Got online to ask you guys re which glue to use on a cutting board and saw that Al had beat me to the punch, so let me follow up with the next logical question - what type of finish should a fellow use on a cutting board? It's for my mother in law, but I'm not quite ready to poison her yet, so I thought I should use something food safe, but not sure what.
What's on it now is the best.
If anything, maybe some mineral oil.
Wayne
The natural oils and juices from the food being cut up on it will be just fine.
Mineral oil. You can get it at the drugstore. Vegetable oil will go rancid.
Bill
Mother-in-law..hmmmmmmm
Mineral oil spiked with Tabasco sauce maybe....
Dissolve paraffin in mineral oil. Dissolves easily if mineral oil is warmed.
Wally Goffeney
It appears that no one gave you the right answer. Vegetable oil. I've made four cutting boards over the years and used ordinary vegetable oil on every one. After a couple of years when the board is looking grungy - as they all do - you just do a quick sanding to remove the old oil and apply some more.
"Dragon Breath"
Including you.
I have a cutting board that I made in 1969. It gets rinsed off after every use and looks fine. I resurfaced it about 4 years ago to make the top flat again. I have never applied anything to is except food. Since I have build nuberous cutting boards and 2, 4 legged butcher blocks.
The traditional and commonly accepted finish for cutting boards in mineral oil. It will not go rancid as a vegetable oil might, and is inert.
Sanding your cutting board is BAD.
1)It tears the wood fibers leaving room for food particles to get traped and bacteria to grow. 2)It leaves particles of grit behind which will dull the edges of your cutting instuments.A few passes with a sharp handplane is all that is needed to freshen up the cutting surface.
Really an invalid point. Do your knives not cut small indentions into the wood?
With any caution taken at all, this is not a real problem. Wipe the board off before using knoves on it.
Knives give a different kind of cut from sandpaper. Compare a surface smoothed using a sharp plane with one smoothed using sandpaper and you'll see the difference.
That may help with knoves but there is no amount of wiping that will get all the grit off that might dull knives. Read the current posts on this newsgroup and you'll find someone who was having trouble with grit embedded in his waterstone. A waterstone is a _hell_ of a lot harder than a cutting board--if grit gets embedded in one of those so firmly that it doesn't wipe off, it will most certainly get even more embedded in a cutting board.
Umm do you use your sharp planes to cut food up on your cutting board. Perhaps I should have indicated the obvious here, KITCHEN knives will leave small indentations like sandpaper will when you actually start uning the ccutting board.
Water stones by nature continuously break down and the "grit" increases in quantity as you use them. The stones by nature are MUCH MORE pours than most wood as they soak up enough water that they are normally totally saturated. Where the water goes, so will the "grit" from the stone. And as indicated in the information regarding the posts, the user was probably not using enough water to keep the stone surface fresh and clear of excess build up. If you continuously wet sanded the end grain of red oak you might eventually plug the end with grit.
Sandpaper _tears_ the fibers leaving microscopically jagged and frayed surface, whereas a sharp knife edge slices the fibers cleanly allowing them to seal themselves back up after the blade has passed. Yéver seen how the sole of a Sperry Topsider boat shoe works to expel water from under-foot? it's kinda sorta like that, in an overly generalized way.
Well if this cutting board is going to see any serious use, there are going to be small and OPEN areas where the knife cuts. I have yet to see one that does not indicate this and it becomes especially apparent when you rinse the top clean and water causes the cut wood fibers swell.
No, I use my sharp knives that cost about as much as my sharp planes and can cut wood every bit as well, if not as conveniently.
KITCHEN knives cut wood the same way as chisels and planes cut wood. At least mine do.
Find the thread, I'm not talking about grit from the stone--when he flattened the stone he got carbide grit embedded in it.
Which has zip-all to do with embedded grit. It may have escaped your attention that grit is not water.
So the grit from the stone is the same size as a water molecule? If that's not what you mean then I can't figure out what you're trying to say.
You're reading the wrong thread.
It doesn't have to be "plugged". Doesn't take a lot of aluminum oxide or silicon carbid to dull a knife.
And this is relevant how? The whole top of the cutting board is an OPEN area where a knife cut. OPEN areas that stay open are not a problem. It's when you get pockets that can trap debris that you have a problem. And sanding, by tearing the grain, makes pockets that may be tiny by your standards but to a bacterium are immense.
I believe that your mind is make up and I am not getting through.
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