Ipe cutting board

[Mike Cutler]

I wouldn't try to coat the IPE with salad bowl finish or any type of oil. Back when I was working, the company I worked for was trying to develop a wood treatment. We tested some on Ipe and found that the oil didn't penetrate into the wood at all. In our weathering tests we found that the finish only lasted a few days when exposed to rain and then the wood reacted the same as untreated wood. I can't speak for the food allergies, but Ipe is very hard and scratch resistant. I doubt that knives would have much effect.

Lee
This particular piece of Ipe was glued up in the early 90's. It banged around my shop and the garage for a few years, spent a few more years as a wrought iron table top on the front porch, exposed to all New England weather, and then we used it in the kitchen one day when we ran out of serving surfaces. It's been there ever since, in varying capacities.
It has had the finish on it since about 2002 or so. Prior to that it had no finish on it. It is now back in a wrought iron table base in the kitchen. I cut it to size, maybe 5 years ago and reapplied some General finishes Seal-A-Cell and whatever was left in a can of of old General Finishes Arm-R-Seal to the freshly cut edges. I've never really cared abut what happened to this piece of material. It was scrap wood from a luan pallet, when I made it and it's just kind of always been around.

[Alex Zeller]

With it's high silica content it might be a little rough on the edge of knives if you use it for a cutting board. I believe the purpose of a cutting board is that it gets damaged before the knife. I ended up using Tigerwood for my deck just because it was easier to work with and the look of the wood.

[Darcy Warner]

I have 4 cutting boards with ipe in them. They will suck up some mineral oil, have not killed anyone in my family yet either.

At one point in my work, I was getting two freight shipments of ipe a week.

[Mike Cutler]

Darcy

Back in the late 80's the Marine grade Mahogany Luan was being shipped on pallets made from all types of south American hardwoods. I have pallet runners made out rosewood, leapordwood, jatoba, etc.The pallet slats were mostly Jatoba and Ipe. I had two Rosewood pallet runners I used to jack the car up with for years before I gave them to one of the turners here on the board. Now my dunnage for the cars is Leapordwood.
When we got the first loads of IPE, 5/4 decking, then called Pau Lope, we realized it was the same stuff as the pallet material. Man is that stuff heavy!

[Lee Schierer]

Lee
This particular piece of Ipe was glued up in the early 90's. It banged around my shop and the garage for a few years, spent a few more years as a wrought iron table top on the front porch, exposed to all New England weather, and then we used it in the kitchen one day when we ran out of serving surfaces. It's been there ever since, in varying capacities.
It has had the finish on it since about 2002 or so. Prior to that it had no finish on it. It is now back in a wrought iron table base in the kitchen. I cut it to size, maybe 5 years ago and reapplied some General finishes Seal-A-Cell and whatever was left in a can of of old General Finishes Arm-R-Seal to the freshly cut edges. I've never really cared abut what happened to this piece of material. It was scrap wood from a luan pallet, when I made it and it's just kind of always been around.

.

I have no doubt that a surface finish can be applied and that it will attach to the surface. My point was the wood is too dense for any finish to penetrate into the wood.

[Jeff Duncan]

Yup, I've used a good amount of Ipe over the years and much of whats been said is true, its hard on tools, dust is terrible, and finishing tricky. I can't see any reason why you couldn't use it for a cutting board though? Your hopefully not eating the cutting board If it was so toxic that food touching it would make one sick, I'd have been dead a couple decades ago from the amount I've ingested working with it! Oil finishes do work well with this wood which is what you want anyway, plastic finishes aren't good for cutting boards.

I say cut it to size, use a good food safe oil finish on it and try it out. Though the one problem you may run into is moving the thing around.... the stuff is heavy

good luck,
JeffD

[Matt Mattingley]

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I have no doubt that a surface finish can be applied and that it will attach to the surface. My point was the wood is too dense for any finish to penetrate into the wood.

most oil’s will penetrate the surface. Hot bacon fat and peanut oil (are two that I know of). Neither are on my toxicity chart. I personally use peanut oil on my own cutting boards. But I still think IPE has better uses.

I personally use a automotive spray on wax if it is a shop tool. Or a paste wax.

[Ted Phillips]

I've used a lot of Ipe for various small projects. I suspect it is not a wood after all - it must be some type of mineral. Tough stuff...

[Darcy Warner]

Finishes will soak into ipe. As time passes they soak in more.

After using over 100k lf of the stuff, I have a good grasp on it.