Osage Orange cutting board

[spltend]

Hello,

 

I recently made a cutting board using osage orange and now find that when I wipe down the board with a damp rag, there is a yellow residue left behind on the rage.  It looks very similar to the sawdust, but when it is dry and I wipe it with a dry cloth, there's nothing.  I know the Osage Orange sawdust can be used as a dye, so is the wood saturated with an oil that is coming out when it gets wet on the surface?  Or is it really tiny particles of sawdust/wood that are coming off?

[spltend]

Ok so I figured out that is contains a water soluble dye, which explains why we only noticed it after we wiped it down with a damp rag.  Now I'm wondering if there's a way to stop this from coming off or if we should just be careful what we use to dry the board off?

[duckkisser]

Probably oil but when dry rub it realy hard to clean up any dust. If it's oil try rubbing it with denatured alcohols to clean it up. That's what I do with some exotics because of bleeding of oil in finish or problems with gluing

[Eric.]

Ok so I figured out that is contains a water soluble dye, which explains why we only noticed it after we wiped it down with a damp rag.  Now I'm wondering if there's a way to stop this from coming off or if we should just be careful what we use to dry the board off?

 

You need to use a film-forming finish to seal the wood.  There's an eternal debate over cutting board finishes...I usually use straight mineral oil on my cutting boards, but that's mostly out of laziness and not out of fear of toxicity.  Spagnuolo uses varnish on his, and I tend to agree with his conclusion that once cured, there's very little danger of health issues.  He's a science dork and knows the chemical compositions of these finishes better than anyone else whose opinion I trust.  But that's your call.  Either way, the only way you'll eliminate that leeching of color is by adding a barrier of finish.