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Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge

Abingdon, VA – Tree Cutting & Portable Sawmill

Cutting boards/wooden ware finish revisited

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Cutting boards/wooden ware finish revisited

#1

Cutting boards/wooden ware finish revisited

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Attended the Southern Highlands Guild fall craft fair Thursday. (more woodworking than in the past, a good show)

Someone there makes woodenware, mostly from cherry. They saw their own stock for these wares (BTW cherry has gotten so cheap he is buying logs for $0.30 per board ft. )

We got engaged in a conversation of finishing wood stuff for the kitchen. He sells thousands of these pieces a year. What is used? Food grade linseed oil thinned some with food grade mineral oil. Submerge and soak overnight. Why do I mention it? Because about every time I recommend to use "any cooking oil" for this task there are objections that the result make the object "rancid".

While similar chemically, linseed oil is more chemically reactive than cooking oil. Any chemistry that occurs with cooking oil will occur to a greater extent/faster with linseed oil. If linseed oil is acceptable, corn oil will be too, and more readily available on the kitchen shelf.

Re: Cutting boards/wooden ware finish revisited

#2

Re: Cutting boards/wooden ware finish revisited

John McGaw

IIRC, linseed oil is different than your usual "cooking" oil in that it will, over time, polymerize on its own. With the added impetus of a chemical dryer you have old-school varnish. Walnut oil will also polymerize over time. I've used a combination goop made of bees wax and walnut oil for some potentially food-contacting bowls and such and it has worked well. For cutting boards I have usually used nothing but a long mineral oil soak.

In passing, my old MD told me that I should be taking flax-seed oil for my health. When I told him that I was hesitant about drinking varnish makins' he didn't believe me.

Re: Cutting boards/wooden ware finish revisited

#4

some nit picken

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

IIRC, linseed oil is different than your usual "cooking" oil in that it will, over time, polymerize on its own. true, and even slower so will most of the cooking oils. Many polymerize enough in reasonable time to build the viscosity so they don't bleed out of the wood like mineral oil does, forever.

Wooden ware lives in the kitchen along with the oils sufficient to maintain it.

With the added impetus[catalyst] of a chemical dryer you have old-school varnish. varnish is a combination of a drying oil like linseed and a hard resin, synthetic or natural. The more resin the harder the finish.

Re: Cutting boards/wooden ware finish revisited

#5

Re: Agree and can prove soy bean oil

Larry Clinton At Frankfort, (Central) Indiana

will polymerize to a VERY hard coating. My son works at ADM ( Archer Daniels Midland) at a soy bean processing plant. A few years back they replaced all their overhead lighting with new - I thing LED type. They scrapped several old working lights and my son received permission to take several. Many of the lenses are coated with the soy bean oil they extract and it has formed a thick amber colored polymerized coating that is almost impossible to remove.

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