Products    About    The Shop    FAQ    Press    Friends    Contact

CARE

Each board comes with a card detailing how to care for your board.

COATING

Coat with mineral oil once every couple of weeks, or as much as needed.  Optionally, buff in some Bees' Buffer for an especially water resistant surface.

SANITIZING

Dampen a wiping with a 1:1 ratio of water and white vinegar.  Dry immediately with a clean rag.  Use of bleach is not recommended.

USE

Stabilize the board by placing it on top of a dry dish towel or mat before cutting.

WASHING

Wash with a sponge or rag using dish soap and warm water.  Dry immediately.

DONT

Don't ever put this piece in your dishwasher, as it will most certainly cause the board to split. 

Avoid using an abrasive cleaning tool, such as a steel brush or scrubby pad.  They remove the beeswax finish.  A soft sponge or wiping rag is best.

Avoid using a serrated edge on the board, if possible.  A serrated knife is basically a saw on a board.  A properly sharpened chefs knife should be able to cut through a tomato without trouble

On Wood Varieties

Currently, I offer cherry or walnut cutting boards, and on occasion reclaimed mahogany, european beech, and maple.  I choose walnut and cherry over mahogany and beech mostly because they grow in Pennsylvania.  I avoid using maple mostly because it's harder than both cherry and walnut, meaning it's a little tougher on a knife's edge.

End Grain vs Edge Grain (aka Long Grain)

Putting aesthetics aside, end grain boards are preferable to edge grain boards simply because they are easier on a knife's edge.  An edge grain board positions the wood fibers so that they are perpendicular to your knife, thus when cutting, you are making a crosscut into the wood; however, and end grain board positions the fibers upwards, so that your knife is cutting between these fibers.

Long ago, my uncle best explained it to me by comparing wood fibers to bristles on a brush.  If you place the brush on the counter and cut parallel to the bristles, you're just going to be cutting them off.  If you place the brush upwards, your knife will cut between the bristles..

*Just to be clear, this does not mean that an end grain board won't take a knife mark; it most certainly will, but the idea here is that you're reducing the matter your knife is cutting through.

Whynot a slab of trunk?

The reason to not make a board out of a slab of tree trunk is checking.  Gluing a board so that its grain is in a particular pattern makes it stronger than just being a slab of trunk.  The same idea lies behind plywood: each layer runs perpendicular to the layer previous thus strengthening the sheet of plywood.

Finishes

For my boards, I use a food grade mineral oil for an initial coating, and then buff in some Bees' Buffer (a beeswax and mineral oil finish I make) for an added protective surface.  I've found that mineral oil alone isn't quite enough and requires more frequent re-coating.  While it resists water, it just can't quite repel it like beeswax.  That having been said, Bees' Buffer alone isn't enough because it just  sits on the surface of the board, whereas the mineral oil actually absorbs into the block.

In short, Bees' Buffer is totally optional, but mineral oil is required for board upkeep. 

Hailing from China, Tung Oil is actually one of the few vegetable/fruit based finishes that is fine to finish a board with and smells out of this world.  I'd use it, but again I'm really dedicated to keeping my boards made entirely in the States.