Gentle Wood for cutting board

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Guys, I'm soliciting some advise. What is the most gentle-on-your-knives wood that you could use for an end-grain cutting board?

Currently my most used board is an end-grain 12" X 12" X 2" Proteak. The size is perfect, its held up well but I think the silica in the teak is killing my edges. Like many of you I like fresh stropped knives but feel that I'm loosing that scary edges too quickly.

What wood do you think would be the softest to the edges but still be hard enough to last?

I just had a call with David (Board Smith) he suggested Cherry? What do you guys think?
 
Cherry, walnut or maple. The effect of the endgrain of these species on your knife edges is about the same. On the edge grain, cherry is the softest.

You won't experience fast dulling on either of these boards. Teak is a killer for the edges because of silica, as you have correctly observed.
 
I've got end grain boards in maple, walnut and cherry. I don't notice any difference in how long an edge lasts among the three, so I don't think there is any particular advantage to cherry over the other two woods that are recommended. I do notice that the cherry and walnut have more cut marks from use than the maple.
 
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