Cutting Board - I have some timber now...

[Molynoox]

I've mentioned on here before that I am working on a cutting board for a friend and yesterday I went out and bought some timber for it:
-Large chunk of Maple
-Medium chunk of Beech
-Small chunk of Utile

My question is, can I mix end grain/face grain/edge grain together in a cutting board?
The reason being as I have a nice chunk of Maple and I would like to show off the grain on the face, I haven't planed the edge so not sure what that looks like.

Can I mix it up do you think? I'm thinking that Maple is really hard so maybe face grain is ok?
I also have some beech and utile - I want to mix a few together to create some colour contrast.

Here are the three bits of wood I bought:

Here they are against the cutting board bits I already have:

Here is what I plan to do as a sort of curved inlay, probably using the maple to contrast against the dark wood strips I already have (not sure if its walnut or mahogany... ):

Martin

 

[--Tom--]

My own board is maple endgrain, I love it, but would be too big and heavy for most kitchens.

I wouldn’t mix end and edge grain- will make flattening it harder than it needs to be, and adds wood movement challenges you don’t want- a wobbly board due to warping isn’t much good.

If I were you I’d go edge grain, use the maple for the main board section and then use your contrast pieces if you want to add patterns/breadboard edges etc

Here’s a board I made for a friend from sycamore with walnut breadboard ends

 

[Molynoox]

Alright I'll stick with end grain then.

I just cut a slice of that utile I bought and it's super similar to the strips I already have that I thought were mahogany or walnut.

 

[TheTiddles]

There isn’t a single answer to the both end/face grain question other than “best avoided”. It might be all right if it’s all uniformly dry and can move a little without causing problems elsewhere

 

[Molynoox]

Well I've started gluing up some Canadian maple into end grain strips so that's the plan now.