Don't use beeswax! The only oil we'll use to seal butcher block and how we finish and refinish them.

so after several years of using butcher block countertops in our kitchens we tried a couple of different products for sealing the butcher blocks and we landed on a product that we really love so we're going to share what that product is how we sealed and finished the countertops initially and what we do to refinish and maintain them over time [Music] we first installed but you're on our TAPS in our previous home um we we didn't have any experience having Butcher Block but we liked how they looked they were a really cost effective countertop option and so we did what anyone else would do is we went to our hardware store and we saw what the options were for recent for finishing our countertops and we ended up buying some sort of beeswax mineral oil blend yeah it's the standard one you find at any hardware store it's a little tube of these wax minerals Spirits or mineral oil seemed like a natural-ish option so we're like okay that sounds good we'll go with it yeah and we did and and we really were happy with it we thought it worked really really well for the most part in those countertops held up decent the one thing I would say is that as the person who mainly does the cooking in our house and spends a lot a lot a lot of time in the kitchen um I was kind of felt like I was walking on pins and needles anytime I made something because if you set like a cold glass down on your countertop like almost instantly you'd have a ring there or anytime you spilled something like for the longest time there was beet juice marks like purple bright purple marks in our countertop um and there was just no getting them out I always felt like you're kind of walking on pins and needles because if something did spill it soaked up really really quickly but I think I just thought well that's just the nature of butcher black and so that's just kind of what we get and so probably like every year we sanded those down and reapplied the beeswax mineral oil finish and it was fine um but when we moved into our house here we and actually it was even before we installed these countertops Jim decided to make these cutting board cutting boards Butcher Block cutting boards with the extra scrap pieces from our previous House's countertops um as a Christmas gift for me and some other family members yeah so I knew I wanted something that would hold up a little bit better being that this would get like every day sort of use which it has which it has and so I wanted something a little it would penetrate better seal better and so looking into the options out there I found tongue oil and so researching that a little bit more found out that that's a really great natural food safe sealer for butcher block countertops especially and you can use it for a lot of other things floors and we actually need tables we've actually gone on like our Trim in our house we've sealed with tung oil as well but we we first tried it on this cutting board and I have actually not refinished I plan on doing that hopefully later today but have not refinished this cutting board since it's probably been about four years about four years ago and we still use it every single day held up incredibly well we were sold after that trying it on there and we we knew when we moved into this house and reef in it or redid our kitchen got butchered black countertops in here that tongue oil was the no-brainer so we used the tum oil from real milk paint Co we've been super happy with it this is actually so what we used for our countertops here is their dark tongue oil they have just the standard one which is what we use to finish the cutting board here so you can see it's more of just the natural wood finish and then they have the dark tum oil so this is The Dark Half tongue oil and so it's essentially a 50 50 blend of tung oil and citrus solvent and so it's already pre-mixed you can buy them just the tung oil and then the Citrus solvent separate and mix them on your own I like to just get the half because that's the ratio they already recommend for butcher block and so it's pre-mixed it's ready to go and essentially you're just cutting down the tongue oil itself is almost too thick to penetrate and really go in and seal the countertops super well but if you cut it down with the Citrus Citrus solvent it helps it penetrate in and so it really works in deep and gives you a deep kind of almost waterproof like protection on your countertop yeah and from a from the cook in the kitchen's perspective into having the tongue oil on our countertops we have not refinished them at all in the last two years and they still look really really really good there's there's some areas especially where I do where The Cutting Board sits all the time and I do all my chopping where there are some scratches and marks and stuff there but it's really it's not that noticeable it's not that bad but we just wanted to give them a refinish but they it's really held up so so well yeah like we said we we have some heavy use here in the kitchen in two years we've put a lot of miles on these countertops they've held up super well they look really almost brand new but we just want to stay on top of the maintenance and kind of give them a refinish so that's what we're going to do here today even though they held up really well you still with any butcher block and any sealer that you have unless you do like uh you know like a poly kind of plastic finish on top you do need to walk they will absorb so you can't just set like a water bottle on it and leave it there overnight and expect there did not be something the next day but these have held up so so so much better than our previous countertops did with the beeswax so just to walk you through what I did to seal these countertops initially and I should preface this though I'm not like a professional woodworker or anything I do you know I'm kind of like a weekend warrior and try and tackle some home projects and things like that but you know you don't you don't have to be a professional finishing your countertops with tongue oil to start is a really easy process so you'll want to start by just giving them a light sanding making sure it's smooth to go you don't want to do anything too fine so like 150 grit sandpaper sandpaper is as fine as you want to go on those but you'll give them just a light sanding to start and then you're just going to start working in your tongue oil so you basically what I did was just poured some out on the countertops initially got like a old rag or a sock or something and just just rubbed it in and worked it into the the grain of the wood and you could do some with the grain and some kind of Against the Grain to really work it in as you're you're rubbing in that tongue oil and you're going to do a lot of coats so that first coat that you do is going to absorb super quick into the wood because it's you know it's raw wood it's gonna absorb quickly into that and then each coat after that you apply is going to start absorbing in less and less until that wood is kind of fully penetrated and sealed and saturated with the tongue oil so I think initially we did like six to eight coats or something like that the first day if you go on real milk paint Coast website they have a really great post that we can link to as well of how they recommend finishing but they actually do kind of like a first day and then a second day of applying finishes and then it does there is a curing time so you want to let it kind of use use your kitchen countertops lightly in the first 30 days until it's fully cured so we basically just put on you know as many coats as we could until it seemed like that oil was fully saturated in there and it wasn't going to absorb anymore and just let it sit and dry and kind of wiped away any of the excess and really from that first day on they look they look beautiful it leaves a really nice matte finish on the countertops and then for refinishing it's a really similar process to that so like I said we haven't refinished them in two years they still look really good but like our Island here in particular gets a lot of use so basically any spots that you're going to find you can sand you know do a light sanding again get any spots out you could re-sand the whole countertop but if you want to just hit some spots that could use a refinish you can also go that route and then you're just gonna do the same thing apply a couple coats of the of the tongue oil let it soak in in between each coat and then kind of wipe away any excess in the end and let that cure for you know as you use the countertop tops as lightly as you can in the next couple days let it really soak in well and kind of cure and Harden but after that your countertops are are good to go and you've basically got brand new countertops again [Music] [Music] so that's been our experience finishing and refinishing our butcher black countertops using tongue oil we've loved day it's been such a good product for us so let us know what you think in the comments below and thanks so much for stopping by the farm so today we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: From Scratch Farmstead

Views: 274,951

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Id: 2CZ7OiobUQY

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 16 2022