I just made a 20 by 24 inch slide out cherry cutting board as part of a kitchen remodel. I was wondering if I could use olive oil or something similar for a finish. I did not want to order a salad bowl finish from a catalog because of the time involved.
I believe it will hardly get used but I still need to finish it.
Replies
Use mineral oil. It's fast, safe, and cheap. Easy to repair, and if you want to be really cool, combine it with beeswax for a bit more protection. Walnut oil is also good, but I don't know about nut allergies in some people. Stick with mineral oil.
I have heard of mineral oil but have never bought it. I do not even remember seeing it in a hardware store. I know baby oil is mainly composed of mineral oil but it smells forever. Where do I look for it, a pharmacy or hardware store?
You're on the right track. Baby oil is mineral oil. You can buy it at walmart, the drug store or grocery. However, it's much cheaper in the paint department at Slowe's or whatever. It's totally safe. You can cook with it. Stuff might taste funny, but you can cook with it. Too simple to repair. Mix it with beeswax and it will improve the smell. If you want, a drop or two of essential oil of lavender or lemon will be a winner. Try it a little at a time until you get what you want. Good luck.
2 secrets to keeping your wife happy:
1. Let her think she's having her own way.
2. Let her have her own way.
It's clear you have been married for a long time.
This is true. 38 1/2 long, har...... uh, WONDERFUL years! Yeah that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
The 2 words that save a marriage (or husband)..."Yes, dear!"
Mineral Oil from the Paint store is not absolutely not consistantly safe. It could be, but it could be quite bad. There are multiple formulations of mineral oil that are legal for paint. Many are harmless and will act as a laxative in the worst case. But some are quite bad. Read this MSDS for an example: http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/M7700.htmA lot of companies purchase chemicals at comodity prices and adjust their recipies based on what it cheapest at the moment. This means that unless food safe is a specification, the range of materials can vary. The paint store mineral oil may be safe, but it may be quite dangerous. One small bottle of mineral oil at the pharmacy will treat a lot of chopping blocks.Bob
Merry Christmas Cedarslayer'
Thanks for the heads-up. I didn't realize paint store mineral oil could be dangerous. You're right; a bottle of drug store mineral oil will go a long way.
make sawdust, not war.
Merry Christmas,
By the way, I personally use safflower oil for cutting boards. It oxidizes into a resin, the old masters used it for oil painting.Bob
Hello Cedarslayer,
Where do you get safflower oil and how long does it take to dry? Smell? Do you use wax with it?
Thanks,
Steve
One of the great joys of woodworking is the quality of people with whom we are privileged to associate.
As a rough guide, safflower oil takes twice as long as linseed oil to dry. BLO usually takes about 3 days, Pure Linseed oil 7 days, Safflower takes 13 days. BLO Is boiled linseed oil and has heavy metals and such in it to speed drying. This means it is not food safe. Linseed oil (and BLO) yellows over time. Safflower does not.I buy it off the shelf because when I buy it bulk, it sits too long before I use it. A lot of groceries and health food stores will have it. There is another complexity though. The original safflower oil is extreamly high in linoleic acid. This is the stuff that will oxidize and turn into a resin. This is what you want. However a mutation gave us a high oleic acid strain that is more common in stores. The High oleic acid safflower oil is often advertized as high in linoleic acid, which it is relative to other foods, but not compared to the original strain. The wrong stuff will stay tacky for a very very long time. The way to tell if it is the right stuff, is that it will have a very high level of polyunsaturated fats. My current bottle of safflower oil has in a 1 tsp serving, 11g polyunsaturated fat, 2g Monounsaturated fat, and 1g saturated fat, out of a total of 14g of fat. Don't worry if it has vitamin E to prevent oxidation, I find that this slows it down about a day or two at most.In my own use, safflower does not seem to mildew the way linseed does, so unless I am in a hurry for my finish to dry, I don't use linseed anymore.To finish wood I mix 1 part paraffin, 1 part carnuba, 1 part beeswax, to 3 parts safflower oil, and three parts turpentine. I melt it in a double boiler and spread it on warm. I love this finish, but the wax slows down the hardening of the oil even more.Bob
Thanks Bob. I'll give it a try on a cutting board I'm making for my daughter. Are you a chemist by any chance? Whenever I tried to get past valent and co-valent bonding, I'd just go to my happy place. Have a safe and happy new year coming up.
Steve
2 secrets to keeping your wife happy:
1. Let her think she's having her own way.
2. Let her have her own way.
13 days is a long time, you must be a very good planner. I find raw linseed oil will dry in my shop (northeast, heated) in 2-3 days. Just flood and wipe down in 10-15 min. It does yellow a bit but just enough to give a antique look. Whatever works, I guess.
Pat
If the wood took 12+ years to grow, a year+ to age and settle, I figure a month wait for the finish I desire is worth it.
I like to make wooden pennywhistles. Pennywhistles get damp inside, and mildew is way down on my list of things I want to have happen. Linseed has not worked out for me. So I use safflower on the exterior, and almond on the interior. I still use Linseed for a lot of other things, just not things that get damp regularly.Bob
Boiled linseed oil may not be safe to drink because of the metallic driers, but when it has cured, those materials are bound chemically into the cross linked linseed oil and aren't very available biologically. That's why no generally available clear wood finishes are not food safe when cured.
Mineral oil has no odor. You can find it in a drugstore in the laxative aisle (no, I have no problem, I used to be a manager at CVS). Stuff is really cheap.
Maybe someday I'll know a little something.
Hi fussy I just bought some walnut oil and it had a warning not to come in contact with food, I can't see why not.
It was my understanding that walnut oil is a poison. Everything dies under my walnut trees. Please let me know if I am wrong.
Season's greetings to you all and thank you for increasing my skills with your knowledge.
hello. I hope not !!!!!!! I have spent most of Christmas eating walnuts and I know that the oil is extracted from the kernal. I have made oak and beech furniture for a customer with major allergy problems (not nut ), mainly oil based chemicals ., and we found that walnut oil worked as a treatment /finish, some has been in use for over ten years and at no time has there been a problem with the oil going rancid. It was always a job to work out how to make any item without adhesives ,ply,sheet materials etc.
regards Teabag
Hi fussy I take that back it was just the nut alergy they were afraid of.
Hi Mark1549,
good luck with it. Have a Merry Christmas. Fussy
Same to you!!
Fussy,
Could you recommend a proceedure/mixture for mineral oil and beeswax? I know beeswax to be a solid. Does the mineral oil desolve it? I made a cutting board out of hard maple and just used minerial oil. I put on two applications and let each soak in for 10-15 minutes as directed on the label. The board looked great, but in short order it seemed to fade and the wood fibers easily fray from the knife. It is getting fuzzy in spots. Is maple a recommended specie for a cutting board? Thanks, Farls
Merry Christmas Farls,
As I recall the procedure is to gently heat the mineral oil (preferably in a double-boiler) and cut the beeswax into fine shavings. That will help it dissolve faster. There's no hard and fast rule as to how much, but you want it to be kind of thick. About like honey. When it cools, it will thicken into a paste, then just get a gob on a soft cloth, rub it in, and buff it out. Maple is quite desirable for cutting boards, but any finish will have to be renewed fairly often depending on how much use the piece gets. It's no trouble to do. Before you apply more, fine sand your piece to remove the fuzzies, and don't hold back on the mixture. You want as much as you can get on it. I'd apply it warm so it will soak in better.
There's an article somewhere in the archives about this, (or maybe in American Woodworker) but I can't find it. This covers it pretty well. As one other reader suggested, by it at a drug store or on line. (mineral oil) Don't use baby oil--it's scented and who knows what's in it. Good luck.
Thank you, Fussy. I'll give this a try. Have a happy New Year! Farls
Ditto the mineral oil-
olive oils and vegtable oils will go rancid- esp if you don't use them often. mineral oil (from shale) will last longer and you can pick it up at the drug store.
best,
dave
I just started using walnut oil ( from the grocery store) and I like the finish.
Does that smell better than mineral oil? Just based on baby oil, I would think mineral oil has a strong lasting odor.
Mineral oil is sold in the drugstore aisle of the supermarket for under a dollar. It is tasteless and odorless--NOT to be mistaken for baby oil. Nut and vegetable oils will get rancid and sticky.
NOTE on baby oils. DO NOT let it near your baby on a changing table, for example. If inhaled by accident it will kill the child by coating the lungs. It really as no role for a baby.Gretchen
very light odor - sold as salad (and cooking?) oil. As I understand it, nut oils are drying oils (think tung oil) and in effect becomes a thin varnish. I used "butcher block" oil previously. It is mineral oil, perhaps thinned a little so it will soak in.
Using mineral oil or a mineral oil/wax combination is the best and safest treatment.There are folks who are allergic to nuts and nut oils. With mineral oil being totally safe, why use a treatment with a potential for harm?Yes, walnut oil will slightly polymerize but it never gets truly hard. It lasts no longer than using a mineral oil.Howie.........
Guys:Olive oil does not go rancid in the bottle. I use a film of it to treat my black iron cooking implements before storing them for the winter. Never had a problem after months in storage. I also use it on wood as necessary. Have done it for years. No smell. Nobody has gotten sick. Am I missing something here?
Well, any non-saturated fat *will* go rancid. Its just a matter of the non saturated triglycerides bonding with whatever happens to come their way. Yes, its possible to keep olive oil for very long periods of time without it going rancid, however given the right circumstances it can go rancid quickly as it is a mono unsaturated fat (the least stable of the fats). I may be wrong, but I don't think that rancidity implies it will harm you though - its just nasty smelling and/or tasting.
I see your point. I guess it is an organic substance, and has to decompose someday. However, for something in regular use -- being washed and all, I wouldn't worry about using the olive oil as a treatment. On the other hand, I have no axe to grind with mineral oil either, (as long as it is not perfumed).
Agreed!If you are giving the board as a gift though, you might want to worry about worst-case scenarios tho. Like if they are using the cutting board to serve stinky cheeses! :-)
Olive oil CAN go rancid--and particularly when exposed to air.Gretchen
I believe you,
I have an end-grain maple cutting block, installed in my kitchen in 1997. It's used several times every day. It's had olive oil on it all that time, with more poured on if it begins to looks dry. Nowadays, that's about every 3 months, but it was much more often to begin with. We've never, ever, had a problem with the finish. Maybe that's because it's used so much and cleaned so often, but olive oil definitely works for us.
Try not using anything, it makes it easier to clean and diseinfect using bleach and water.
That's me too.Gretchen
One more oil for your list - Tung Oil - makes an excellent preservative. I use it on our cutting board and every few months, rub another application on the board.
the tried and true oils have no VOC's right out of the can. there is also one that is a wax mix. i've found them to dry here in ct in 3 or 4 days. something to think about, but they are also expensive.
I would just like to make the point the mineral oil purchased in a supermarket or drug store is perfectly safe for use in a cutting board. So is paraffin or beeswax. With this being the case, I do not understand why some folks continue to espouse the use of other treatments that carry the potential for harm. Vegetable oils will turn rancid, nut oils (tung and walnut) are dangerous to folks with allergies and peanut oil is dangerous to those allergic to peanuts. Why use them when there is a safe alternative?
An excellent treatment for cutting boards and butcher blocks is a mixture of mineral oil and either paraffin or beeswax. This is what is used on many commercial wood surfaces. It will last longer and be more protective than just mineral oil. Mineral oil can be found in most supermarkets in the pharmacy section or in a true pharmacy. Paraffin is found in the canning section of the store or in a hardware store.
Heat the oil in a double boiler and shave in some wax. The exact proportions are not critical--a 5-6 parts of oil to one part of wax will work fine. Stir the mixture until all the wax is liquified. Apply the mixture heavily and let it set 10-12 hours or overnight. Next day do it again and continue until the wood will no long absorb the finish. Let it set for 10-12 hours and then lightly scrape off any excess. Then buff it with a rag.
Reapply whenever the wood begins to look dry.
Never put a wood board in the dishwasher and don't soak it in dishwater for long periods.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled