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Finish for a White Oak Salad Bowl

K

Ken Loy

Joined
May 21, 2020
Messages
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Location
Arlington, VA
After 18 months, the blank was finally dry enough to finish turn. Ended up with a nice 14" bowl. Found it tough to ride the bevel smoothly on this open grain wood, but nothing that a lot of sandpaper didn't solve. Ha.

The open grain got me wondering about how good white oak will hold up to salad dressing and moisture. What do y'all think about the finish? Would tung oil or danish oil be any better at sealing the wood than walnut oil? I presume that no one would recommend polyurethane.

What do ya think?
 
Pretty much any curing oil would be fine - or melt some beeswax to soften it and rub it in... Tried & true original is just linseed oil & beeswax and what I use for most of my utility bowls - Moisture would be less of an issue than oil based salad dressing - Bowl (even one finished in Tried & True Original) would need regular maintenance to last - Salad dressing oils could of course leach in and cause staining, no matter what finish you used. All finishes are food safe once they are fully cured - a film finish like polyurethane would work too, except it would be vulnerable to chipping and gouges from metal utensils, forks, etc. I make & sell a Board Butter formula that is just mineral oil (sold at dollar store in laxatives aisle) and beeswax (locally sourced from one of the many apiaries in the area) which I sell as a maintenance product - just get some on a paper towel, rub it in good, let it sit a bit and then buff out with clean paper towel.

If used as salad bowl, my recommendation to buyers of my bowls is, it's fine to hold salads even those with dressing, but rinse the bowl as soon as possible after use. (no soap, just plain water.) and then dry , and set it out to air dry completely before putting it away.

White Oak would be much better for a salad bowl than Red Oak would.
 
My default for any utility, and most all other pieces actually, is walnut oil. Let it cure for a couple days then buff on a good coat of carnauba wax and/or beeswax. That's it. If it's going to be used then I instruct people that like their cutting board and wooden spoons they just need to rinse, wipe and when it needs it apply some mineral oil, butcher block oil, etc. Just not olive oil.
 
Odie's Oil is a great choice for a food/kid safe finish. Very easy to use, smells nice, and produces a satin luster after burnishing.

.40
 
White oak is fine for a utility bowl. It has tyloses in the cells that make it watertight, as opposed to red oaks that are open-celled. That’s the reason that casks and kegs for liquids were/are made of white oak, and dry casks of red oak. White will hold the liquid, whether whisky or salad dressing.
 
Ken Loy said:
That's great insight. Very helpful.

Specifically about open pore wood, do you use a different finish for oak/ash than you would for something like maple or cherry?
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Nope. I have had no trouble using the same Tried & True finish , have made plenty of Ash bowls (Matter of fact it was my most bountiful wood harvest in the past 2 years, mainly thanks to Emerald Ash Borer) no trouble with porosity , and I have sold a couple that are in regular use as salad or serving bowls (and one smaller one that sees almost daily use with hot cereal breakfasts) - long as they are properly cleaned up, dried and re-treated (Monthly or more often for those few I mention, and those are the ones I developed my own board butter formula for) they should last a good long time.

Only trouble I have had with Ash was early on in my turning when I was still struggling to get a smooth cut on a nice curve, and ended up with "ripples" in the wood (grain stucture differences between rings) either because I was still learning how dull a "sharp" gouge is , or I was over-sanding to compensate for poor tool control. Either way, I use the same Tried & True Original finish in pretty much every bowl (unless it is an artistic piece that I want extra glossy)

BTW, I have yet to actually turn Oak (all I have is sawmill seconds flitches, so all I have turned was dried lumber or glue-ups) but I would assume Ash is pretty similar...
 
As said above white oak is fine since it’s pores are plugged. Red oak is not due to truly open pores. Though wit red oak I have been experimenting with wiping the bowl with polyurethane and then wiping it off to leave some in the pores but not leave a surface film. It seems to be working well so far at pugging the pores and looks like a normal oil finish.
 
Here's what I've been talking about. One oak (14") and one walnut (12"). I put on one coat of Tried and True Danish oil. Will do one more coat and then T&T Original.
Love to hear any comments. Do you agree that it's white oak?
 

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My preference is walnut oil for salad bowls. Walnut oil imparts a pleasant smell to the wood. It is easy to renew the finish with a periodic application of walnut oil.

I would not use danish oil because it is just a blend of linseed oil and urethane varnish plus a lot of mineral spirits solvent. It has a smell that I find unpleasant for a food service bowl.

I don’t care for using any of the mystery oils on treenware (wooden kitchenware).
 
Ken Loy said:
I was afraid of that...Here's a close-up of the grain.

Any suggestions on things I can/should do to make it usable as a salad bowl?
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One way to tell for sure is use an air gun and blow through the end grain of the bowl. If you do that after sanding, you will see sawdust blowing through the pores. My finish is not popular with turners but very well received by customers. They like the feel and a damp cloth to clean it up does not bother the finish. I apply Minwax Quick Dry Poly satin with a ball of T-shirt material. That puts on a very thin coat and to me, it pushes the poly into the pores. You have to hurry because on a larger bowl, it will start to tack off by the time you get around. When that is dry I sand with a 320 grit 1/4" thick foam backed sanding pad and blow it all down and apply a second coat. When that is cured I sand with 320 again and then 0000 steel wool. That leaves a very thin finish, but super smooth to the touch.
 
As Richard said - Way to tell between red oak and white oak is nothing to do with the color of the wood - White oak has closed pores , red oak you can take a stick of wood (cut along the grain) and stick one end in water, and use it as a straw - you can suck water through the grain of red oak like it was a straw, with white oak, at the worst, it'd be like trying to suck up an extra thick milkshake through a soft plastic straw - Durn difficult!

I wouldn't try using air compressor compressed air (risk of blowing out side grain if pressure is too high) but you can indeed blow through the pores of red oak pretty easily. (Note: Red oak can look "white" , and likewise, White Oak can have reddish color to it.. so color doesn't define it... However if you get quarter sawn pieces and see similar figuring to "tiger stripes", chances are it would be white oak.. but the porosity of the end grain pores would be the definitive identifier for the most part. )

For the finish, As far as I have seen - Any bowl can be a salad bowl... Way back when. most bowls were actually unfinished - just bare wood - and there's still excellent heirloom examples of well-kept wooden bowls that never had a finish to them to begin with, and were daily use items in many households. But as far as I go, I'd use pretty much any standard curing oil such as walnut oil , polymerized linseed oil, beeswax, Carnauba Wax, mineral oil, and the like. (not boiled linseed oil that you buy at the hardware store though - as you'd note on the can, they have warnings about the chemicals in them- many "danish oils" have a polyurethane component to them... a little research into the product you want to apply would go a long way - way I approach it is, if it was relatively safe to drink/eat/etc or handle bare-handed (That is, no chemical and handling warnings on the can) , it'd be fine for a utensil / kitchenware finish.

(You know, Linseed oil is the same stuff as the flaxseed oil supplements you buy at the drug store for dietary supplements.. only difference is how the oil is processed and extracted from the Flax seed it comes from. Linseed oil extraction includes the use of petroleum distillates, I believe, while flaxseed is pretty much just pressed like extra virgin olive oil, AFAIK)
 
Tried and True advertises their finishes as Food Safe, and I’ve got one coat of Danish Oil on it.
What about putting a few coats of General Finishes Wood Bowl finish on top of the T& T Danish oil? Will that help seal the pores any better than putting on more Danish Oil or Varnish?
Brian has a good point that these have been used for centuries, so just go with it. But I’d hate for the user to have salad oil drip through the bowl onto someone’s dinner table
 
Brian Gustin said:
As Richard said - Way to tell between red oak and white oak is nothing to do with the color of the wood - White oak has closed pores , red oak you can take a stick of wood (cut along the grain) and stick one end in water, and use it as a straw - you can suck water through the grain of red oak like it was a straw, with white oak, at the worst, it'd be like trying to suck up an extra thick milkshake through a soft plastic straw - Durn difficult!

I wouldn't try using air compressor compressed air (risk of blowing out side grain if pressure is too high) but you can indeed blow through the pores of red oak pretty easily. (Note: Red oak can look "white" , and likewise, White Oak can have reddish color to it.. so color doesn't define it... However if you get quarter sawn pieces and see similar figuring to "tiger stripes", chances are it would be white oak.. but the porosity of the end grain pores would be the definitive identifier for the most part. )
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I don't know about your regulator, but I can turn my hose down to 5psi. But I would guarantee that any wall thickness over 1/8" will not blow out from air pressure.
 
Richard Coers said:
I don't know about your regulator, but I can turn my hose down to 5psi. But I would guarantee that any wall thickness over 1/8" will not blow out from air pressure.
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Yeah, but we're talking blowing air through the open pores of red oak, 1/8 inch wall thickness of the wood would be meaningless if a pore happens to be within a couple thou of the surface of wood, we're talking micro-splinters getting blown out.. even at 60 or even 5 PSI (You'd be surprised what air pressure can do - most humans cannot even generate 5 PSI pressure blowing breath through - typically a human with good lungs and diaphragm muscles will top out at 2, maybe 3 PSI at most) 5 PSI can actually generate quite a bit of force directed through a wooden tube....

So my concern is someone not considering the drawbacks and blasting shop air (even regulated at 40 PSI by the OSHA approved blow guns) , could get a face full of tiny splinters easily enough - Unlikely, but the potential is there.. Might try canned air (the canned air dusters for computer service) which would probably be rather safer.. but having spent 30 plus years in a repair shop where daily use of compressed air was par for the course, I've seen shop air do some nasty things (such as blowing a 1 inch crater out of a concrete floor when it hit a porous spot and throwing cement chips everywhere) entirely by accident... So I treat shop air and air hoses as carefully as I'd treat a lit propane torch or a running table saw...
 
This air pressure business all strikes me as silly. Get a 10x hand lens and cut a smooth cut with a sharp blade across the end grain of a sample. You can see pores blocked by tyloses (white oak) or open tubes (red oak species).
 
Brian Gustin said:
Yeah, but we're talking blowing air through the open pores of red oak, 1/8 inch wall thickness of the wood would be meaningless if a pore happens to be within a couple thou of the surface of wood, we're talking micro-splinters getting blown out.. even at 60 or even 5 PSI (You'd be surprised what air pressure can do - most humans cannot even generate 5 PSI pressure blowing breath through - typically a human with good lungs and diaphragm muscles will top out at 2, maybe 3 PSI at most) 5 PSI can actually generate quite a bit of force directed through a wooden tube....

So my concern is someone not considering the drawbacks and blasting shop air (even regulated at 40 PSI by the OSHA approved blow guns) , could get a face full of tiny splinters easily enough - Unlikely, but the potential is there.. Might try canned air (the canned air dusters for computer service) which would probably be rather safer.. but having spent 30 plus years in a repair shop where daily use of compressed air was par for the course, I've seen shop air do some nasty things (such as blowing a 1 inch crater out of a concrete floor when it hit a porous spot and throwing cement chips everywhere) entirely by accident... So I treat shop air and air hoses as carefully as I'd treat a lit propane torch or a running table saw...
Click to expand...
If the pressure really bothers you, don't put the blow gun up tight to the wood, or put a drinking straw in your mouth and blow that into the pores, or even put your mouth on the wood and blow. I've never heard of micro splinters. You are implying splinters only seen under a microscope will fly about? Could you send me a reference to these splinters? I'm very skeptical. I would not be surprised at what air pressure can do. I took factory training in 1972 when I started at Caterpillar. They had a film that showed how you can inflate your hand by dead heading the blow gun against your skin. I can't remember if safety guns were in use then or not. Potentially I could get a face full of splinters? It hasn't happened in the 37 years I have been turning because I remove all the dust from my turnings with a blow gun. Same goes for 50 years of furniture making.
 
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@ Richard Coers: OK I'll concede, as I never use shop air to blow out dust from anything (airborne dust, anyone?), in fact rarely use shop air at all.... (for dusting I use home made tack cloths, and cleaning up the lathe, I use dust collector hose) but micro splinters meaning smaller than toothpicks , and I have actually seen some fibers blow out of a piece of wood (shop class, circa 1980's air nozzle held right up next to the wood) Couldn't tell you the wood, but it was some demonstration the shop teacher was doing, and not even sure which shop it was in (wood, metal , or vo-tech) pretty sure it was a lesson to reinforce wearing safety glasses. Like you said, it'd have to be blown in from up close (which I was thinking of in regards to flat boards, or blanks, not finished bowls) Either way just kinda wanted to point out possible safety issues for those that like to grab air hose and blow gun out of habit (Familiarity breeds contempt and all that..)

Any case, this is getting pretty way off track , not really relevant to the discussion.. so I'm out at this point.
 
I've been having good luck with Osmo - it is a hard wax finish and gets applied as an oil. Not too shiny, but they claim it is durable. They also have one of their products that has been certified food safe, though they told me that all of their top oil products are food safe (same basic ingredients). It is a bit pricey, though.
 
I always use the Doctor's Woodshop walnut oils. As for oak, white oak is fine, the red/black ones can work if you wet sand them so the gooey stuff/swarf will fill the holes. If you have leaves from the trees, the white oaks have rounded lobes. The black/red oaks, which have straws for end grain, have the lobes that come to a point.

robo hippy
 
Peter Jacobson said:
I've been having good luck with Osmo - it is a hard wax finish and gets applied as an oil. Not too shiny, but they claim it is durable. They also have one of their products that has been certified food safe, though they told me that all of their top oil products are food safe (same basic ingredients). It is a bit pricey, though.
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I have had good luck with it, too.

Osmo Polyx-oil is a floor finish, so it's durable and has some water resistance. It is also supposed to be easy to repair. According to their CS person, Osmo Top Oil has the same ingredients as Polyx, but contains a higher proportion of solvent. For cost considerations, only the Top Oil products were submitted for evaluation and have been certified food safe in Europe (by whatever is the relevant agency).
 
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