How to Make a DIY Wood Charcuterie Board

November 14, 2024 by Karen 113 Comments

9K Shares

If you're moderately comfortable with plugging in a tool, a DIY charcuterie board makes a handy emergency hostess gift or a pretty fantastic serving board for your own hunk of cheese. A 2 hour DIY.

SKIP right to the tutorial.
Do you remember the olden days when no one used the word charcuterie board? We called them serving boards, cheese boards, or had platters (shudder).

We were such peasants in the olden days, 8 years ago.

Today I'm going to show you how to make a genuine, imitation antique meat & cheese board with a hunk of wood from the lumberyard, a jigsaw and a palm sander.

It will only take 2 hours once you have a piece of wood to make it from in your hand. You can make it from scrap wood around the house or buy some.

I'll also give you a few hints on how to make the board look like it's old - from a Parisian market, as opposed to Home Depot.

EVEN if you don't think you're handy, you can do this. EVEN if you're afraid of power tools, you can do this. EVEN if you have no artistic instincts whatsoever, you can do this.

The full printable tutorial is at the bottom of the post.

Table of Contents

How Do You Make a Charcuterie Board

All there is to making a rustic looking charcuterie board is cutting a piece of wood into a shape you like with a jigsaw (or a band saw) and then finishing it.

Because you aren't looking for a perfect shape or fine woodworking, even a beginner can make an authentic looking board.

Marking a piece of barn board with chalk to make serving board.

Grab your piece of 12" wide barn board and draw your cheese board outline on it. You can find scads of examples of antique serving boards on Pinterest that you can use as inspiration for your shape. Cheese boards tend to be round and bread boards tend to be square or rectangular. Just do what you think looks good.

What kind of wood can you use?

Pine, spruce or fir: If you're new to things like using saws and cutting wood, pick a wood that's a softwood and easy to cut. Keep in mind with these kinds of softwoods you won't want to use the boards for any actual cutting, just as a serving tray.

Oak, beech or walnut: If you're experienced and comfortable with saws you can pick harder woods like these. Oak, beech and walnut are a lot denser with a closed grain and because of that, they're harder to cut. Those same properties mean you can use them as cutting boards because they won't dull your knives or scar easily.

2. Clamp the wood to a sturdy surface like a table or workbench then cut the shape out with a jigsaw.

3. Drill a hole into the centre of the handle if you want a hole to hang it from.

The size of the hole is up to you. You can do something just large enough to run a piece of twine through with a regular drill bit for hanging it, or something a little bigger using a hole saw. Or, you can have no hole at all.

Festool palm sander, rounding out edges on newly made cheese board.

4. Using a palm sander, (a Festool 125 if you're smart enough to ask for one for Christmas) sand the face and edges of the wood. You don't want to have nice clean cut marks. That's a dead giveaway that you're faking something old.

If you're using old barn board or even barn board that's already a bit discoloured from the lumberyard, once you cut it, the edges will look bright and new. So sand and round out the edges.

Decrease the grit of sandpaper you're using. Start with 80 grit, move to 120 brit and sand again, and finally sand with a 180 grit.

5. Blow off the sawdust from the wood and then use a piece of tack cloth to remove the rest of it.

6. Now the fun part of ageing your new wood, or ageing the newly cut edges of your old wood begins. If you're using old wood, brush the newly cut edges with your mixture of vinegar and steel wool.

If you're using new wood, brush the whole board including the edges. Let dry. The reason I want you to use this technique to stain the wood and not a regular stain is because a) it perfectly replicates aged wood and b) it's completely food safe.

Alternately, you can skip the vinegar and steel wool and just condition the wood with your food safe wood finish, which will darken the wood and give it a glow. Don't forget the newly cut edges!

TIP - By the way if you use cordless tools and have one that has a battery that won't recharge, you should read this post on how to fix a battery that won't charge. If the battery is relatively new and not dead because it's decades old you can fix it so the charger will charge it.

5 wood DIY meat and cheese platters hanging on a white painted brick wall.

Intimidated? Don't be. This is how easy it's going to be.

I made cutting boards out of 3 different materials. Genuinely old barn board, new pine and barn board with lots of scarring and knots from the lumberyard that already looked a tiny bit aged.

Glowing pine DIY serving board hanging on a brick wall by a leather tie.

There are plusses and minuses to working with both but my favourite was the lumberyard barn board that looked a bit aged. It's the rectangular one you see above.

It had the most character, best colour after conditioning and you can actually use it for food, unlike genuine barn board which I would advise against. Because ick. If you want to use an old genuine barn board for serving cut a layer of parchment or waxed paper to lay on top of the board.

I specifically chose a piece of barn board at the lumberyard that had a big crack and lots of character.

So.

Charcuterie board ideas.

This is always the big question. If you have one or more of each of the following things, you're good.

Fresh fruit
A variety of cheeses
Dried fruit
Nuts
Olives
Cured meats
Soft cheese
Crackers
Flowers
Small pot(s) of jams or chutneys

Those are your staples for a charcuterie and anything beyond that is going to get you into the serving board superstar realm.

DIY Charcuterie Board

Yield: Cheese board.

Active Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours

Difficulty: Easy(ish)

Estimated Cost: $10

Make this antique looking cheese/charcuterie board out of a piece of wide pine barn board that you can get from your local lumberyard. This is a GREAT hostess gift for Christmas. Just add cheese! :)

Materials

A piece of 12″ x 1″ soft wood, at least 12 inches long

Tools

Jigsaw
Clamps
Palm sander
Various grits of sandpaper for sander
Cotton rags
Tack cloth
Piece of chalk
Board butter (food grade wood conditioner)
Vinegar and Steel Wool stain

Instructions

Grab your piece of 12″ wide barn board and draw your cheese board outline on it. Cheese boards tend to be round and bread boards tend to be square or rectangular. Just do what you think looks good.
Clamp the wood to a sturdy surface like a table or workbench then cut the shape out with a jigsaw.
Drill a hole into the centre of the handle if you want a hole to hang it from. The size of the hole is up to you. You can do something just large enough to run a piece of twine through with a regular drill bit for hanging it, or something a little bigger using a hole saw. Or, you can have no hole at all.
Using a palm sander, sand the face and edges of the wood. Start with 80 grit, move to 120 grit, and finally sand with 180 grit. You don’t want to have nice clean cut marks. That’s a dead giveaway that you’re faking something old. If you’re using old barn board or even barn board that’s already a bit discoloured from the lumberyard, once you cut it, the edges will look bright and new. So sand and round out the edges.
Blow off the sawdust from the wood and then use a piece of tack cloth to remove the rest of it.
Now the fun part of ageing your new wood, or ageing the newly cut edges of your old wood begins. If you’re using old wood, brush the newly cut edges with your mixture of vinegar and steel wool. If you’re using new wood, brush the whole board including the edges. Let dry. The reason I want you to use this technique to stain the wood and not a regular stain is because a) it perfectly replicates aged wood and b) it’s completely food safe. Alternately, you can skip the vinegar and steel wool stain and just condition the wood with your food safe wood finish, which will darken the wood and give it a glow. Don’t forget the newly cut edges.

Notes

Here's my tutorial on making your own beeswax wood conditioner.
Here's my tutorial on making food safe stain out of steel wool and vinegar.
Knots are harder to cut through than regular wood, so when you get to them just be prepared.
Soft woods like pine, fir and spruce are much easier to work cut with a jigsaw and sand. Hard woods like oak, maple or walnut are much harder to cut BUT they can also be used as cutting boards then.
Take a good look at the wood. It’ll tell you what to do with it.
Your chalk line will be thicker than your cut line. Remember which side of your chalk to cut on to make your board the right size.
If you’re new and unsure of yourself with woodworking tools like a jigsaw, make a cutting board with only straight lines. Curves are harder, so the straight lines will build up your confidence.
Don’t forget to round off any newly cut edges.
Don’t try to cut anything without clamping it down first. Ever.
To make newer wood look like an older cutting/cheese board scar it using a knife or pizza cutter.

Recommended Products

I'm an Amazon affiliate some I get a few cents when you buy something I've linked to.

Incidentally I went to a family reunion this summer where there was a fantastic charcuterie board. I discovered a new favourite cheese, Espresso BellaVitano® from Sartori in Wisconsin. If you see it in your grocery store buy it!

I now always have it in my fridge. Not a sponsored post. Just a glowing review.

Cheese glowing seems like the perfect way to conclude this particular post.

How to Make a DIY Wood Charcuterie Board

How Do You Make a Charcuterie Board

What kind of wood can you use?

Charcuterie board ideas.