Hi, I am planning to make a wooden breadbin and would be grateful for
> advice as to how to treat the wood (or not to treat it). I will be
> using common-or-garden 18mm bonded pine. I would like the base to be
> wipeable but to avoid using anything that might be harmful or affect
> the flavour of the bread. Whatever is used to treat wooden
> chopping-boards would probably be OK, but I haven't a clue what it is! > > Cheers, >
> Hatch
Liquid paraffin BP (aka mineral oil). It used to be readily available at most chemists but I had to hunt around for it recently.
Any normal finish. A commercial finishing oil (try Liberon's) is toxic in the can (mainly because of the white spirit) but it's perfectly OK once cured. Wipe a thin coat on with a piece of kitchen roll, then repeat at hourly intervals until it looks right (half a dozen coats).
In this weather, the rag might self-heat and spontaneously combust as the oil cures. Either burn it, or dunk it in water.
What's "bonded" pine ?
If you're obsessive about sealing against tastes, use shellac instead.
Andy Dingley wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
By "bonded" I just meant made from glued-together lengths, as the common- or-garden wood for shelving is, sold at B&Q etc. If there's a more technical word I don't know what it is! :)
Might a normal finishing oil put a taste into the bread, assuming one hasn't got hyper-sensitive taste buds?
Their timber *is* crap but plenty of merchants do laminated pine boards of higher quality. > Ash is nice for kitchenware, as is beech or even rubberwood
Yeah, scour the country for it, leave it to dry for a few months, thickness it etc etc. The guy is making a bread bin for chrissake! Seriously though, these boards are perfect for home furnishing, combining all the benefits of a sheet material with the strength of wood.
Get it right before you phone up - pick the right people to talk to.
A copy of "Furniture and Cabinetmaking" mag, and a look in the adverts, can be a good start.
I buy a fair bit from these people (near Wells)
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have a decent website, so it'll give you an idea of reasonable costs.
Best thing is usually "I'm making a . What have you got ?"
English hardwoods come from small numbers of small mis-shapen trees. If you want a truckload of big matching boards, then you're buying it from the wrong continent. Half the fun of local hardwoods is seeing a nice piece of timber and being inspired by it as to what you could use it for.
A good timberyard will have some idea of what they have in, and what it's good for. You don't need premium timber on every job, and premium oftens means the same appearance as cheap stuff, just extended to a full board. Buy what you need, don't just grab the best board in the yard every time.
Usually buying timber is pretty easy, but negotiating any machining is much harder. Basically, don't ask them to saw something for you unless you're sure what to ask for, and you're sure they can do it. My local high-profile timber merchant (Robbins in Bristol) is infamous for its somewhat inflated view of its timber (imported everything, lack of interest in any customer other than the big ones and high pricetags), and its complete incompetence at doing any resaw work.
Most hardwood though is delivered as flat boards with rough edges, and you take it from there. Having it planed (2 sides) is usual, if you don't have your own thicknesser, but putting straight edges onto it uses the same machinery you're going to need to make the piece anyway.
I've not seen a timberyard that price-gouged the amateur woodworker for admitting they didn't know exactly what to ask for. Some will claim not to be able to help on a small job, or to make you wait a month for machine time to be free (this is rubbish - it just means they don't want you). Some will even talk to you for an hour about the best season for machining, and ask if you want to become an indentured apprentice. A good yard (if they're really not too busy) is one that knows how to translate "I want a tabletop" into "You really ought to pay more and buy quartersawn timber, because it will be more stable" This isn't just price-gouging, and a decent yard will explain why - or else they might tell you to buy some larch instead, at half the price!
Wastage is enormous. It just is - get used to it. Any serious woodworker needs a woodstove too !
Tung Oil, perhaps. Natural, non-poisonous, not very smelly, reasonably hard curing, and recommended for food contact. On pine though, try it on scrap first, to see if you like the result.
Pure tung oil can be a bit of a nuisance to work with though. It doesn't soak in well on a first coat and it's very sensitive to an over-generous application ending up with a sticky surface.
The good commercial finishing oils are just tung + white spirit solvent + driers. These give the same result, but they're much easier to handle. The solvent gets it into the wood more easily and the driers help it cure.
I use tung oil, but I often thin it first and I never use it raw as a first coat. I use about five times as much commercially blended oil though, compared to the raw oils.
Driers are metal salts (often manganese). They used to be lead-based, but these are now very rare. Check the can - almost all retail oils are now food and toy-safe when cured. It's hard to get lead driers now, even though a mixture of lead and manganese still has some uses for outdoor work or gunstocking. Driers are also only a fraction of a percent lead content, unlike lead paint that might be 30% - even the old drier formulations were nothing like the hazard from paint.
If you already have tung, just thin it with some white spirit (maybe
1/3rd - 1/2th for a first coat). In this heat it'll cure easily, but it'll appreciate some help in penetrating dry timber.
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