Here is my opinion ;-)

On the edge grain you'll cut through the grain of the wood, but with end grain you chop parallel with it. Picture a dense brush, if you lay it down sideways and chop, you'll cut the bristles, but if you chop straight into the end the bristles separate as the blade goes in between. Some may get cut over time, but not as sure and as fast as if you cut from the side. When enough of the grain gets cut from the side, chunks may come out.

Edgegrain is more work to make and more expensive, so some people elect to just go with edgegrain for cutting boards, because they're easy to replace when they get gouged up...But for something that's meant to be permanent or very long lasting, I'd want endgrain. It should look better and stay smoother for longer.

Yes, this would need to be long lasting as I'm doing something similar to this

My butcher block will be smaller in size than this, and it will be around the prep sink, but it will be lowered as in this picture. My DH likes the edge grain better, but I'm sure neither of us will like a lot of knife marks in our butcher block. I'm thinking end grainmaybe the way to go.

rhome more or less summed it up well. i personally like the look of end grain better than edge grain, as well as the superior performance.

i wanted an end-grain top for our island and once i priced it, decided against it. instead, i bought a big chunky end grain board from catskill craftsmen.

I have an edge grain (island) countertop because I hate the way end grain looks (to me, it's just too busy). So much of our kitchen was chosen with function first in mind but here, I just couldn't do it.

Except, have you seen mamadadapaige's gorgeous end grain island? It's cherry (I think), or maybe walnut, anyway, it's dark and so maybe that's why to my eye it looks okay. I guess in traditional maple I just don't like it, and since I knew I wanted a light (maple) countertop there, it just wasn't going to work for me. Anyway, hers is gorgeous.

We use our butcherblock as a real work surface, cutting, etc. on it, and if in time it looks like crap then fine, I'll replace it. But at least in the meanwhile I'll have the surface I enjoy seeing.

Good luck with your project!

RM kitchen, your wood counter is beautiful. I just checked out mamadadapaige's end grain and it is brazilian cherry. I have a sample from grothouse of end grain cherry, and I have to say I like it more than I thought I would. I have always shied away from end grain for just the reason you mentioned, it looks too busy, especially when different woods with different hues are used. However, the when just one wood species is used, it appeals to me more.

Have you noticed any scratches in your edge grain?

Hi donna214;

Thank you for your nice words about our countertop. I really love it!

I'm so glad you looked at mamadadapaige's island and I'm so glad that's what you have a sample of. Small world! And isn't it pretty? Wow -- ours was already in place when I saw hers but I'll tell you, if I had seen it before I might have gone a different direction ....

Well, I haven't noticed any scratches and I did just go and really look. No knife marks, no scratches. But I'll tell you what we do have: some stains.

And I believe these are my fault: I should've applied "butter" (what I call the beeswax mixture I rub into it) twice a week for the first month or two. Instead I did it much less often, because I didn't know better! Live and learn.

Anyway, the stains we have (so they're from the first two months we had the countertop -- actually, they're all from the same weekend as it was my sons' birthdays and we had a big, festive [aka boozy] party) are from the bottom of a ceramic pitcher which held iced tea (so I think some iced tea got spilled and sat under the bottom of the container on the countertop), a large number of juicy cut strawberries (cut on the countertop) which sat there for maybe ten minutes, and some tomato sauce (from where we cut pizza right on the countertop and no one wiped it up right away -- it sat for quite a while).

Since then, I've been better about applying butter (I did it twice a week for a month and now I do it every three - four weeks or so) and I can see how it repels things. Tonight, my super-messy husband (doesn't believe in wiping up spills, EVER! -- ask me how we're still married) was making a sauce out of shoyu and, naturally, it was glopped all over the place. I had my hands full of little boy (my two year-old) so didn't grab the sponge right away and instead saw the shoyu just sit there as a glob, not being absorbed by the countertop.

And for lunch today my four year-old and I made pizza, with tomato sauce (again) glopped on the counter. I don't make a deal out of messes in front of the children because that's not what I want them to learn (I don't want my legacy to be "mum with sponge in hand, freaking about spill"). Anyway, so it wasn't until a bit later (maybe fifteen - twenty minutes?) that I wiped that up and again, you'd never know it. Oh yes, we cut that pizza directly on the countertop as well!

Let me caveat this with the fact that I live in a v. dry climate (Rocky Mountains) -- our air is thin and dry. I mean DRY! So wood really, really is affected (just as it would be in a humid environment) and sucks any- and everything up. If I lived in a more "normal" climate I would not have had to be as obsessive about buttering it. (and as I've already demonstrated, I wasn't so obsessive!)

the reddish marks are the stains

I have to say that your stains are not that noticable in the picture. Can you sand them out? I have 6, 9 and 11 year old kids at home so we are no strangers to messy countertops. Is the "butter" you use the same stuff everyone here uses on their soapstone? We will be using soapstone for our counters, so perhaps I can just oil everything up at once! Thank you for all of your good info. Oh, and your kitchen is just fabulous. I absolutely love your marble.

Donna

Hi Donna;

Yes, I learned about the butter from another GWer who used it on her soapstone and butcherblock and I said "GREAT!" But I believe that any beeswax / mineral oil combo can be used on both. I have to go read a bedtime story but I'll look that thread up (about making your own -- I'm too lazy and so just purchased it).

The stains aren't too bad (but they are there and I want to be totally upfront with you about that possibility) and yes, I could get the countertop sanded but I figured I'd wait until there's a whole lot of mess so the sanding would make a big impact!

I love soapstone, so I will definitely be looking forward to watching your kitchen develop. Have you picked your soapstone yet?

Thank you for your kind words about our marble. I love it too! I'll be back later to link the thread about the "butter."

I'm back -- Richard Scarry and that Dingo the Dog!

Okay, I found the recipe and it's from staticfritz:

I bought a gallon of that ultra light mineral oil from STE (really nice stuff, thin as water!) and 2 lbs of triple filtered white acacia beeswax on ebay (total cost mixed them together on the stove on very very low heat, ~2/3 oil, 1/3 beeswax. when cool, it has the consistency of butter that's been left at room temperature. it's really easy to spread and give an awesome finish to the stone and my wood butcherblock and cutting boards

i store it in a plastic fliptop under the sink.

I learned about Holland Bowl Mill's butter from florida_mimi, Queen of Soapstone (and wife of Soapstone King, florida_joshua).

I'm with Edlakin. I really really want this walnut end grain cutting board, same as the one on Giada's kitchen.

{{!gwi}}

I don't know if I could do a whole island with end grain though. But it obviously works - in a word, mamadadapaige. Edge grain works too - rmkitchen. Two looks, really depends on what else is going on with your kitchen.

I went with endgrain because it is better for chopping, better for you knives, less likely to show marks. And to me, it is beautiful. I do not find mine busy. My GC made mine for me. My inspiration came from the web. It is endgrain cherry with a walnut trim. Someone mentioned something about the edge falling off? I don't cut on the edge. It's just not the natural place to cut. I chop in the middle. Besides this thing is built to last a long time.

rmkitchen, thank you for the recipie for th oil mixture, although I might just buy it myself! We are seriously looking at Beleza soapstone from Garden State Soapstone. A few people on GW have purchased from Jay and are just thrilled with him. There have been some recent threads about Beleza and when I saw it in person it was love at first site. We are still a while away from having our kitchen installed. This is where we are now

lol, it will be a while before I can show pictures of my kitchen!

redroze, that is a gorgeous butcher block. Walnut you say eh?

mary in nc, I LOVE your butcher block. You are right, that is not busy at all. I guess what i never liked about end grain is when I see it in that checkerboard pattern with a light and dark color mixed togeather. The Grothouse catalog has a lot of that and it sort of turned me off to end grain but what I am seeing here is just gorgeous. I have a cherry sample but I may have to order a walnut sample too.

Donna