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I'm making an oak top for my sisters kitchen island counter top. The wood is white oak. The thing will be used for preparing food, and I expect people might use it as a chopping block sometimes. I'm going to make some matching cutting boards to discourage that though.
I can't decide what to finnish it with. She wants it to be food grade.
Any poly or laquer type finishes should be ok,
there's plenty of wax finishes that are food safe
you probably should google one up for the companies
in your part of the world.
If i were making this for a sibling i'd be making sure
they knew the consequences of anyone taking a cleaver
to it :~ , or chewing on it for that matter :D
The last island bench i made i used of all things a floor
finish on it, about ten coats, it's held up pretty well.
If it's a solid slab, don't forget to seal the underside also.
cheers
col.
I did a Southern Mahogany Island benchtop for here at home. it is used every day as a chopping block. I used a liquid paraffin with beeswax - 60/ 40 blend approx' (chemist or supermarket for the paraffin, I had the beeswax lying around and I like beeswax because I keep bees)
Works a treat. The finish is flat, but that doesn't matter as we are regularly scratching it and a gloss finish would look terrible scratched
The disadvantage is that it takes a bit more elbow grease to clean, as things dont wipe off as easily as with polyurethane etc. my wife likes it but would probably prefer the high gloss urethane, and use a chopping block for cutting on.
Seeing as I had a new buffing wheel for the sander/ polisher the other day, I put some beeswax/natural turpentine/raw linseed oil finish on it and buffed it to a shine. I am not sure how food grade natural turps is, but I am not too worried, .