Filling knot holes and cracks in end grain cutting board with epoxy, is it "Food safe

[Thomas Colson]

So I tend to gravitate towards "character" wood, that will usually have some or many defects. Gluing up an end grain walnut and cherry cutting board, with some spectacular grain and "curlyness". Of course it's got a few cracks/checks/holes in it. These aren't very big. What I do is fill them in with black tinted epoxy. Again, these are small defects, but they're defects. Coming out of the drum sander, these boards look spectacular. The thing I'm worried about is, what, if any, are the safety concerns with the epoxy? I'm gifting these to folks with kids whom are pretty serious cooks, etc....emphasis on, no, I am not flooding the entire board with epoxy. Just filling in the very small defects. Finishing with the ubiquitous mineral oil and bees wax.

[Andrew Hughes]

I say no. Since your giving them to friends.
If they were your enemies then yes lots and lots of epoxy.

[Eric Arnsdorff]

There are food safe epoxies. I’d just make sure to use FDA approved epoxies.

[Bradley Gray]

I think the dye is suspect also. I use liquid aniline dyes and when they arrive the package has hazard warnings.

I wouldn't want to eat epoxy even if it is declared food safe.

[Mark Hill]

I use Loctite Heavy Duty Epoxy. Called the company and talked to a product engineer. The company certifies it as "non toxic" but can't specifically advertise it as "food safe" as that requires a specific FDA certification that Loctite doesn't pursue as it's not a common enough use. The "ingredients" are on the FDA list of approved materials. Just make sure it's fully cured.

For color, rather than a dye, I use coffee. Grind it very fine in a grinder or spice mill and then shake it through a fine sieve to remove the larger chunks. A little of the coffee powder makes the epoxy a light brown. A lot makes it nearly black. Pretty sure it's food safe, too. :)