Every Big Boards piece is glued up from a careful selection of hardwoods — chosen for color, grain, hardness, and how the species play together. Here's what goes into our boards and why.
Dense, tight-grained, and almost neutral in tone. Hard maple is the workhorse of cutting boards — it shows knife marks the least and provides a clean, bright background that lets the other woods sing.
A softer hardwood with deep brown heartwood and lighter sapwood streaks. Walnut is the most forgiving on knife edges and gives boards their warm, gallery-piece feel. Color deepens slightly with age.
Cherry is alive — it starts pinkish-tan and darkens over months and years into a rich amber-red. Beautiful grain, smooth finish, and the wood every cabinet maker has a soft spot for.
When freshly cut, padauk is a near-fluorescent orange. Over months of light exposure it settles into a rich rust-brown. Very hard, very durable, and the most striking color contrast we use.
One of the hardest woods we work with. Cuts grayish-brown and turns vivid purple within days of light exposure, then settles to a deep eggplant. Adds an unmistakable accent stripe to any board.
The Janka rating measures how much force (in pounds of force, lbf) it takes to push a small steel ball halfway into a piece of wood. Higher number = harder wood = better resistance to dents and knife marks. For reference: pine is around 380, oak is around 1,360, and the hardest woods we work with — like purpleheart — clock in over 2,500.