>Not used to thinking about how water would affect the finish of my woodworking projects. Made a large salad bowl, sanded it nice and smooth, put a coat of Mike Mahoney's walnut oil and then oil/wax on it. Looks great. I then thought - cripes - whats going to happen to the grain when it gets wet? Gonna raise! The finish won't totally protect the project. Should have raised it first before finishing, right? Never thought about that one before. What do you do?
There's a guy here locally that sells salad bowls, except he's been asked specifically to rough up the inside! So now he doesn't even sand, other than by hand, with a very rough grit. These bowls were specially requested by some very expensive restaurants.
Thus, you can say your bowls will have that feature already built in!
You can wet sand, or wet the wood, dry, and then sand, though there are two other methods I have used.
For most utilitarian bowls I use Urethane Oil, and after the first application is cured (2 to 3 days), I lightly sand with 320, then apply the 2nd and 3rd applications of the oil finish. I don't like glossy bowls that are to be used, so I wipe the finish off with a paper towel before letting it dry, and buff any shiny areas with a fine 3-M ScotchBright pad after it cures.
You can also wet sand with the oil as a lubricant, using walnut oil, olive oil, mineral oil, Watco, or Urethane Oil, followed by a wipe down with paper towels. Leaves a very silky smooth feel and a low-luster finish.
I do nothing. This may come as a shock to some here, but I sand my bowls to 320 and that is it! If they are destined for use as salad bowls, having been commissioned as such, they often get no finish at all. If they are being sold at a show, I finish them with Danish oil and wax. Most, if not all of the pieces I have posted here have been sanded to 320. Not only that, but I start sanding at (gasp!) 80 grit.
Salad bowls are going to see use, i.e. wear and tear. It is a waste of time to sand them to anything higher, especially since they are going to be hit with water at some point. Subsequent use is going to smooth out any roughness.
Has worked well for years, and I have a tag I put on all my utility pieces that explains it will get dinged and nicked, the grain may raise, and it may develop small cracks and checks that this is normal, and to be expected after use. Wash with warm water and soap, rinse, towel dry, occassionally give a coat of butchers wax and mineral oil.
This has worked well for 20 years worth of utility bowls.
Raising the grain is not a once in a lifetime remedy. The grain will continue to raise with every wet and dry cycle.
You can have no finish. That is certainly expedient and will provide a bowl of good use for a time. Leaving the wood unprotected will make cleaning the bowl problematic. The wood can of course be scrubbed in a mild bleach solution followed by a good cooking in the microwave to kill bacteria. However expecting a wood bowl owner to follow such a rigorous cleaning procedure is a lot to hope for.
There is an myth that wood has some mystical property which prevents bacteria from living on or in wood. This myth dates back to a brief study made by the university of Wisconsin in 1994 which stated that it was easier to recover bacteria from the surface of a plastic cutting board than from the surface of a wooden cutting board. What that study fail to point out is that the bacteria that could not be recovered from the surface of the wooden cutting board were being absorbed into the wood making it more difficult to sanitize the wooden cutting board.
"As many as 81 million cases of food-born illnesses occur in the United States each year, and most of these gut-wrenching infections can be traced to the home kitchen. Any surface -- even stainless steel pans, knives, sinks, food-processor blades, and mixing bowls --- can harbor nasty microbes. Fortunately, kitchen germs can usually be killed by a good scrubbing with hot water and soap, or a turn in the dishwasher, and by keeping all surfaces clean and dry"
A film finish can provide a barrier to bacteria and is easier to clean more completely than a unfinished or oil finished bowl. An oil finished would tend to prevent bacteria from migrating into the wood. Therefore the bacteria could be cleaned off. Yet the process of cleaning would tend to remove some of the oil finish. The finish could be easily renewed though I am not sure how often that would be done.
So if you chose the no finish option for a salad bowl you should also mention that the bowl should be cleaned with hot soapy water and occasionally sanitized with a delete bleach solution and periodically cooked in a 800 watt microwave for 10 minutes.
>If you put an empty wood bowl in an 800 watt microwave for 10 minutes I guarantee you`ll be calling the fire dept.Actually the neighbors will call for you as they`ll see the flames.
>I once put a freshly turned cherry mushroom in a microwave oven for 5 minutes and it turned black, started smoking, but fortunately no fire. Last time I used the 5 minute setting! Smelled very pleasant though.
This morning I dried out a piece of yellow poplar with 1/8" thick walls in 5 90 second cycles. No worries mate!
"What that study fail to point out is that the bacteria that could not be recovered from the surface of the wooden cutting board were being absorbed into the wood making it more difficult to sanitize the wooden cutting board."
So what do you think happened to the bacteria Richard? Was it hiding behind the wood fibers until the scientists went away, or until they weren't looking anymore? Gone is gone, whether the stuff is killed and falls off the surface, or if it is given life in prison beneath the surface. If it ain't there, it doesn't need to be sanitized, does it?
I'd lke to see some documentation on this claim (all these claims, actually) as well. Yeah, there are lots of people who are poisoned through improper cleaning of wooden, or ANY surfaces for that matter. Of course, what is not mentioned are all the people who AREN'T poisoned every year from eating off wooden, or any other surfaces because they follow common sense cleaning procedures. Not even my sister-in-law the germ freak pediatrician goes to this kind of effort to clean wooden utensils.
>Bill, as you have said "cleaning is the answer". We butchered our own meat when I was growing up and we did it on an old primitive wooden table with a poplar top. We cut the meat up on this table for years and not one of my 6 brothers or myself ever got sick from it. After cutting up the meat we put the shoulders and hams into a wooden box and covered it with salt to cure. This has been done for centuries; plastic is recent. I'll take the tried and true anytime.
>The cleaning problem is one of accessibility to the surface we are trying to cleanse and the bacteria that we are trying to sanitize.
I think that most of those who use wooden bowls understand the problem and have the right answer. They would rather clean a bare wood or oiled surface where they can get at the stuff that accumulates and know that it clean when they are done, than try to clean a "finish" where they can see the moisture under it, but can't get at it.
There is nothing that we can put on a piece of wood that isn't temporary. Even the best of film finishes will start coming off with use, usually after the first jab or scrape with a fork. If that didn't do it, the first seasonal change in the wood will open up microscopic cracks in the finish, we will start to see the stain of "wet wood" under that perfect finish every time the bowl is used.
Rough sanded bowls may be the best finish, but I don't know of very many folks who would buy them that way. Most would rather do that to the bowl themselves. So I sand them, raise the grain a couple times, and burnish the wood surface so they are pretty when they are new. Adding a coat of beeswax helps to keep them that way for awhile and it smells nice.
We always laugh about bowls going through the dishwasher. It happens more than we would like to know. Bare wood will survive the trip. A "finished" bowl won't.
