I've been using one for 15+ years and it's not contaminated me yet. Touch wood.

everyone needs a professional block of wood.

I was always told that wooden boards are actually better for cutting meat on. It obviously needs washing as the plastic one, but that wood has natural anti-bacterial properties which kill off harmful bugs, whilst plastic boards embed the germs in their scratched surfaces.
Saying that, a separate board for meat and get/bread etc is a must whatever material is chosen.

This looks similar to the Butcher's Block that I bought the other day from Argos for £9 (http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/2685739.htm). Bought because I'm hammering out cut-out shapes from Hollow Punches where the end-grain wood allows for much better cuts with less damage on the tool than long-grain boards - the wood fibres spread than cutting through them. I was stamping out shapes with just one whack of the hammer compared to 3-4 hits on long-grain boards with a poor 50/50 success rate of the shape being cut. End-grain boards are great for cutting and suited my needs. Voted hot and will be giving my local HB a visit in the morning. Great find!

Depends entirely on what it is made of!

looks decent will have a look tomorrow.... heat

We bought one. The husband is quite fussy and he loves it!

good find op, heat added

​It looks a nice, solid, close grained timber. Great price if it lasts well, looks like it will. :smiley:

everyone needs a professional block of wood.

With boards like this I worry about contamination from all the glue holding it together, for that reason I wonder whether this is better than a plastic board.

If it is the same timber as in the image then it is Beech, it looks okay for four quid.

This looks similar to the Butcher's Block that I bought the other day from Argos for £9 (http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/2685739.htm). Bought because I'm hammering out cut-out shapes from Hollow Punches where the end-grain wood allows for much better cuts with less damage on the tool than long-grain boards - the wood fibres spread than cutting through them. I was stamping out shapes with just one whack of the hammer compared to 3-4 hits on long-grain boards with a poor 50/50 success rate of the shape being cut. End-grain boards are great for cutting and suited my needs. Voted hot and will be giving my local HB a visit in the morning. Great find!

Has to worth £3.99 have some heat!

Only problem with these boards is they require use of mineral oil to keep them in good condition. regular vegetable / sunflower / olive oil won't do. Also don't use for cutting meat on. But or £4 you can't go wrong.

I was always told that wooden boards are actually better for cutting meat on. It obviously needs washing as the plastic one, but that wood has natural anti-bacterial properties which kill off harmful bugs, whilst plastic boards embed the germs in their scratched surfaces.
Saying that, a separate board for meat and get/bread etc is a must whatever material is chosen.

Product ticket says £39.99. Shelf ticket says £29.99. Till price £3.99. Bargain!!

I wish I was a professional heavy duty wooden chopping block :disappointed: .... heat

Good price but I'd never have anything made of wood in my kitchen, water and wood just dont mix well. Wilkos do a granite chopping board for a tenner which is far better value, throw all the water you like at it and it won't fall apart.....unlike our old wooden board.

Good idea, I use them self healing green mats for my leatherwork, but find they go lumpy n distorted after lots of hits with the mallet. Summat like this but a bit bigger would be ideal.

Same price in Morrison's. Rubber wood

I've tried self-healing mats too without as much success where they're ideal for scalpel blades; they tend to bounce and resist the larger punches. The end-grain wood really does the job, allowing the circular metal Hollow Punches (18mm-21mm diameter) to bite into the wood and cut through the adhesive vinyl that I'm cutting stencils from. I need to cut ~1000-1500 holes per project so these boards are going to get a right pounding (no doubt someone can crack an up and coming Valentine's joke in here somewhere). I'll use both sides, sand down for re-use before eventually discarding. At £4 each, every couple of boards bought will save me a tenner. Bargain. Morning alarm set for 8am store opening time...

They are fine, I can't remember the last time I sharpened them, but its a few years....had the granite board longer and it still looks as good as the day we bought it.

​Can guarantee it has, you just haven't noticed!

Guarantee? So link to a peer reviewed medical journal with evidence that the minuscule amount of non toxic glue used in their construction, and the tiny proportion of it that could ever end up in food, is carcinogenic.

Suspect you're slightly OCD; do you wash your hands and any surfaces you touch with bleach several times a day to minimise the risk of germs? :stuck_out_tongue:

I always thought these chopping boards are made of rubber wood ??? Anyone know ???

​No, I never said it was carcinogenic. But the cells of your body are contaminated by things you are exposed to, there's no doubt about that. The question is whether that's harmful or not.

Personally I just use a solid wood board, so avoid the issue.

The granite board will always be perfect because it is harder then the knives. The knives however as they are weaker then the granite will fold at the cutting edge dulling the blade, very quickly. Simple physics, two objects can't collide without one absorbing the force of the collision, personally I prefer that to be the chopping board rather then the knife. Try your knife on a piece of paper held in the air cut from the edge it should cut clean through if it is sharp also if you can't cut a tomato without squashing it, then your knife is blunt. Chopping boards like this are always in larger asian supermarkets for a similar price in my experience.

I got the Argos version of this board around 5 years ago for about £8. Excellent VFM.
Use them for their proper use + resting all your DIY stuff on them for sawing,nailing, screwing etc, they can take a battering no problem.
Complaints about these boards 'dropping to bits' stem from people putting them in dishwashers for 12hrs overnight, every night. Clean them the 'old school' way in hot soapy water, then a quick blast of anti bacterial spray if you want to be totally safe...they'll last for years.

Well, its a good job I do a bit of body building and I'm skilful with a knife then , lol.

Seriously, I like that it's heavy, no slipping about the work surface, and when I chop up stuff I hardly make contact with the board

That happens from the day you are born; airborne particles, cosmic rays, germs, naturally occurring chemicals, background radiation etc. There's no escaping it! :smile:

great find... been looking for one. Thanks

OCD is a serious mental health problem and doesn't always apply to cleanliness. Having said that, I would never use a chopping block like this. It would never be clean to me. :O

I agree, but we can minimise it. Particularly exposure to the things our bodies haven't evolved to cope with.

Some of the paranoid comments on here make me laugh. I bet they dont think twice about the poor hygeine standards out of site in the kitchens of their favourite restaurants, takeaways or food prep factories, yet a wooden chopping board they can keep clean in their own kitchen is the devils tool!

Yep, think there's a lot of people on here that, shall we say, take one of those hygiene sprays out with them everywhere they go to clean door handles and the like. "Oooh the germs!!" :smirk:

Like I say I've used the same one for 15+ years and never had any issues as long as you use common sense the same as any board (wash thoroughly after cutting raw meat, wash and dry after each use. The idea they store germs is a big steaming pile of MOD EDIT

Anyway I bagged the last four in our local, I'll use it in the workshop, cutting slots to embed small neodymium magnets in the side so I can have a big foldable work surface that will last years. Cheers OP! :stuck_out_tongue:

Don't forget man made radiation and signal!

It was bad enough before but now there's a whole host of 'digital' signals too! 2g, 3g, 13g, tv, radio, wifi.... the list is endless! We are all doomed :confused:

A bit of bacteria on a wooden chopping board might be all that saves us all from ridiculous mutations.

Just had a look at these in store. Poor quality - half of them seemed to be splitting already, and they had been fairly coursely finished. Worth £4 but not much more!

ooh i have an opinion on this!

This is probably one of the best purchases i ever made. AKA the "epicurean"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003IP68UA/?tag=ho01f-21

basically a kind of MDF, so it doesn't warp, dishwasher safe, thinner, lighter.. totally excellent and worth £20-£40 imho. way more practical. not particularly cheap but so what you use it every day and lasts forever.

comes in several size and colours.

getting serious for a moment, this site confuses "cheap" with "good value". i have an idea for firewood below..

OTOH, this is a lot of wood for £3.99 :stuck_out_tongue: how does it compare to firewood? :wink:

Went to home bargains, and had a look, showed it to my OH shes a chef and sayd no. no good.

Just buy first touch baby oil... It's pure mineral oil.

Its helps to initially own a granite board, then have some decent knives, before making assumptions about the life of said items.

From EXPERIENCE (big letters in case you miss it like my entire previous comments), I can confirm that wooden boards and water do not mix. I had one that fell apart due to it being formed in little pieces that were stuck together, which grsdually separated due to the constant need to wash it for hygienic reasons.

I now have a granite board, and some knives which cost more than a fiver, and both have survived very nicely for over 5 years, so I wouldn't even consider buying a wooden chopping board due my EXPERIENCE.

Google it.....now this is a wild guess here, but I think you'll find the manufacturing process for a chopping board is somewhat different to an ocean going vessel. One is built to last, and the other is...well, I'm sure even you can work out which one isn't

I have owned knives for over 40 years and granite boards for 15 years and wooden boards for 30 years, so think I have EXPERIENCE too in this matter!
my knives cost a little bit more than a fiver though and I do not use them on Granite!!
I paid for a decent all in one block not the cheap and nasty bits of wood stuck together rubbish you bought, had you had the EXPERIENCE you go on about, you would have known this..
I don't need to make an assumption as I have the EXPERIENCE in this matter!! :laughing:

Not sure why I bother with you...but here goes.

You said yourself you don't use knives on granite, so how the f do you know how long they last?

Off to bang my head against a wall somewhere as it's far more pleasurable than conversing with an imbecilic stalker

Ooh, is that food safe?

You forgot to add its also kind to knives, which is of extreme importance to the wooden board buying fraternity

Valentines day present sorted!

I use Catskill from Amazon on a Boos block

Seal with oil, wipe clean. Pretty simple instructions

You should probably go back to the 50's, where that viewpoint came from.

Or simply use a granite board

Thanks :smiley:

Sure is!

Same price as the board but it is pure mineral oil and food safe.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00433YP3I?colid=12Z9ZOGF1BXEM&coliid=IZEA96IJ9QLH7&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl

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