The Rainbow Trout Cutting Board
This is a continuation of my quest to make some amazing cutting boards. The last one was my Hibiscus Cutting Board, made from dark walnut, cherry and maple. I wanted to design something else that reflected the Lake Tahoe outdoors, and was some how connected to something I enjoy doing. My main idea was to do a rainbow trout jumping out of the water, with lots of big splashes on the side. I also had the realization that the art piece “Great Wave off Kanagawa” would be a good inspiration for some CNC inlay waves. So, with those ideas in mind I used Gemini to generate some basic concept art to get me started. I took the generated art, and spent two or three days refining the vectors in Adobe Illustrator to actually be machinable, and have the proper look I wanted.
There is no easy AI shortcut to generate fully machinable cutting board inlay designs. One big consideration is the specific bit you are going to use to cut it out. I opted for a 5.26 Degree Tapered Ball Nose ( https://amzn.to/4aNb1zP ), as I heard a lot of people like to use this bit and I wanted to give it a try. I did a lot of experimentations with it to find the right inlay fit, and what the minimum line width I could create with it. I can get fine details down to about 0.038″, but 0.050″ spacing is much better for a solid inlay. The bit has a 0.5mm diameter ball on the tip; which one would think they could have a design down to 0.5mm / 0.020″, but doing so will create a very shallow inlay with a plug that may not fit very well. It’s okay to have some sharp corner radiuses down to 0.010″, but I tried to make sure all my radiuses were a bit larger than this, and all lines were at lease 0.040″ wide.
Careful planning on how I would do the inlay would let me get good results. Layering the smallest details last would ensure the larger details fully seated when I glued them in. The full build video shows the entire process: ( https://youtu.be/Fy3MR5Daki0 ):
I started this project back in December 2025, and didn’t finish it entirely until February 2026. Granted, I didn’t work on it constantly, and there was a lot of waiting for the glue to dry. I also made a CNC origin mistake that required me to re-cut out some parts and repeat things I had already done.
The waves themselves are a beautiful design, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. The whole cutting board could have been done after the waves, but I wanted to try making the entire project. I’m also in the process of making a second one, and I’m pretty sure I’ll offer both for sale at some point.
As usual, I have CNC Digital Files for the Trout Cutting Board available for sale ($10) for people who have a CNC machine and want to try a detailed multiple colored wood inlay.
