Finish for spoons

So, I have just started carving spoons. After being pretty sick for a couple of years at the moment I can't do much physical activity or the infection that's left flares up.

I have made, I think, six. I hadn't looked into finishing them but while I was ordering a saburr bur I saw food safe mineral oil and bought a small bottle. I really dislike the result.

I imagine Tung and linseed oil and any natural oils are fine, though nut allergies and adding smell to the wood have to be taken into consideration. I suppose my questions are:

Suggestions? Has anyone found something they liked or disliked/had negative experiences?

I like having options. What makes a finish food safe? Presumably you want something that won't release toxins - so edible for humans is fine and finishes that don't degrade or dissolve in heat or water?

So do poly, varnish, wax and shellac soften in heat or water? Or are people just paranoid?

Walnut Oil and Coconut oil work.
Oils that come from food make food safe oils.:wink:

I said natural oils but oils from food is more what i meant :) Thought of walnut and hazelnut oils but hadn't thought of coconut oil. Thanks

I carved and finished 70 spoons and 30 forks in birch (Betula papyrifera.)
Preheat your oven to 325F
On a cake rack over a sheet pan, slather the wood works with the oil of your choice.
I used good Greek olive oil because I have lots of it. And saying that it will go rancid is a myth.

Into the oven (a dozen at a time) for 3 minutes and 30 seconds, buy the clock (4 minutes and they begin to cook).
Out they come to sit and cool.

What happened?
Charles' Law of gas physics predicts that the wood air will expand as it is heated.
Out of the oven, the remaining wood air cools and contracts (Charles' Law, again).
This sucks the oil farther down into the wood than any soak can accomplish.
The oil cannot be disturbed in boiling water ( pasta).
Attachment 451218

I like the idea behind using an oven. Far better than simmering in a pan on a cook-top. :doh:

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Originally Posted by Robson Valley

I used good Greek olive oil because I have lots of it. And saying that it will go rancid is a myth.

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Errrmm... not true. Olive Oil is an organic material and will break down, going rancid, given enough time. Properly stored, this is usually measured in years. Soaking it into timber doesn't change this; personally I'm reluctant to consider this as "properly stored." ;)

However... in general, rancid Olive Oil will not harm you; it tastes bad and contains free radicals that may increase your risk of developing diseases such (as cancer or heart disease) further down the road if you drink it in quantity.

But worrying about the amount involved when used as a finish for a cooking spoon is akin to worrying about exposure to the microwave radiation from the cell-phone of a pilot flying overhead...

Really, any food-safe oil will do. The above still applies. Including mineral or paraffin oil, if you want to avoid the whole issue of "rancid."

The best thing to do is include instructions to "Wash utensil thoroughly with detergent and hot water before first use."

After all, no matter what finish you use, you should remove the surface layer before cooking with it! :D

I use Tung oil but it takes about 3 months to cure. But once it has there is no smell and its a very durable finish. ( think Great Wall of China )

The triglycerieds in olive oil must be exposed to oxygen in the air (at high concentration) in order to break unsaturated bonds in oxidations.
I am correct in claiming the olive oil in wood will not oridize, agreed for many years, because the [O2] in oven heated wood is very low.

Let's suppose that you elect to finish a spoon with an oil soak at room temperature.
The very first time in hot food, the wood air expands and pushes your oil soak out into the food.
What follows is that the food juices are drawn into the wood as the wood air cools,
to decompose as the characteristic black that we all know.
Charles' Law predicts the scenario.

I was also thinking about exposure to air. There must be a lot of variables - how much oil is used and the type of wood etc. Surely some oxygen permeates wood or am I wrong?

I hadn't thought of the juices being drawn into the spoon. Good point. Do you think the oven method prevents or reduces that? Thanks for that idea btw.

Everything eventually degrades.


So Tung oil takes ages to cure? From memory there are soaking oils and drying oils and the drying oils eventually cure. So if it cures then it must undergo a chemical change? Does that mean it then creates a barrier? (That may all be wrong)

I will probably try some different oils and I might do some experimenting. In terms of selling them it's probably safest to go with what people are familiar with and believe is safe. It does seem the standard thing is to go with what is safe to ingest rather than trying to prevent it.

As to organic - could argue carbon based? - the standard usage would make shellac organic
"Don't worry, it's natural. Have you heard of Squirm?"

I use olive oil on my food spoons, spatulas etc never had any issues over years if use.

Water in wood is in 2 places:
1. In the open void lumens of the wood cells as "free" water,
2. "Bound" into the various components of the wood cell walls.
Thus when wood dries, the wood water is replaced by air which is 21% oxygen, more or less.

Charles' Law of gas physics dictates the mechanism that I've been using for years.
It isn't up to me. Neat to take advantage of.

The short term advantage is that I'm done with finishing, once and for all, in 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
I have done exactly the same for dishes sealed with straight bee's wax. Waterproof for many decades to come.

The long term advantage is that you cannot heat the wood again to move the residual air
until you exceed the original oven baking temperature (325F for me.)

In fact, deep frying chips would be a great way to finish say, 1/2 a spoon,
simply by stirring in the oil at 325F as it heats up for cooking.

I've used RVs excellent technique, but using "Food safe mineral oil" (paraffin) from UBeaut and other sources. It works very well indeed. A cutting board of Crows Ash treated that way seems to be resistant to all food, even after years of use. However, remember that dishwashers are a different story as the highly alkaline detergents and over 60 degrees c temperatures destroy most wood, even if oiled. David

What about a cutting board that is glued together with TiteBond 3?

Mine was an end-grain block. I like Tb 3 a lot, but have never heated it. Only way to know is to run a test I would suggest. I do not imagine that even a modified PVA would take well to that heat, but, who knows. Let us know how your test goes please.

Not so sure that I would be allowed (officially) to do any testing in SWMBO’s oven. 😉

A. Don't tell B. Do it in an enclosed container in the oven (saucepan/Dutch Oven) so any catastrophic results do not damage dinner (or worse your relationship). C. If kitchen dominance is absolute then try enclosed container (as above) in the barbecue. D. Aldi and others sell very reasonably priced cookware suitable for such experimentation E. If all else fails then get a mate to try it!

Baking in SWMBO's oven? Never even roasted a chook for hours? Never a fruit pie or bread?
I've done all the experiments, you guys run with the results. Application.

I'm going to cook my spoons and forks for no more than 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
This is not an all day adventure.
Don't do this in a closed container as that upfucculates all the timing that I've worked out.
You really are on your own, I wouldn't waste my time.

Don't be like that RV. A little lighthearted joking never hurt anyone. BUT, that is an amazing word "upfucculates" .. I wonder what it means? We Aussies have a bit of a sense of humour, don't worry. Everyone here knows what I meant (HINT: the first sentence "Don't tell"). BTW, when I tried your technique it was in a very different and unusual, triple-sealed oven, which actually closely replicates a sealed container like a Dutch Oven. This darned oven cooks much faaaster than a normal oven, and I did produce some quite unnecessary clouds of oil-gas. But, it still worked very well indeed. Your concept is really good and I appreciate you sharing it with us. From my experience the process seems robust in a range of conditions, which is just as well for us arty woodworker types.

Going to have a play tomorrow. I might try doing two the same with one in the oven and one not. For interests sake to see the difference.

I'm going to try some food colour with the oil too. Not much, hoping to enhance the wood rather than colour it. I've had good results using artists pastels - with water based poly I scraped a bit off the pastel into powder and sanded it in to the wood just before the finish and I mixed some of the powder into blo. Both looked good.

You blokes have got me thinking with this vacuum replacement technique of RVs that there are probably a whole range of plant based oils that may be suitable. One that comes to mind is flaxseed oil. SWMBO has in the past given it to me (for the workshop not for therapeutic purposes :rolleyes: ) once it has gone past it's useby date as she maintains it does go rancid. She pointed out that it is the same as linseed oil. So you could consider flaxseed oil: Probably.

However, the thought also occurred that you could use linseed oil or even boiled linseed oil in the same way. A little research produced this:

"Both flaxseed oil and linseed oil are extracted from seeds of the plant Linum usitatissimu. Flaxseed oil is pure and fit for human consumption; linseed oil goes through a refinement process and may contain additives that improve its paint-cleaning properties. Never drink linseed oil. Instructions on flaxseed oil packages will indicate if it is drinkable."

So maybe not or is it back to being such a small, infinitesimal, quantity that we should be more concerned about leaving the house and on the way to the car being trampled by an escaped circus elephant ?

Regards
Paul

I think it's worth the experiments. Any edible oil ought to be adequate.
I used olive oil because I have lots of it in the kitchen, I buy 3 liter tins in the Greek market.
The degree of unsaturation is far less than in peanut oil so I surmised that the olive oil would be more durable.
I wanted something fairly neutral so as not to run into allergic issues when selling the spoons & forks.
Canola would have been #2.

Then, I wanted a carved sink dish for wet scrub pads, etc.
So I carved the dish and painted it with bees wax which melts at about 60C/140F.
It was a bigger piece of wood so I gave it 3 shots at 325F to get the melted wax to show air bubbles.
Water puddles have dried in that dish for a couple of years.
Looks like I made it yesterday (which isn't saying much).

"Upfucculated" is a descriptive adjective invented by an aquaintance.
He uses it to describe anything which has gone unrepairably wrong.
Like the shower tap in my bathroom, yesterday.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robson Valley

"Upfucculated" is a descriptive adjective invented by an aquaintance.
He uses it to describe anything which has gone unrepairably wrong.
Like the shower tap in my bathroom, yesterday.

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Ah yes. We have a similar word "FUBAR."

Regards
Paul.

Don't like mineral oil or other oils? Salad bowl finish is food safe and holds up well. Over time it will deteriorate from disher washer or from using it with cooking. If you hand wash and dry right away it will hold up much longer. I forget the brand name I have used but probably a GF (General Finishes) product. Lightly sand and refinish when needed.

I was intent on using Charles' Law to do a very fast and permanent finish, whatever the material was.
I looked into Salad Bowl Finishes, the two ingredients common to them all were bee's wax and mineral oil.

I didn't want to have to buy something else (hard when you live in the middle of nowhere) and I wanted a result right now.
That was the tipping point to use good olive oil, since I have lots of it.

Actually I usually like oils. The mineral oil felt lovely but it seemed to get rid of the colour more than other oil and the bits of grain that would usually be dark looked black. The spoon I tried it on had fairly plain grain though - which is why I chose it to test rather than the pretty ones. I'm not a carver but I have a good eye for interesting grain. That's the thing that makes the spoons different, so I want it seen.

I asked here because I've found in the past that there are often ideas here that internet reading doesn't show or better explanations or details etc. I was also interested in why oil is the only thing that seems recommended.

RV - I think for the moment I am going with olive oil too. I didn't have any time over the weekend to do tests. I did one spoon yesterday but was not happy with my sanding so I'm obsessed with sanding them again before I try more. I did dissolve red food colouring in metho and wiped the spoon first. I think it's got potential but it looked really bright so I wiped it back before putting on the oil. Then it wasn't really visible except a couple of spots that looked interesting. No definitive results really.

I have used bees wax. The initial application (preheating) is a tremendous mess, spattered all over the stove in my kitchen. Not again.
My house, my kitchen, my mess, me have to do the clean up.
Beeswax melts at about 60C/140F so the 325F oven treatment will go as predicted. I did a few simple birch dishes.

For heaven's sake, stop sanding. All that ever does is shred the surface. No sandpaper ever makes a smooth surface.
Make some simple steel cabinet scrapers and actually cut the surface to make it smooth.

I would try RVs' method but use tung oil rather than olive or peanut. Tung oil is a food oil too, from a nut but it dries over time so once it is in the wood it will slowly form a solid barrier unlike oils that do not dry. Speaking from experience I once started treating kids puzzles with cottonseed oil. It gives a lovely finish and was cheap and safe. Three months later the summer is heating up and I get the first of many calls from retailers saying that the cottonseed oil is going off...Had to replace more than half of them. Then I went to Organoil, then tung and gum turps now I'm out of the commercial world and I mainly use Livos.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robson Valley

For heaven's sake, stop sanding. All that ever does is shred the surface. No sandpaper ever makes a smooth surface.
Make some simple steel cabinet scrapers and actually cut the surface to make it smooth.

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ok. Thank you. I was intending to try to make some scrapers but hadn't done it and started to sand. You're right about sanding - you're trying to get wood smooth by scratching it. Plus, I get obsessive about it.

TL, I like the idea of a barrier. I bought some walnut oil from woollies until I get some Tung or Linseed oil (I believe normal linseed oil is a drying oil too?) I like the look of the Walnut Oil. I haven't done it in the oven yet. Even though it makes sense I was surprised by the difference in the look between different oils.

Another vote here for the RV method. It works, nuf said.

With regard to glue and end grain cutting boards. I made a few from some Vic Ash off cuts a couple of years ago and gave one to my brothers wife with the instruction to run it through the dishwasher every time it was run, regardless of whether the board had been used or not. 2 or 3 times a week for about a year. No signs of delamination. TB3 was and is used for these things. I still tell people to "wipe with hot soapy water and dry promptly". My own spoons scrapers and stirrers are mostly made of Hoop or White Beech. Treated the RV method and all are still in good service 18 or more months later. They will ofter sit in the hot water for an hour before I get to doing the washing up proper. Zero negative results so far.

We can get all funny and strange and hypothesise or maybe this or that is better. Maybe, just maybe some of you might take on board that there is a proven and validated method which is simple, works and has a basis is science. You might find that your search is over.

Thank you Robson Valley for the information provided many moons ago. I gave it a go, it works, really, really well.

Cheers
Bevan