Rough Wood

I’ve been putting finish on my first cutting board. It was made by hand from about 12 strips of scrap cherry that I scavenged from a local fine furniture shop. In keeping with my interest in using natural materials when possible, I originally attempted to finish/season it with a butcher block conditioner. As it was all done by hand, and it was my first attempt, there were some cracks to fill. I filled them with epoxy and sanded for what seemed like hours. 20 gummy sanding discs later, I had a flat board again.

This time I opted to use an oil-based “salad bowl finish” and demoted the board to being an over-engineered food serving board. I don’t want that much epoxy touching my food every day, see. Maybe I’m paranoid, but everyone has a thing. I decided to seal the epoxy off with something more like  a shell, since it won’t be seeing regular chopping action.

Enter oil.

I made my first mallet recently, also using cherry. It was finished with a water-based finish called PolyWhey. It’s nice and durable stuff, but the mineral oil / beeswax conditioner really made the cutting board assert itself. The thinned varnish was even more amazing. The side grain on the edges of the board seemed to dance. I felt like I could see about 1/8″ into the grain. The “cat’s eye” stared at me for the first time, and I was hooked. I could not sleep that night; the grain was so beautiful that it literally haunted me.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

I’m still trying to find a place in my life for this toxic muck, but I won’t forget that first deep understanding of chatoyancy and the hold that it has over me. Here’s a clip of some curly cherry with the same finish. So yummy.