Kitchen Island, Counter top and Desk

[rjkearns]

Hello everyone, 

 

I am trying to decide what finishes to use for a kitchen island, desk and counter top I am building. They are all made from reclaimed yellow pine bowling alley lanes. I framed them in pine trim to hide the abundance of nails on the long edges. 

 

The desk will likely be Arm-R-Seal but I want to keep the light pine look at much as possible, if you have worked with this, will it remain close to the bare wood look?

 

My real dilemma lies with the counter top and island. I want them to be food safe, so mineral oil is an obvious choice but if I avoid directly cutting on them i think salad bowl finish will suffice and require less maintenance. 

 

What finishes would you recommend that would alter the tone of the wood the least and for the island and counter be food safe. 

 

Thank you in advance for your responses. 

[Tom King]

  It's not the standard finish that you would hear anyone else talking about using on cabinets, but it would be worth a try if you can get your hands on a sample somewhere.  I'm going to try it out on a project in a month or two, but too much to do before we get that far.  I have wiped on moisture cure urethane on Yellow Pine cabinets 23 years ago, and they still look great, but I have since stopped using MCU since Bona came out with the newer low VOC products.

 

http://www.bona.com/en-US/United-States1/BonaSystem/Coatings/Finishes/Bona-Naturale/

[Tom King]

I just bought a gallon of Naturale today for a project we are dong.  I'll try some on a piece of YP just for curiosity.  It is $120 a gallon, and doesn't come in smaller quantities, plus you have to add a catalyst.  I'm going to be mixing a small batch of it by weight, so I'll have some left over if it turns out.  I don't think any of the commercial floor finishes come in smaller containers than gallons.

 

I'm looking for something that looks as close to no finish as possible for some reproduction woodwork out of antique Heart Pine, so this is just one of the tests.