Wood Finishes for Tree Huggers

I am a hippy in hiding. I obsessively organize recyclables, buy organic food, use natural body products, avoid chemical cleaners, and the list goes on and on.  As an extension to my obsession with "All-Natural" I have been on a hunt for the best possible wood finishes without compromising Mother Nature and my health. At the same time I don't want to sacrifice the overall beauty and durability of the projects that I work so long and hard over.

My first real dilemma with natural finishes came when I started making wood cutting boards as presents for my family members. I agonized over how to protect the wood without simultaneously poisoning them and their dinner guests. Using my favorite interweb algorithm I found a great recipe for a cutting board finish made with pharmacy grade mineral oil and natural beeswax. Mineral oil and beeswax are used for a whole host of internal and external personal care products so they are perfect candidates for a natural, food safe wood finish.

Cutting Board Blanks Fresh from the Planer

So here is the super-duper secret recipe. Heat the mineral oil and add the beeswax until it melts. Yup, it is that simple. The ratios are really dependent on your preferences, add more wax for a stiffer buffing paste, or more oil for a milky rubbing lotion. I personally like an oil to wax ratio of 3 to 1. This allows a nice creamy paste when the finish is cold, and I feel that it seeps into the wood when I let it sit for a while.

A Whole Lot of Boards after Raising the Grain with Water

Applying this paste is as easy as making it. There are no crazy rules like modern high tech finishes, "Apply to a clean hypoallergenic surface that has been blessed by a Rabbi, let sit for 2 minutes and 37 seconds, then immediately wipe off with a mixture consisting of 21/32nds mineral spirits and 11/32nds turpentine, then re-apply within 79 minutes or after 9-1/2 weeks, but only on Sundays and Thursdays, or the second Friday of every lunar cycle!'...well you get my point. Simply slop it on the wood, let stand for 30 minutes (or 30 hours for all I care), and then buff it off with a clean rag. I promise you will have a great looking, velvety, safe for food finish that cost less than $5 for 16 oz.

A Finished Cutting Board being put to the test making Omelets.

What about the cons you ask? Let me explain some of my perceived disadvantages.

Is this the most durable finish? No, it has to be reapplied every once and a while when the wood seems to be drying out.

Is it the most Eco-friendly solution? Most mineral oils are a byproduct of petroleum refineries, and the fact still remains that petroleum<organics.

Does it contain any VOCs? Only if you consider the smell of warm honey a VOC.

So overall I would say that the mineral oil/beeswax finish is far better than most salad bowl finishes or polyurethanes, but not as environmentally sound as an all natural oil. But for the time being I can fall asleep at night knowing that all of the recipients of my hand made waddayacallits don't have to worry about toxic solvents and chemicals tainting the beauty and enjoyment of the wood.

PS I wrote this post about six months ago...but somehow it got lost in the pipeline...alls well that ends well right?

Poliss-what Redux

As a way to fuel my obsession with woodworking, and in an attempt to offset my tool budget, I make and sell laminated cutting boards. Generally I just wipe on and wipe off my homemade super secret (not really) oil/wax finish. This produces a velvety surface that is very impressive when clients receive their cutting boards, but I find the finish generally lacking in the longevity department. I always provide a can of the wax paste for routine maintenance, but I am continually looking for ways to improve the quality and utility of my products. A while back I purchased several Polissoirs from Don Williams to try my hand at some traditional wax finishing techniques. After months of procrastinating, I finally put 'em to work.

To start out I melted down the oil and wax, lathered on a nice thick coat, and let it absorb into the wood for ten to fifteen minutes. Next, I dipped the Polissoir into the liquid wax, allowing the end of the straw to absorb the finish.

Marinating the Polissoir...I am not sure this was necessary.

I began burnishing the surface of the cutting boards using broad, quick strokes along the long grain of the wood. The wax had partially solidified on the surface of the wood, which provided a great...slurry?...with which to work into the pores of the wood. It was amazing how much wax I could burnish into the cutting boards.

Starting with a forwards-backwards stroke, speed and pressure seem to be important.

After the initial burnishing, the thin layer of wax had been completely absorbed. As a result I added some more wax, and burnished the surface again until it seemed that the surface was slick and the wax was no longer being absorbed. Notice I switched hands on the second round, this technique is tiring!

Half way through I switched to a side to side motion, still going along the long grain.

When my arm finally gave out I wiped the excess wax off and buffed the cutting board with a soft cotton rag. The finish was absolutely amazing. Instead of a velvety, delicate feel the cutting board was hard, shiny, and felt incredibly solid. Even The Boss said that it gave the boards a solid professional feel that they were lacking originally (kind of a back handed compliment if you ask me). I am hopeful that this finish will be much more robust in use, and I have made myself yet another cutting board to compare to my original finishing technique.

All in all I am incredibly impressed with the Polissoir, and I can't wait to try out various other techniques on more intricate works. Plus I always like to add another technique into my bag of tricks!

Poliss-what

Polissoir. That is right, although I have been away on business for the last couple days The Boss called the day I left and said that I had a package waiting at our home. 'My Polissoirs are there' I exclaimed! After explaining to her what a Polissoir is and used for she quickly lost interest.

Two are better than one.

So I got home tonight and opened the box and was very impressed on the overall quality of the Polissoirs. They are very tightly bound and the weave of the straw and twine is very appealing. For those of the uninitiated a Polissoir is a finishing tool described by AJ Roubo in his grand novels "L'Art du Menuisier." You use the Polissoir with wax by burnishing a piece of wood in order to infuse the wax into the pores.

I plan on putting these through their paces with some of the wood species that I commonly use. So stay tuned for the results. But until then, I will probably just continue twirling them in my hands marveling at the intricacy of their construction.

To get your own Polissoirs you can contact Don Williams by emailing him at DonsBarn250@msn.com. He charges $20 for each Polissoir, and $4.50 for shipping, which is a true bargain for the quality and rarity of the product. Also, the man who makes these for Don is an artisan broom maker so I think it is great to keep such a dying craft alive.

A Single Piece of Wood...

That is all it took to forever change my view on woodworking, and more importantly my interest in craftsmanship and artisan made goods. Recently I stumbled upon The Woodwrights Shop with Roy Underhill. In my first eye opening episode Roy was talking about a French fellow by the name of Roubo, or more accurately a book stand that Roubo discussed in one of his writings. This book stand, commonly known as the Roubo Book Stand in hand woodworking circles (which aren't as small as they used to be) is carved and sawn from a single piece of wood. The most impressive part of the book stand is the fact that it has fully functioning hinges that allow the whole thing to collapse for easy storage.

Made from a single piece of Hickory...the heart cutout is not Roubo's original design.

Needless to say I was completely sold on the whole concept. Here is this amazing piece of workmanship that can ONLY be made using hand tools, no amount of rigging or jigging or Tom foolery that normally accompanies power tools will help you turn a single piece of wood into a fold-able book stand. So like most of my prototype ideas I decided that my sweet, innocent, and highly understanding wife was the perfect person that I could make this book stand for...and Valentines Day was coming up after all.

This side profile shows how ingenious Roubo's design really is.

Flash forward several hours in the shop banging dull chisels and sawing (the only handsaw that I had at the time was an old, dull Craftsman panel saw from my father) and I had a quite respectable looking book stand  After some decorative curves, a heart cutout, and sanding I put on a mineral oil/beeswax finish and stood back to admire my very first truly handmade ware.

The detail of the hinges shows how hand tools are the only way to go with this project.

This handmade book stand was the definitive turning point in my thought process on building things. I now spend my time reading about hand woodworking, planning new projects, researching old and new hand techniques, and trying my best to amass a tool collection that most woodworkers would deem useless.

I love the Grain on the Back...and it matches our cabinets perfectly!

P.S. My wife loves her book stand  and actually uses it more as an iPad stand while cooking and baking, not exactly Roubo's original intent but it works quite well. She also took these great photographs of her book stand, so if you like what you see check out her blog to see some really great photos.