Finishing


TomP

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I am a beginner at turning. I have been turning some bowls for practice. I did a bowl out of walnut and it came out pretty good. I did have some tear out. I used a cutting board finish on it and it turned really dark. It looked better before I treated it. Somebody told me to use boiled linseed oil. Is that food grade. If not what would you recommend.

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  • 2 weeks later...

will you be eating out of it?  beeswax 

walnut will darken with any edible finish

why finish at all?..for thousands of years people ate out of wood bowls with no finish..wash it..dry it and if you must put walnut oil, olive oil on it and use it and enjoy. I have bowls I turned 25 yrs ago, that I eat salad from & they have never had a finish & they have taken on an amazing patina. 

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You use the bowl with food and clean it then occasinally re oil w the mineral oil when it looks dried out., problem solved ! Once a oil goes rancid in the wood the smell isn't going to go away ! Nut oils get oxidized and impart a stale taste and smell to everything they touch. I learned the hard way, just trying to share the knowledge .

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I think mineral oil wicks in and out of wood fairly easy. Guys that produce lots of cutting boards soak them in a tub of mineral oil for days to really saturate them. Follow that with a coat of beeswax, and you shouldn't need to re-apply for quite a while.

Unless you are running it through the dishwasher, of course!

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I used Watco butcher block oil on the Paduak bowl I did last week. It turned out pretty good. It darkened a little but really brought the grain out. Just cut a blank out of walnut. Will use mineral oil on that one.

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I personally use Watco butcher block finish on new cutting boards and bowls. Then use mineral oil as they get worn . I only recoat w the Watco finish if I sand out damage or heavy knife marks.

Watco Butcher Block Finish has a varnish/ oil mix that is food safe once it is dry and cured, few days to a week depending on the weather and how many coats you put on. Comes in a tiny can and it ain't cheap either.

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will you be eating out of it?  beeswax 

walnut will darken with any edible finish

why finish at all?..for thousands of years people ate out of wood bowls with no finish..wash it..dry it and if you must put walnut oil, olive oil on it and use it and enjoy. I have bowls I turned 25 yrs ago, that I eat salad from & they have never had a finish & they have taken on an amazing patina.

I've had the unfortunate pleasure of smelling a cutting board that was treated with olive oil. I'll definitely never make that mistake.
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Sealed amphora doesn't get oxygen. The mineral oil won't be a food source for bacteria either. It's what the Forrest Products lab recommends . They did the testing that proved wood cutting boards actually were slightly safer than the plastic ones.

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