Caring for your wood.

 Wood finish. What I use and how you can maintain it.

My primary purpose of putting a wood finish is to seal the pores to keep it clean. But which particular finish depends on the purpose the wood will be used. I prefer oils and waxes which will sink into the wood rather than varnishes and paints which sit on the surface. I also prefer a satin finish rather than gloss.

Food safe finish.

The finish I use on all the plates and bowls I make primarily for everyday food use is flaxseed/linseed oil. This is a traditional ‘drying’ oil used for wood, either on its own as an oil or combined with other ingredients to make varnish. What I buy is organic flaxseed oil sold at my local wholefood shop as a salad oil. There are no allergy issues with flaxseed oil as there are with nut derived oils. Linseed oil bought from a hardware shop will not be suitable, especially boiled linseed oil which has chemicals in it to help it dry quicker.

There is no reason when the wood needs to be re-treated to feel you have to use flaxseed oil. There are a number of oils which you might already have in your cupboard which would be suitable. Sunflower, safflower, soyabean, walnut are all examples of drying oils. Olive oil, however, is not. If you choose to use olive oil it needs to be used sparingly and infrequently. In fact it is better to use this principle with any oil as it can build up on the surface and takes longer to dry.

I have a small plate I use for toast, sandwiches, etc. which I have had for 30 years. This is washed up with all my other crockery and until I started woodworking myself had never been re-oiled. It is not imperative to continue to put any finish on them. My cawl (soup) bowls have a slight yellow tint to them as I have made soup with turmeric in and is there anything turmeric doesn’t stain?

My main advice is to go sparingly on any oil and not to worry, just use and enjoy.

Polished bowls

If the bowls do not need to be 100% food safe my favoured finish is Hardwax oil which brings out the figuring in the wood better than oil and is harder wearing. It has a satin sheen to it. I could leave the wood like that, however, I put a wax polish on top of this finish. Wax polish is a good ‘sacrificial’ finish. If it gets slightly scratched more polish can be used and buffed up without having to replace all the finish. I also feel that more people are likely to have some sort of wax polish to use. I don’t think it matters that much which one. Fiddies is my choice as I believe they are the most local company to me and I prefer to support local if possible.

If a polished bowl is used as a fruit bowl then the fruit should be washed before eating. However, the biggest problem with fruit is not noticing when one has gone over ripe. If the liquid or mould is left in contact with the finish it will wear through it and end up staining right into the wood as well.