Cutting boards need feet, or why being a purist and pragmatic are mutually exclusive

You can't sell cutting boards without feet without people returning the boards in a few months. Why? Well, turns out typical people don't know what happens when they clean their cutting boards. End grain cutting boards are a lot of work - the purist in me tells me it's crazy to put feet on the board. After all, why is an end grain cutting board so good?

Well, without getting into the exact why - the reason is: A side grain cutting board (note, they are never marketed as this) will slowly get cut up and the timber will flake away over time. An end grain cutting board won't have this happen, it's a lot harder to make any lasting cuts on them. Because of the way these boards are made, it means technically you can use them on both sides, but there is a catch. If you for some reason, leave water underneath it, or it's a very wet day - due to the nature of timber (it moves only in one plane) it will "cup" - i.e. it won't be flat anymore!

Now technically you can fix this by wetting the other side, letting it cup the other way and then drying it correctly. This is not something normal people are going to do. So the purist gets caught in the fire.

do they:

• Double the surface area, i.e. use both sides and if they give them to family give the directions on the fact that you should place a mini towel under it
• Give the user an amazing experience?
• Charge more, so they can charge less for returning customers, whilst covering the costs for new ones?

Now I'm not saying you can't have it all - but you have to make some trade-offs:

• Spend time with your customer and explain the ins and outs
• Create an instruction video about how to care for it
• Put the feet on it and give them the option to remove it

What we often forget is why we do something. I installed the feet so I can serve the customer in front of me. And when that customer leaves, I can help more customers in the future too.

It becomes a compounding machine for yourself and those around you.

An alternative is: I've seen some people put a 2mm gap on the underside of the board giving it a shadow underscore.

Here's to the purists that can find a way to protect the boards and serve people. What we all forget is that the wood itself tells the story, and adding a 2mm gap around the underneath it gives it an amazing shadow.

Sidenote: It's not that being a purist and pragmatic aren't mutually exclusive. I like to give the following definition. The pragmatic purist - A purist that can compromise.