End grain cutting board with purpleheart accents

[bbaude]

Hey Folks,

I've been working on an endgrain board that is checkered maple and walnut.  It also has some purpleheart accents worked in to change things up.  Here's the rub.  I'm colorblind.  And when I wiped the board down today with a little mineral spirits, the walnut and purpleheart appeared nearly identical.  Now this could be my colorblindness but on the edges of the board where the edge grain is exposed, I can see an obvious difference.

My concern is that I have usually followed the saladbowl finish, slightly diluted, finishing of these end grain boards.  Again, it could be colorblindness but usually i see a slight browning of the wood but I like the finish.  With what I saw with the plain wiping of the wood, I'm concerned the purpleheart accents (on the end grain) will be lost and it has made me wonder if I should switch to the mineral oil and mineral oil/beeswax approach.

So, I'm curious if anyone has done end grain with purple heart and what they observed.  I see lots of examples while googling of purple heart end grain boards and it appears to have retained its color.  Maybe I am sweating the small stuff here.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Janello]

How long ago was the purpleheart cut? Freshly milled purpleheart looks very brown and can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to turn purple again. 

[..Kev]

PH and Walnut do tend to blend together a bit.  Having just done one with those 2 materials, the differences were subtle but, they were there.  I'd stick with your normal finishing routine.  Ultimately, you really can't change it now anyway so, it is what it is.

[bbaude]

@TIODS, did the finish technique at all impact that subtle color difference?

[..Kev]

They both darkened slightly as usual..

That is with salad bowl finish.

[mrrhode04]

I just finished this board and it has both walnut and purpleheart along with a few other woods, it is finished with mineral oil and beeswax. Once the finish was applied walnut and purpleheart started to look similar, but you can still tell the difference in the colors. I would ask somebody that you know that is not color blind if they can see the difference, or post a picture for us to see. I agree with Tiod there really is no way to change the finish now.

[bbaude]

To be clear, all I have done is wiped the board with mineral spirits to clean it up.  So no real finishing work has occurred yet. 

Many thanks for the pictures; it is hard to see the edge grain there, but do you have the same result where the edge grain shows the color a little better than the end, which I suppose is to be expected.

[mrrhode04]

Yes the edge and face grain show the color better than the end grain. Here is a different picture that shows a little more of the side. I don't think the type of finish that you choose will make that much of a difference.

[..Kev]

52 minutes ago, bbaude said:

To be clear, all I have done is wiped the board with mineral spirits to clean it up.  So no real finishing work has occurred yet. 

Many thanks for the pictures; it is hard to see the edge grain there, but do you have the same result where the edge grain shows the color a little better than the end, which I suppose is to be expected.

Yes..  Edge grain shows the color better.