Too many splinters in my chopped garlic

January 10, 2008 12:50 PM

Where can I find a nice, custom, slide-out cutting board?

My apartment has had this decrepit cutting board since I've moved in and it's time to let it go. Since I'm in a severely golden rent-control situation my hopes are pretty low for the landlord to replace it with something up to my standards. Where can I go to get something like a hard rock maple or other standard cutting surface in these dimensions (24"x24"x5/8")? I'm in San Francisco if it makes a difference, but mailorder is OK.

posted by rhizome to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

Huh. Whaddya know, there's a site called Custom Cutting Boards. Looks like they do pull-out boards in hard maple or other woods, in any size. Turnaround is four weeks.
posted by runningwithscissors at 12:56 PM on January 10, 2008

We had the same problemwhen we moved in. We went to the local builders supply store near Misssion and Duboce and they have pre-made replacement pull out cutting boards. They look very nice and are joined pieces of wood with a routed ridge along the bottom of one edge for pulling out.

I think they cost about $50 at Discount Builders Supply 1695 Mission St, San Francisco, CA
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posted by bottlebrushtree at 1:14 PM on January 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Also, we brought the old board with us to compare width and height and depth to the ones they have on hand. They also cut the one we bought down to size for us.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 1:15 PM on January 10, 2008

Response by poster: Huh, weird. I've been to DBS and not seen anything, but perhaps I need to look in the wood section. I'll go down there today!

I'd seen the Custom Cutting Boards site before, but I was turned off by their tying shipping and handling charges to the *price* of the board, not to the size, weight, etc.
posted by rhizome at 1:57 PM on January 10, 2008

The Boardsmith is awesome and he does custom work.
posted by dobbs at 5:09 PM on January 10, 2008

The decrepit one you have is just a piece of softwood plywood, which makes a lousy cutting board but has two significant benefits: dimensional stability, and strength. A thickness of 5/8" is pushing the structural limits of a solid wood sheet of that size. It should be breadboarded, which means you can't just cut it out of some stock material. Also, it should be made perhaps a quarter-inch narrower than the opening; otherwise some dampness or high humidity may swell it so much that it won't fit anymore.
posted by jon1270 at 7:05 PM on January 10, 2008