BREADBOARD ENDS DONE RIGHT

This traditional method for concealing end grain relies on a hidden trick to work properly. Find out the "hole" story behind breadboard ends with this time-tested method.

- KERRY GIBSON with JOHN OLSON

Adding breadboard ends certainly dresses up a project whether it's a cutting board or a tabletop. A tongue on the panel fits into the grooved end cap, neatly concealing the panel's end grain. But because the wood grain of the two pieces runs perpendicular, the panel's side-to-side expansion far exceeds the longitudinal expansion of the cap. Try gluing the joint and this wood movement will inevitably break the glue bond, cause splits in the main panel, or cracks in the breadboard end cap.

The solution you'll learn here uses drawbore pegs to hold the cap tightly against the shoulders of the tenon. But what you don't see is that the outer pegs pass through slots cut in the panel's tenon, allowing the pegs to maintain their grip, even as the panel expands and contracts.

We'll show you how to handle breadboard ends with a simple cutting board, but this technique can be adapted to work with large tabletops as well.

GET YOUR GROOVE ON

Start by planing the stock for the panel and the breadboard end caps to the same thickness. Edge-glue the panel to be slightly wider than finished size. For our cutting board example, we used 3/4" maple.

The first trick to this technique requires cutting the groove in the end caps just slightly deeper-about 1/32"than the length of the tenon [Photo A]. This provides just enough play for the drawbore pegs to work without having the tenon bottom out in the groove.