I committed to making a large island cutting board for a friend. It's
about 27" x 40". Hard-rock maple was planned ~3/4" nominal thickness.

I was just going to make it fit over the existing formica top. An apron
over the four sides would hide the existing top and keep it from sliding
around. It would seen to be nice to remove it for easy cleaning, etc.

I'm not sure how to do the apron on the end grain. A breadboard end
would leave cracks, which is not desirable. The only thing I came up
with is to glue small 1/2" pieces glued face grain to face grain on the
ends.

Another option is just to remove the formica top and replace it with the
solid wood top.

My friend mentioned an end-grain cutting board, but that seems like a
great deal of work. Extra work for the cutting, extra work for the
glue-up and alot of extra work for flattening. I don't have a wide
belt sander to flatten it.

If I did end-grain - is hardrock maple still the right wood?

Any thoughts?

Thanks!