A sturdy knife block

Sometimes life hands you a wire basket of wood blocks, and sometimes your father does.

With this particular basket, he encouraged me to make a knife block. He'd done the project himself, many years ago, and this knife block was still in regular use in their kitchen.

The technique was simple: put the block together, use a sharpie to mark the space to be removed (keeping it always on a seam), make a series of cuts on the tablesaw to make room for the knives, and glue the whole shebang together. And with my father helping set the tablesaw (and taking care of the angle cut to make it fit under cupboards on the counter, it was pretty easy!

Oh and router the edges:

Sand, varnish, and voila!