African Mahogany Carving Board/Serving Board. Critique Requested

[Josef Booyens]

Hi
I am new to the forum, as well as new to wood work.
I had no training in working with wood,
and I have not really used anything other then chipboard and plywood,
with witch I built various things, from chinchilla cages to bookshelves.

That I say, so its clear I don't know the tricks of the trade to get the result wanted always.

Initiative - I decided to build a decent carving board, since one pay 14usd (converted from my currency) for a silly pine board that dont last at all. I used the same money and went got a nice big piece Mahogany.

Material - African Mahogany
Dimensions - 12.3 inches in width, 20.5 inches in length, 0.78 inches in thickness
Building time - 2 or 3 days, on and off working
Tools used - small hand held router for all indentations and curves
- generic dremel for the leave cuts
- jigsaw for cutting
- mouse sander for sanding P80 first, p120 for final sanding
- Planer (from a friend) to plane raw wood
Finishing - coconut oil, specifically chosen. I red that its the most stable oil to use on wooden boards, it don't get sour or nasty after even a very long time. Olive oil does.

Procedure - buy plank.
- plane plank. It was INCREDIBLY hard.
- I wanted to use this bit with a nice flame on it, problem is I cant get it smooth.
- cut out with jigsaw
- routing all curves
- sand with mouse sander p80 grit, lastly with p120 grit.
- using dremel, I carved the leave patterns on top, making sure i work slow enough to burn the wood so that it is a bit darker and easier to see
- melting oil, paint it on board and let it steep in for a hour. Did both sides.
- Warming board in oven, the idea was so the oil can get softer and go deeper. (coconut oil becomes solid at about 75 degrees F)
- done

Result - I like it, but wish i could get it smoother. Sandpaper don't seem to do anything to it at all, As i said, its really really hard.


Attachment 228119Attachment 228120Attachment 228121Attachment 228122

in photo 3 I attempted to catch the course grid of the wood.

Resolution -If I don't get a better idea, I will try something like wet sanding, only red about it yesterday, have to find out still how it works exactly, and if it may help.

Thanks for looking

[Keith Starosta]

Hi, Josef! Welcome to SMC!!

That is a really beautiful piece of work.

- Keith

[Jim Rimmer]

Josef, welcome to the Creek. Nice work on the cutting board. I have used a mouse type sander in the past and have not had much success with them. If you have access to a random orbit sander, try that. If you don't try wrapping your sandpaper around a sanding block and sanding by hand. African mahogany is a beautiful wood but you shouldn't have so much trouble sanding it. In my opinion, the mouse sanders just don't have enough body to provide good sanding. Good luck and post more of your work.

[Ben Hatcher]

That's a nice looking board. Generally cutting boards are sealed with mineral oil because it does not go rancid. The open grain of mahogany can be a breeding ground for bacteria so you may want to reserve this beauty for dry items like bread.

[Josef Booyens]

Thank you for the comments.
After reading up on wet sanding and different oils, I decided I will try wet sand it with walnut oil.
It polymerize and won't go rancid after polymerization, coconut oil wont polymerize, but it also never go rancid.
Hopefully the wet sanding may fill in some grain, never tried it before.

[Ben Hatcher]

You'll have a good old time cleaning the slurry out of your carving, but wet sanding will certainly fill your pores pretty well. Just be careful when you wipe it off that you go across the grain and use a light touch so you don't pull the slury out of the pores. You might even try using a card scraper angled in the direction of your stroke to scrape off the excess and push it into the pores more.

[Craig Wahl]

thats a pretty kick arse cutting board. like others mentioned the open grain may create a problem. if that turns out to be true just give it to someone who wont use it and will just brag about it to people, mothers are best for this use. i believe i have also read that supposedly most finishes are in fact ok for use on food prep surfaces if given sufficient time for the non-edible/poisonous thinners to evaporate and the finish to cure. although, i am not certain this goes for cutting boards where pieces of the finish may be cut loose and flake into food. i mention this because it may be possible to use a finish that does a better job of sealing up the grain.

i too am new to woodworking and it seems the best advice us newbies can readily absorb and use is to learn as much as possible about the characteristics of the wood we use. this means learning about not only the species, but also grain orientation traits, susceptibility to warping, rot, etc.

but yeah, cool cutting board and i'm sure you will enjoy using it for a long time.

[Josef Booyens]

Thanks.
I saw that raw linseed oil will work, but it don't dry for a long time. Having never worked with linseed oil on wood, I have no idea how long a long time is, but I guess its longer then most people find comfortable.
Boiled linseed oil is suspect since it may have metal salts added witch makes it toxic, it may be fine after its dried, but I cant get sufficient info to make me comfortable with that idea.
The next best is walnut oil, cos it goes hard and don't go rancid. Its very good for edible wise also. Just need to heed the allergy prone people.
Only I can't find some, yet....

Thanks for that advice Ben, I need it. since I never done it before.

[John Shuk]

Walnut oil is wonderful. Here it is available in the oil and salad dressing section of the supermarket.

[John Shuk]

Plain mineral oil from the pharmacy works very well also. No real sacrifice at all if the walnut oil is tough to find there.

[Craig Wahl]

thought i would update my post a little. i am guessing all the original posters are probably not too interested in this anymore, but my girlfriend and I have made a few cutting boards recently and have been mulling over the finish question. These websites provide pretty decent advice on the topic:
http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/arti...-board-finish/
http://www.finewoodworking.com/Skill....aspx?id=26893

I thought the post by Knute on April 24,2008, seemed interesting. Basically sand to 1500 grit and use diluted varnish & wax for a finish. I have rethought my above post about using varnish or shellac and wonder if 1500 grit with mineral oil and wax would have a good result (if you give the oil time to completely evaporate). I will probably try something like that on my cutting boards and maybe post about it here.

[Josef Booyens]

Thank you very much for the update Craig.
I wil sure look at the links, as im a bit stubourn and are still looking for walnut oil in South Africa.

Be real nice If you update again :-)