I made a little simple cutting board and afterward I sanded in canola oil with 400 grit paper. However, the board is unusable now because once it dries the wood has started to come up in certain places and splinters are showing.
Cutting some food on this seems unwise and my project seems to be a failure. Any advice on how to save the board and avoid the splinter problem in the future?
Rob
What kind of wood did you use would help. For a cutting board anything that would be likely to splinter (like pines, etc.) wouldn't be a likely candidate for the purpose. You need a close-grained, hard wood like maple. Oak, walnut, etc., while hard enough, are too porous...
When I do project that might get wet, I wet sand them. Make the item as usual, then get it wet (I use a spray bottle for turned bowls) and let it dry. Then sand off the fuzzies. Do the wet-dry step between each grit until it feels smooth after it dries.
Since your finish is just canola oil, you should be able to go back to the sanding steps (start at, say, 150 grit) and just re-do everythign from there - sand, wet/dry, sand, etc, oil.
Thanks for the help...
I used oak for the board. I will try the wet sanding technique.
Rob
the best solution is to use maple for the cuttin gboard. Hard, not splinterty and non-porouse (so no food gets stuck in it). Don't put any finish on it. The wood has really good natural bacteriacides in it, so you won't need to worry about things growing on it 9assuming a modicum of care).
Because you've already started with oak, you could simply strip ot down and see how it does. oak has 8really* good anti bacterial properties, and lots of tannins as well (which will also help discourage stuff from growing). The fact that it is open grained could be aproblem - if you're cutting something mushy or really juicy, the stuff willget forced down into the pores, and could rot there. Good cleaning might keep up with it. No matter what finish yuo put down, it will get cut and worn, and re-expose the pores, so I'm not sure that there is areal solution to that problem. also, Oak is pretty splintery, so as it wears, it'll get more liley to throw a splinter....
I would probably just scrap the oak and start oer with maple. If thats not an option, I'd keep the oak raw, clean it really well after every use, and watch and see how it does.....
as a side note: I use a lot of scrap for cutting boards. My favorite is maple, but I've also used cherry (works great, but can turn funny colors), mahogany (kinds soft, wears fast), and rosewood (only once - really hard, and was to rough on my knives)....
--JD
"jd" wrote in news:iOadnRMH3ID3vorYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:
I use a Salad Bowl finish on the cutting boards I make. Wood is an excellent material for cutting boards. It kills the nasties that may grow. Much better than plastic. Plastic does nothing to kill critters.
Toss it into the fire and start over. Oak is a terrible wood for cutting boards. Much to porous and it will absorb a lot of liquids.
Cut a small strip about 6" long. Put it in a glass of water and blow through it and you will understand why maple and other close grained wood is used.
That only works with red oak. Try it with white oak and your face will turn blue while you're waiting for bubbles. That's why it's used for wine barrels (well, that and the flavor).
This is exactly what I did to one project. Dampen the wood, let it dry, sand, repeat. Warm up the board and apply mineral oil.
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