Tung Oil + Citrus For Handles and Boards?

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HumbleHomeCook

HumbleHomeCook

Embrace your knifesculinity!
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I know a lot of folks are big fans of tung oil and it is obviously well established. I've never really latched onto it I guess because I heard once it takes time to cure.

I use mineral oil or mineral oil + bees wax on my handles and boards. There's no arguing it's pretty superficial and easily disappears/gets removed.

I saw this video:


And it got me thinking about tung oil again. I totally get the citrus dilution so not really questioning that.

What I am asking is:

1) Your experiences with tung oil and/or tung oil+citrus in these applications?

2) Any issue with applying it after months or years of mineral oil and wax? I don't think so as it comes off so easily, hence the discussion, but thought I'd ask. Basically meaning these are raw pieces getting their first finish.

EDIT: On the handles I make, I use Tru Oil. Used it a lot for refinishing gun stocks and just kept up with it. This would be more for those Ho and other oil-finished handles and my Boos maple board.
 
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I'd be interested in switching from mineral to tung oil on my board. I've got a reoccurring dry spot right where I always chop garlic, but I keep it well oiled and waxed so am curious I'd there'd be any reaction with the tung going on top. Should I scrub it down with soap to try to remove some surface oil before tung?
 
We have been using Tung oil diluted with orange oil on our wooden handles for years and we love it.

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Am not a woodworker in the slightest so consume my opinion with a sprinkling of sodiumchloride but:
I've seen that same video in the past and it definitly sparked my interest, but so far I haven't gotten around to trying it. There is however at least 1 Dutch maker of cutting boards who has been using it for decades for the reasons outlined (lasts way longer).
Then again just about anything that's a hardening or semi-hardening oil will last better than mineral oil, hence why I've started switching to grapeseed oil as a compromise solution. Works well so far.
Regarding application over existing boards. I don't see major issues in applying over oil (at worst you'll lock in whatever mineral oil is still in the board) but I can imagine that wax can work as a barrier that prevents penetration of the tung oil.
 
Drying oils will better protect wood than non-drying oils, but they harden. My concern with using them on cutting boards is the effect on the blade edge. I expect it may have a dulling effect.

Personally. I wouldn’t consider it on my end grain walnut board. However, it may be useful for some of the softer open grain woods that are used like oak or limba.
 
my concern is the wood has natural
Antibacterial properties because it wicks moisture away from anything on the board due to the porous nature. If you fill those pores with a cured finish like tung oil or tru oil , you will basicly have a plastic coating on a wood board. It will increase the likelihood of bacteria growth, or trapping moisture and destroying the glue joints.
 
Bensbites said:
my concern is the wood has natural
Antibacterial properties because it wicks moisture away from anything on the board due to the porous nature. If you fill those pores with a cured finish like tung oil or tru oil , you will basicly have a plastic coating on a wood board. It will increase the likelihood of bacteria growth, or trapping moisture and destroying the glue joints.
Click to expand...

Very good point.
 
If I remember correctly, tung oil is slightly toxic when liquid, but this vanishes when it is dried up and by that polymerised, i.e. hardened. So the question is whether one always wants to wait until the latest applied layer has hardened up or if the approach is to treat once, let dry for weeks and then use.

Here is an old discussion about this topic.
 
iceman01 said:
If I remember correctly, tung oil is slightly toxic when liquid, but this vanishes when it is dried up and by that polymerised, i.e. hardened. So the question is whether one always wants to wait until the latest applied layer has hardened up or if the approach is to treat once, let dry for weeks and then use.

Here is an old discussion about this topic.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's toxic. Here's the SDS from a reputable company.
https://prod-hml.s3.amazonaws.com/SDS_RealMilkPaintCo_Pure-Tung-Oil_09-2017.pdf
 
I use tung a lot for finishing handles, at the moment I'm using it diluted for 2 coats, then 2 full strength coats, and then I use a beeswax and oil mix to "finish". I have used tung on my cutting boards, end and edge grain, and it does "last" longer than using just mineral oil, or oil and wax together. It takes a lot of tung oil and a good chunk of time for it to fully penetrate and harden all the way up to the surface of the wood, especially with end grain, so I apply it as part of the "reset" maintenance on my boards, usually just one full strength coat, and then I maintain it with a wax oil mix until the next time it needs a reset.
 
Wot others said...

Tung is really excellent for handles, and doesn’t all take that long really.

I absolutely wouldn’t use a drying oil on a board though. Just mineral oil for that.
 
Most common store-shelf tung oil isn’t pure tung oil, e.g. Formby’s is a proprietary blend of solvents with an undisclosed percentage of actual tung oil. Seems like the video covers that briefly.

Pure tung oil seems food safe as far as I can tell. In its pure form, it takes 5-30 days to completely cure depending on temp, humidity and thickness of the coating. Oil penetration is a function of wood density and inherent oil content. Tung oil is thicker than mineral oil, and I‘d be surprised if it soaked in much deeper, but it’ll penetrate a bit.

I understand the desire for a more durable surface, especially on a cutting board that sees hard duty. But it wouldn’t be my first choice for the many reasons mentioned above. I really want a cutting board to be wood, feel like wood and behave like wood on an edge. I’m not going to boil my cutting board. But it’s an interesting idea, and compelling. I’d be curious about coating the bottom in tung oil to prevent the board cupping or warping when set in moisture. Could be a fun experiment, I thought I’d poo-poo the idea, but it seems more interesting with a little digging. Still not sure I’d love the surface texture and potential for edge damage, but it may not be as bad as I imagine.

A bottom-side coating could be a fun experiment. I’m not convinced how well it will set on top mineral oil, but you never know.
 
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Bensbites said:
my concern is the wood has natural
Antibacterial properties because it wicks moisture away from anything on the board due to the porous nature. If you fill those pores with a cured finish like tung oil or tru oil , you will basicly have a plastic coating on a wood board. It will increase the likelihood of bacteria growth, or trapping moisture and destroying the glue joints.
Click to expand...
I don’t follow the reasoning.
You don’t want a board wicking moisture into it, carrying bacteria with the moisture. That’s the motivation for oil in the first place.

How would a plastic-like coating (a barrier) lead to increased bacterial growth? How would it destroy glue joints?
 
captaincaed said:
I don’t follow the reasoning.
You don’t want a board wicking moisture into it, carrying bacteria with the moisture. That’s the motivation for oil in the first place.

How would a plastic-like coating (a barrier) lead to increased bacterial growth? How would it destroy glue joints?
Click to expand...
The wood wicks moisture away from the bacteria on the surface. Drying it out and killing it.

As you stay to slice through the coating , it's not even moisture gets in some parts of the wood and causes uneven movement. That can cause cracking.
 
Bensbites said:
The wood wicks moisture away from the bacteria on the surface. Drying it out and killing it.
Click to expand...

Bensbites said:
As you stay to slice through the coating , it's not even moisture gets in some parts of the wood and causes uneven movement. That can cause cracking.
Click to expand...
These two things seem a bit at odds. On one hand, we want the wooden board to absorb water for antibacterial reasons, on the other hand we don’t want that for structural reasons?

Wood fibers are large enough to wick in bacteria. Hardwood pores are on the order of 50-100 micrometers, bacteria are on the order of 1-5.

Worse though are grooves cut by knives, I could see grooves cut into a hard coating potentially harboring bacteria if it‘s not cleaned well. Can happen with industrial plastic boards.
 
Takeshi Aoki at AFramesTokyo always recommended simply wetting the yaniga boards that he sold a few minutes before use. Wetting the board surface prevents staining and absorption of food ‘juices’. Seems to work.
 
I just got a new board and I'm debating the usual mineral oil soak followed by board butter or going with a 50/50 pure tung oil/citrus oil treatment. Has anyone developed anything more to say about this since November?

Regarding some comments above:

I'm skeptical that the hardness of tung oil once dried will pose any dulling danger to a knife edge, but I really have no actual data to back that up. I don't know how hard that oil gets.

I also would not characterize a tung oil finish as a "coating", since the oil (especially if thinned 50/50) will penetrate into the wood and then dry.
 
HolyDiverScallop said:
I just got a new board and I'm debating the usual mineral oil soak followed by board butter or going with a 50/50 pure tung oil/citrus oil treatment. Has anyone developed anything more to say about this since November?

Regarding some comments above:

I'm skeptical that the hardness of tung oil once dried will pose any dulling danger to a knife edge, but I really have no actual data to back that up. I don't know how hard that oil gets.

I also would not characterize a tung oil finish as a "coating", since the oil (especially if thinned 50/50) will penetrate into the wood and then dry.
Click to expand...
The tung oil and citrus lasts longer and IME protects better. It is food safe once cured and I can't imagine it having much affect if any on the knife edge.

The issues are curing time and the oil needs to be replenished (annually?). I apply multiple coats over a series of days and then wait a week or more to cure. This is fine for handles and utensils but can be problematic with laying up my cutting board for 10 or more days.
 
Thanks for the input. The time to cure isn’t an issue - I’ve got other boards and can take the time to do it right.

I think I’m going to give it a try, and document the process.
 
Everyone please brace yourselves, I am about to ask what may turn out to be a hilariously stupid question.

I assume citrus oil is entirely different to the type of smelly pure citrus essential oil you would use for diffusers and the like?

Boiled linseed oil (which I used to use for handles until moving over to Tung oil) stinks, but if I could mix it with some nice orange essential oil then I would potentially start using it again.
 
I can't skip in with anything on the tung oil.

But i can highly recommend cold pressed linseed oil. Or if you don't like the smell. Some sell it as "countertop oil" or "table oil" in those they have reduced the smell.

Linseed oil is semidrying and does no harm to knives.

I used to use white mineral oil from IKEA. But got tired of it because it gets washed out of the wood pretty fast. An uncle who is a carpenter adviced me to use linseed oil, and I haven't used anything else since.

Just make sure it's marked as foodsafe.

If you can't find linseed oil labelled as foodsafe. Just buy flaxseed oil instead it's 2 identical products
 
OkayMode said:
Everyone please brace yourselves, I am about to ask what may turn out to be a hilariously stupid question.

I assume citrus oil is entirely different to the type of smelly pure citrus essential oil you would use for diffusers and the like?

Boiled linseed oil (which I used to use for handles until moving over to Tung oil) stinks, but if I could mix it with some nice orange essential oil then I would potentially start using it again.
Click to expand...
I think it's just citrus oil. I don't know if or how it's different from an essential oil.

You may already know this, but a lot of "boiled" linseed oil has non-food-safe additives in it. It takes some attention to get pure boiled food-safe linseed oil.

I have gotten 16 oz of Half and Half (50% pure tung oil, 50% pure citrus oil) that I'll probably start applying to the board tomorrow.
 
HolyDiverScallop said:
You may already know this, but a lot of "boiled" linseed oil has non-food-safe additives in it.
Click to expand...
It didn’t massively bother me having it on the handle as that never really comes into contact with any produce, but I moved to tung oil anyway to be safe.

(I should note I was using a top coat of beeswax/foodsafe board wax, so there was a layer of protection at play)

I don’t even get my handles wet really!
 
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I personally don't use on cutting boards as I personally prefer a mix of extra virgin coconut oil, beeswax, and limonene.
Handles yes.
I use food grade ingredients in my handle mixture of oils/waxes that does include pure tung oil and lab grade limonene (pure citrus oil extracts)
 
Tim Rowland said:
I personally don't use on cutting boards as I personally prefer a mix of extra virgin coconut oil, beeswax, and limonene.
Handles yes.
I use food grade ingredients in my handle mixture of oils/waxes that does include pure tung oil and lab grade limonene (pure citrus oil extracts)
Click to expand...
How does that mixture of coconut oil, beeswax and limonene persist over time?
 
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