Wood in the Kitchen - a test

Michael Kemp

Michael Kemp

Well-Known Member
I like wood handles. I want to use wood that I have on hand and do the treating myself. And I want to find a low-to-no maintenance treatment for handles destined for kitchen use.

CA glue works - but it feels like plastic. Looks like plastic too if you don't sand aggressively between CA layers.

So I'm setting up a test with chunks of Oak (I love Oak) and Cherry (I've got a stack of cured Cherry that my dad laid up) and will be drying them in a warming box and treating them in a variety of ways.

A few of the blocks I'll cut in half to see how far the treatment penetrates into the wood... most of them will get glued to some sanded 5160 bar stock and run through cycles of soak/soap/scrub/dry to see how they hold up.

I'll probably try the following treatments (suggestions welcome):

Salad Bowl Oil
Tru-Oil
linseed/spar urethane/turpentine combo
... and I plan to treat a bunch of the pieces with Rot Doctor's penetrating epoxy, some of which will have a finish coat on 'em:
Briwax
Renaissance wax
Wipe-On Poly
CA glue

I'll post here and the Don Fogg Forum (and my Facebook page). I'll use E-120HP to glue them to the 5160 (5160 isn't exactly a kitchen steel - but it's cheap and I've got bar stock in a useful size - and as I get into forge welding I hope to do some san-mai & Damascus work involving other steels that rust so it seems like a fair choice to me).

So far I've got some blocks cut (I plan to do each treatment on both Oak & Cherry - partly to give each treatment 2 chances - partly to see the difference in penetration into and performance of those two woods)...

I'll keep this thread updated as I go along.

WoodBlocksSanded.jpg
 
Michael,

I like the idea of the salad bowl oil.

I have few hand made wooden spoons that I just rubbed real well with veg oil and they have held up well for years. When they start getting to look a little dry, I just put a little oil in the bowl and rub it in real well with my fingers. I don't soak them in dishwater but they are usually just put in the dish drainer to dry.

I also have an Old Hickory that is probably 50 years old and the handles are still tight and just look well aged.

Good hard wood is tough if given a decent amount of care.

I look forward to your reports.

Carey
 
I'm really looking forward to your results. This is a very timely thread, as my next project will be a set of kitchen knives.

Thanks for taking the time to do this!
 
I also have quite a bit of wood laying around and have thought about using it in handles. But my reservation has always been about how to seal it and then the longevity of it after. So I will definitely be interested in seeing your results.

-David
 
Thanks all for the encouragement! @Carey - veg oil - yah - my father did something like that with the wooden salad spoons he liked to carve after he retired - do you use just "Vegetable Oil" (aka soy oil) or a particular type of oil?

Also - after reviewing Eric Ochs' excellent stress test of a wide variety of handle materials (synthetics as well as wood) - I'm adding a Permalyn/Acra-Coat to the list of treatments. To see Eric's torture test of treated wood, stabilized wood, Micarta, G10, Ironwood - go to the linked site and click "Handle Material Test".
http://www.ochssherworx.com
 
@tedinatl - we'll see how "timely" this really is <grin> - I expect it to take many weeks - I need to get a few blades completed, plus my "day job", chores around the place, etc. And with all of these treatments it will take some time just to get the blocks treated! I'll see if I can get the drying box set up to handle all of them today and start getting them truly dried...
 
Michael,
Very cool test I will be keeping an eye on this. For what it is worth I am not much for the CA finishes either as when you feel a handle you are feeling sealer not wood. I have the same reservations about the Acra-Coat from my test, which is an epoxy base and creates a coating on the surface of the wood. For that reason if you were going to pick one of the samples from my test to use I would recommend "Sample K" which has (or had at this point) 3 coats of Permalyn Sealer and 6 coats of Permalyn Finish. From my weather test of handle material this is a product every knifemaker should know about. It has a very thin formulation like Watco Danish Oil but I bet it has many times the level of Polyurethane/Acrylic in it. Not really sure what makes it so good, I have contacted Laurel Mountain Forge and requested some additional general information but received no response. This is available at Brownells and on Laurel Mountain Forge's Web site. I have ordered from them directly and they were fairly prompt. Additionally, I am sure Brownells would not have their product if it was not reliable as they test product like this carefully before offering it for sale.

I am sorry that I have not gotten the last few observations posted but long of the short is at this point ALL nine pieces of wood except the Desert Ironwood looks tortured! I don't want to hijack your post but if anyone is interested, as Michael noted, you can check my test out here:

http://www.ochssherworx.com/index_files/Page513.htm

It has been a year now in full Oregon rain/sun I used three pieces of stabilized wood, four different applied formulations and one piece of natural Ash and one piece of natural Desert Ironwood. There are also three samples of synthetics.

Speaking of which I have a fair amount of the Desert Ironwood if you would be interested in using a piece for your test Michael, just email or PM me with your dimensions and I will get a block to you ASAP.

I will be sure to post my summary of results on KnifeDogs in the next month or so when I get time.

Eric
 
Michael,

The reason I just said veg oil is that there are so many brands available and for this purpose I don't think it would really matter which one is used. I happen to use Crisco but that's just what I grew up with. A thin coat worked in with the fingers lasts pretty well. It's kind of like carrying a carbon blade, every once in a while it just need a little attention.

Carey
 
I love testing like this. I know how much work it is but the results are always interesting and often not what you might expect.
Michael, keep us posted.
Eric, very cool test and I have just contacted Laurel Mountain Forge for a distributorship. I want to carry a product that is that good.
 
BossDog said:
I love testing like this. I know how much work it is but the results are always interesting and often not what you might expect.
Michael, keep us posted.
Eric, very cool test and I have just contacted Laurel Mountain Forge for a distributorship. I want to carry a product that is that good.
Click to expand...

Tracy, Cool. It clearly showed itself the best of the ones I tested.

Eric
 
... last week about all I got done was to use a soldering iron to burn IDs into the blocks and get them into the drying box over the weekend. Today they seemed dry enough (and I had the time) so I've got the 1st stage of treatments in progress ... this will take at least 10 days - probably more like 20 with interruptions - before I glue them onto steel and start the torture test!

Just wanted to let folks know it /is/ progressing. Here's a shot of the blocks before their 1st stage of treatment:

WoodKitchenStackedBlocks.jpg


And here's a closeup of the Oak I'm using ... to show the level of voids in this particular batch. At least some of the Oak blocks will get sand/oil/repeat... treatment to fill in the surface voids so they don't fill with any old dirt that comes along:

WoodKitchenOakCloseup.jpg
 
I've got the 1st stage of prep. done - I let the oil treatments soak in for a week - - - I'd treated an extra set of blocks so that I could cut them in half at this point to see the difference in penetration.

Ha!

Either each and every treatment penetrated 100% or I just can't tell the difference. It /is/ interesting that while the solid Cherry all looks pretty much the same, the porous Oak came out darker with vegetable oil, linseed oil, and the linseed/spar/turpentine mix. Maybe everything DID penetrate 100% (the blocks are only 3/4 x 1-1/4 x 2-1/4) but I find that hard to believe with the way Tru-Oil and Permalyn get applied. Here's a photo of the cut faces of these blocks (sanded down to 600).

WoodKitchenCutBlocks.jpg


Hopefully I'll find time in the next few days to sand the backsides of the remaining blocks and get them glued to steel - - - then I'll do some finish coatings which will probably take another week - then the torture tests.
 
... now I've got a couple of woulda-coulda-shouldas: Tung oil and thinned polyurethane... the Linseed will have to stand in for Tung (not the same, I know) and the Linseed/Spar Urethane/Turpentine will have to stand in for thinned poly...
 
... just so you know the test is still in process: there was a delay waiting for the E-120HP glue applicator gun to get here (when I went to use the glue I realized that - oh by the way - you have to buy a $38 applicator gun, how special!).

The testing blocks are all glued to 5160 - I've hand sanded them all down to 400 and will apply final finishes to some - - - others will get sanded finer and buffed up. Some of the coatings (like Tru-Oil) will take multiple coats with drying time - so it's more of the waiting game...
 
All the blocks are finished, buffed, and ready to test. Below are my impressions of the treatments, and the "before" image. Note that blocks treated with various oils and the salad bowl finish were soaked for a week, then sanded and buffed. The ones treated with penetrating epoxy were immersed for 3 days, let dry, then dipped and dried twice before being treated with a finish, sanded and buffed. Tru-Oil was applied 9 times with wet/dry sandpaper or steel wool rubs between - then buffed. Permalyn Sealer and Permalyn Finish were applied to the "Permalyn" blocks per instructions on the containers, then sanded and buffed. Briwax and Renaissance Wax were applied per instructions on the containers, then buffed. Wipe-on Poly and CA glue were applied three times with light sandings and then buffed.

The pores in the Oak blocks are problematic if you want them truly filled. The CA glue treatment completely filled the pores. I believe that you could fix this in the other treatments by making a slurry of Oak sanding dust & the treatment liquid and working that into the surface. Briwax, Renaissance Wax, Tru-Oil, Permalyn, and the Linseed/Spar Urethane/Turpentine combo all did an /almost/ complete job filling in the Oak pores.

My subjective impressions:

Linseed (aka BLO aka Boiled Linseed Oil) - gives a nice deep luster to the wood. Mat finish.

Vegetable Oil (Safflower) - Identical to Linseed except slightly lower luster.

Linseed/Spar Urethane/Turprentine combo - same as Linseed.

Salad Bowl Finish - same as Linseed.

While the above treatments all gave a warm dark tone to the Cherry and Oak blocks, the remaining treatments left both woods light in color - the difference is hard to see in the photo below, but enough to notice in person.

Epoxy (The Rot Doctor's Penetrating Epoxy aka CPES) - Using this alone and just sanding/buffing gives a low luster similar to vegetable oil.

Tru-Oil - It is a pain to apply (I probably should have applied more coats) - and because I used steel wool between some of the layers the Oak pores filled in with dark steel particles that do not look good (if I use this again on a wood with pores I'll used wet/dry paper instead of steel wool) - but the wood came out of the treatment with the same "clack" when you tap it that it had out of the drying box. Luster is similar to vegetable oil.

Permalyn - (Permalyn Sealer followed by Permalyn Finish) - Mikey likes it. High luster. Nice dry "clack" when you tap it. Does not darken the wood as much as the oil treatments, but does richen/darken it a little.

Briwax on Epoxy base - low luster but nice.

Renaissance Wax on Epoxy base - same as Briwax.

Wipe-on Poly on Epoxy base - high luster, almost glossy.

CA Glue on Epoxy base (Cyanoacrylate Glue aka super glue) - shiny. Looks and feels like plastic.

... and here's what they look like BEFORE the washing/drying torture tests:

WoodKitchenBefore.jpg
 
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