Salad Bowl Finish

[L. D. Jeffries]

Just finished a set of three nesting wooden bowls, mahogney (sp) bottoms with a band of white oak for a rim. Now, the question; since I want to be able to put dry food stuffs in them figured must use a salad bowl finish. Problem is do I put a finish on them first (all over) then put s/b finish on inside, finish the outside with poly or whatever and then do only inside with s/b. or just use s/b on whole thing? Will the s/b finish darken the wood, a little, a lot or what? If anyone has any info from prior uses sure would like to hear about it. Thanks guys and gals. These are Christmas present so time is not really of the essence!
Thanks again.

[crokett]

I would use the SB finish all over. More than likely these bowls will see water at some point. The SB finish is easily renewable. Poly is not.

[Uncle Cracker]

That is good advice. With two different finishes, you would soon see the difference as the bowls age. A single finish can be renewed all at once, without the need for color-matching down the road.

[windmill]

Salad bowl finish will darken the wood slightly, but not much. If you want to approximate the effect, wipe some vegetable oil onto the wood. I would use one finish. As the other posters mentioned, two different finishes cause nothing but headaches. Also consider a 2 year old chewing on the bowl rim, poly may not be the best choice even for the outside.

Then again, ingesting some finish may be the kids last worry if he's just put teeth marks on a hand-made mahogany bowl :-D

Bas.

[L. D. Jeffries]

Thanks for the advice, sorta my idea too. That is putting same finish all over, but wasn't sure. Hey windmill, your last sentence says it ALL! If I ever find out how to post pics on the forum I'll have a slew of pictures to post.

[rja]

I would not use vegetable oil on your bowl. The vegetable oil may either turn rancid and get sticky and gummy or may polymerize and form a crust. I would use either straight mineral oil or mineral oil mixed with bees' wax. Heat the mineral oil in a double boiler setup and shave in the bees' wax. (I have no magic formula for the amount of bees' wax to add). Apply the mixture while still warm. Let sit for a while. Wipe off any surplus not absorbed by the wood. Repeat after 24 hours. I use this on cutting boards.

[Uncle Cracker]

I would not use vegetable oil on your bowl. The vegetable oil may either turn rancid and get sticky and gummy or may polymerize and form a crust.

I could be wrong, but I think the veggie oil suggestion was just to test the effect of the salad bowl finish on the wood color, rather than as a suggested final finish for the bowls. That's just the impression I got.

[windmill]

Right, it was just a suggestion to look at the color - sort of like wiping mineral spirits onto wood to see how the grain looks. Vegetable oil is defnitely a poor choice as a finish....unless you want to discourage someone from biting the rim :-)