End Grain Cutting Board

I'm going to make a cutting board that I saw on the Woodwhisperer site. It should be a good project that I can practice using my new table saw with as well as practicing glueing and routing techniques. I'm going to need a few things for the project though. First I'll need some basic tools. I don't have a router (may borrow one for this project), need more clamps, and some Tite bond 2 FDA approved glue. For flattening the board after glueing I'll either need a block plane, scraper, or a random orbital sander. Also, I'll need to buy the wood. Marc uses Hard Maple (Rock Maple) and Purple Hart. I think that will be my first part of the project: finding the wood. The dimenshions of the board is going to be 18" x 12" x 1 1/4". He starts with 2 pieces of wood that is 8/4 (2") thick milled to 1 5/8" thick and 15 1/2" long. Then the pieces are stripped to 2 1/4", 1 3/4", 1 1/4", and 3/4" wide. Then the pieces are glued, flattened, cut, cut and reglued.