How I Finish Cutting Boards

I don't build cutting boards often but when I do get to build them I do really enjoy it and recently I've gotten a lot of questions on how I finish my cutting boards and why I choose the products that I do so today that's what I want to talk about welcome back everybody Jason Vince woodworking thank you so much for watching today what I'm going to go ahead and talk about is how I go about finishing my cutting boards now I am NOT a cutting board expert by any means to be completely honest with you I very rarely ever build cutting boards and it's usually only if I get a very specific request for a cutting board and it all kind of started one day I was built a butcher block top and I had a bunch of scraps leftover and I was like hey I want to build my first cutting board and I kind of got hooked on building them out of scraps after that so now all the scraps that I have laying around in the shop that's usually the cutting boards that I build they're not for anybody they're just me messing around in the shop perfect example of that is this one right here and I built this one simply because I wanted to test out and try you know working with doing different patterns and stuff and this is actually a cutting board that is going to my sister but it was just something I made out of some scraps and I had laying around the shop so but for some reason lately I just did a really big cutting board which was a custom order for a client and I got a few questions asking hey why do you use the finished products you use how do you finish the cutting board why are you doing it what are the advantages disadvantages anyway so that's what I want to do today is I just kind of want to talk about the process that I take to get cutting boards ready for delivery or for use so if you build cutting boards I'm sure you've probably heard of the company walrus oil which is a new product for me to use I've used it on a couple of cutting boards now before that I was using the Howard's butcher block oil and conditioner cutting board oil whatever you know what it is it's from Lowe's and Home Depot I always bought that because finding the water soil is not as easy like you have to order it online because none of the places around me sell it so I finally decided to go in order one day and here's what I'm going to tell you I won't use another product again it's it's really great it's super easy to apply I just put on my one thing about or my one coat of oil I let it sit for you know 18 to 24 hours depending a base that I'll do it at the end of the night the next day I'll come in I'll wipe it off and then I'm gonna put the wood wax on so I'm gonna kind of go over some of those steps today and I'm gonna do it on this board that's going to my sister so you guys can see and really see the results because the results of the water soil are just beautiful especially once you put that wood wax on it so let's go ahead and get started into the process that I take so I got my my fishing in a few different ways so I'm obviously gonna sand it so I ran this through the planer everything is nice and flat and smooth so there's a couple of things that I'm gonna do I'm gonna sand it and I'm only gonna sand it with two grits I'm gonna sand it with 120 and then I'm gonna sand it was 220 however before I sand it was 220 I'm gonna do what's called raising the grain and I'm gonna take a wet damp cloth so 120 all over the top of it I'm gonna take a damp wet cloth I'm gonna wipe it over the top so it was smooth wipe this over the top that's gonna raise that grain because you're getting it wet and then I'm gonna take my 220 I'm gonna go over the top of it so I'm two birds one stone when I get it wet I can see if I have a bunch of swirl marks so not only am I getting to see if I have swirl marks musical orbital sander but I also get to go ahead and raise that grain now if I do have swirl marks which when it comes to cutting boards I don't find I have that issue very much because typically speaking cutting boards I'm using much harder wood and they're not as common and I also when I'm using my Festool random orbital sander I don't have my suction all the way up so I don't get the swirl marks as much however if I do get them usually the 220 is gonna take that out so I've raised the grain it's rough again I'm gonna take it to 20 it's gonna take him back to perfectly smooth this way when I go and put the oil on or it gets wet for the first time when you actually wash it you're not gonna get that grainy feeling and so the reason I started doing that is because the first couple boards that I did build for my house I sanded him nice and smooth all the way up to 120 foot coal oil on everything was still great the very first time I washed it the grain raised because it got wet and it was pretty substantial so what did I have to do I went back and I Reese ANDed all of it all that again and now when I get them wet and washed them and stuff the grain is not raised it's still always smooth so now I just go through those steps take care of it so I don't have to worry about that later on so 120 wipe it down with water check for swirl marks raise the grain once it dries to 20 smoothes it out real nice and then it's ready for oil so that's what I'm going to go ahead and do now [Music] all right so now I've got this sanded down to 120 and it's super smooth really nice but I'm gonna go ahead like right now I can feel it and there's there's absolutely nothing no raised grain nothing so now I'm going to wipe it down with a wet rag and go back and feel it again and it will be a drastic difference all right so here it is after letting it sit wet for a while and then it dried but I'm gonna try to get to see if you can hear it I'll try to get close to the microphone if you can hear that noise that noise is my fingers catching all of the raised grain so the the amount of grain that was raised by getting it wet is pretty substantial even though it's perfectly smooth after 120 now that I got a wet and raise the grain so what am I going to do fix it now I'm gonna go and stand it with 220 it's gonna take that down perfectly smooth to where all the grain that was raised based off the water is now gone all right so standard is u-20 it's super super smooth waist smoother than it was when I did the 120 obviously since it's 220 now that I raised a brain got rid of all that raised rain and it's really nice and smooth and it's ready for me to go in for the oil on it so that's what I'm gonna do next when I'm putting my oil on I like to start on the bottom of it first because then that way lets me flip it over and then work on the top I don't worry as much about the bottom in terms of overall finish and I don't mean that to be in a negative way it's just that I like to spend more time at making sure that the top of any one of my pieces is gonna be nice and clean so I'll just put a good amount on the bottom make sure I cover everything enough oil for that to sit and seep in and use my all props here and now on the top that's when I worried about the actual sides of the board and so with this oil this oil is a lot thicker than if you were to get like the Howard's cutting board oil or butcher block conditioner it's a little bit easier to work with the other stuff is just so runny it just drips right off this I don't have that issue with and a little bit goes a long way a very long way and I feel like it doesn't absorb into it as quickly as the Howard's does so it because it's thicker it kind of leaves that nice thicker top coat and it will eventually start to seep in and then what I do with any excess that I have I just go down that that's where I get my ends of my board now one of the things that I love about using this is with Howard's or maybe some of the other products I can't speak for all of them because I haven't used them but it requires you to leave multiple coats the thing about this is I just put on one coat I let it sit for about 24 hours as opposed to do one coat now and then 30 minutes later come back and wipe off the excess and then do another coat and 30 minutes after that wipe off the excess so this is done I will let this sit until probably about lunchtime tomorrow and just let that oil soak in and then I'll go ahead and wipe off all the excess and put on the wood wax so this has had about 24 hours now to dry and let the oil seep in and there's really not a lot of excess left that I need to wipe off but there is some so all I got to do now is just wipe that off and then I'll be go ahead and putting on the wood wax so I'd like to show you a close-up now that the oils on there and it really did a great job of deepening the color of the wood and it really gives a great look to the maple but now that I've got excess wiped off I'm just gonna go ahead and put on some wood wax now when applying this wax it's it's really just like any other type of wax that you would apply to a car or let's say to your table saw or your jointer it's applied the exact same way you're gonna rub it on in a circular motion get a nice coat on it and then you're just gonna let it sit for about 10-15 minutes or so and then you'll come back over the top of it and buff it off I've got a nice thin coat of wax on it as you can see I'm gonna let that sit for about 15 minutes come back wipe it all off now that it's had an opportunity to dry I'm just gonna go ahead and wipe off all the wax and be done so this one's a wrap I've got the oil on there I've got the wax on there and it's good to go I'm just gonna put some feet on and be done with it so that is the system that I take in doing my cutting boards and again just to be clear I am in no way shape or form a expert when it comes to cutting boards these are just some techniques and some products that I like to use I've had excellent results so if you have a better way to do it you know maybe shoot me a message or leave it down in the comment section below I'd love to hear about the different techniques that you guys are using but that's gonna be it for this week thank you again everybody for watching I really hope you enjoyed the video don't forget like subscribe share follow me on instagram at ben's woodworking and i will see you next time

Channel: Bent's Woodworking & More

Views: 125,971

Keywords: cutting board, how to finish a cutting board, finishing cutting boards, applying wax to a cutting board, how to apply cutting board oil, oil, cutting board oil, cutting board wax, how to apply walrus oil, how to make a cutting board, cutting boards designs, cutting board diy, cutting boards wooden, cutting board finish, cutting board inlay, cutting board juice groove, cutting board end grain

Id: 529lkCNImY8

Length: 11min 31sec (691 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 17 2018