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OK, here is the quote from the last Robson Valley posting I can find on this subject - though there were earlier ones on just using mineral oils.
"I carved a "wet dish" for my kitchen. Birch, maybe 5" x 12" x 2". Holder for wet scrub pads, sink stoppers and so on.
Melted beeswax & painted it on. Into a 325 oven for 5 minutes. Wood air heats up, wax remelts. As wood air cools, sucks the
wax (or the oil of your choice) down into the wood. Did 70 spoons and 30 forks with olive oil that way for 3mins 30 sec by the clock.
If you reheat one of my spoons beyond 325, you could get the oil to move. Won't and can't move in boiling soup.
No hocus-pocus, just Charles' Law from gas physics."
So, to be absolutely clear, I have never done this so this is a straight quoute from his post and I presume that RV was using degrees Farenheit not Celcius.
Good luck!
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Why not just put vegetable/cooking oil on it?
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I am not the originator of the idea and I'm not a chemist, nor a physicist but the idea is that the heat drives the air out of the pores in the wood, then when you take the wood out, coated with oil or wax it is drawn much deeper into the wood than just applying it to the surface can ever do. Also, many vegetable oils can go rancid so that is why UBeaut and others recommend and use paraffin oil and others recommend mineral oil.
However, as I said, I am not an expert on this, I use UBeaut's hard Shellac on my platters and coaters (mainly for appearance), but it is not meant for, and does not give anywhere near the protection that Robson Valley is talking about. He is saying his treatment can withstand boiling soup!
