances. We recommend storing it standing on edge (upright) in a dry area, away from the wetness of your sink, coffee machine or other sources of direct liquid. We also strongly recommend and include standard feet for the bottom of the cutting board to keep it elevated from puddles of water or juice on your countertop. Finally, we recommend keeping your board treated with oil and wax (or a blend of the two) on a regular basis, which will repel some degree of moisture from penetrating the surface of the board.

Girth matters.

That’s our mantra at Wooded. For a board that stays hard, flat and pleasurable to use for many years, make sure you source a piece that’s got some heft. Pay just as much attention to how thick the wood is, and don’t be allured by a big long piece that doesn’t have the girth to go the distance!