Salad bowls

[Rick, BC]

What is the best finish to use on salad bowls. I have two large yellow cedar hand carved bowls. They are the shape of oyster shells and would like to use them on a salad bar. I do not want to taint the food with the oils from the yellow cedar.
Thanks for the help...

[Harry in Sutton]

Hi Rick,
I have never turned cedar bowls but a few others. So far I have been using Bee's wax which is available from Lee Valley.
Harry

[Jamie in Brantford]

Tung oil is food safe. And a darn nice finish too!

[Roman]

Ive used vegatable oil, but over time the bowl dries out. Bees wax is an excellent choice as well as tongue oil which is normally toxic but again you can get non toxic togue oil from lee valley. good luck. (I myself use the non toxic tongue oil as it seems to stand up well. )

[Bob Hamilton in Forest, O]

I have been using Clapham's Salad Bowl finish lately. It is a blend of mineral oil and beeswax. Very easy to use on the lathe: just rub it in with the lathe stopped and then buff with the lathe running. For carved bowls it might take more elbow grease to buff out. It leaves a nice, low luster sheen. I couldn't say how it holds up against salad dressing, but I would assume that since it is marketed as being for salad bowls that it would be okay.

Good Luck!
Bob

[Darrell in Oakville]

Rick,

Make sure that if you use an oil finish that it
will not go rancid. Pure tung oil is good, as
others have pointed out, as is walnut oil. Even
mineral oil can be used, as it won't go rancid,
and imparts no taste, but it isn't a drying oil
so it may not seal the taste of the cedar out of
your food.

Darrell

[3lemental]

I wouldn't use anything nut-based, or petrolium based on food grade woodwork. It just avoids a lot of headache, or worry, especially if you are not insured or an incorporated woodworker.

Chefs and really good cooks tell me the easy way of doing salad bowls and cutting boards is to use extra virgin olive oil. This can be easily added in any kitchen, so maintenance is convenient for anyone doing clean-up duities. All you do to the raw wood is add the oil, wipe it off, and in an hour or so check to see if there are any weak patches, and add some more. Then give it to your customer. It won't go rancid, vegetable oil will.

Clean up by rubbing salt and a bit of water, rinse off, dry, add more olive oil if needed. On a cutting board, this kills any meat bacteria problems.

Any finishes that sit on top of the wood, and don't penetrate, will be scraped off and end up in your food. The olive oil has no negative taste, is not allergenic like many nut-based finishes, and does not leave visual scratch marks as easily.

The only negative I've found is that the olive oil does not shield light sensitive woods from uv light. Cherry for instance goes dark, and if you leave a knife on your cutting board - in a bright kitchen - the knife covered area leaves a "tan line". Just like on a tanning person.

Some extremely fussy people like to handle a bowl or board without oil on it. The residue can transfer to your cloathes, but in a kitchen this is normal. An alternative non-allergenic and non-petroleum product is flax oil to seal and penetrate, then rub bees wax (or food grade wax) on top. Flax oil is the non-allergenic non-petroleum version of linseed oil. Both come from the flax seed.

Hope this is useful.

[willr]

Ive used vegatable oil, but over time the bowl dries out. Bees wax is an excellent choice as well as tongue oil which is normally toxic but again you can get non toxic togue oil from lee valley. good luck. (I myself use the non toxic tongue oil as it seems to stand up well. )


That definitely works -- especially if you have a lot of chatter on the bowl -- but if you don't like that -- try Tung Oil...:wink:
http://www.leevalley.com/home/Search.aspx?c=1&action=n

sorry -- couldn't resist.

[J.P. Rap]

I really gotta start looking at the dates before I read all through a thread like this. You get half way through and a name pops up that makes you realize this is a really old thread.:frown: