{"id":8425,"date":"2026-02-25T07:07:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/?p=8425"},"modified":"2026-02-24T08:24:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T16:24:48","slug":"the-rainbow-trout-cutting-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/the-rainbow-trout-cutting-board\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rainbow Trout Cutting Board"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

This is a continuation of my quest to make some amazing cutting boards. The last one was my Hibiscus Cutting Board<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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 (\u00a0https:\/\/amzn.to\/4aNb1zP<\/a> ), 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> ):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n