I used Waterlox on my teak countertops. There have been lots of threads on it here. I am not sure if they gone. You can go to the Waterlox website and read about it. It has been 2 years and they still look great . They are around the gas cooktop and the sink so they get HARD use. Hope this helps. You are lucky to get such great wood. I love reclaimed anything. PLease post pics. c

Thanks for the quick response Caroline. I did a search as recommended and saw lots of great info (including pix of your beatuiful counters!) I'm especially interested in a low sheen finish, such as I think would be achieved by something like tung or mineral oil. I'm wondering how hard it is to finish ourselves? and would love to see more pix from others if they see this post.

Will definitely post pix when we have the counter. The company we're using - a local architectural salvage place - has things to die for!

Eliz

I just used Waterlox Original Finish on my pine floors (4 coats). I did it myself (just watched video on the Waterlox site). It was very easy to work with. I did exactly as suggested and waited 24 hours between coats. I'll also be doing a butcherblock counter that I will finish with Waterlox.

We used Good Stuff for Wood on our antique pine counters. It's easy to apply and is FDA approved for food surfaces. I ordered from the website below. We reapply once every 18mths or so.

Here is a link that might be useful: Good Stuff for Wood

We used pure tung oil cut 50/50 with citrus solvent. Both are completely food safe. The initial finishing of the counters was time consuming, because you have to use several coats and allow each to dry thoroughly.

Our counters are beautiful. I've not oiled them in two years and people think I've JUST oiled them. They're in great shape, beautiful, and I couldn't be happier. We got both the tung oil and the citrus solvent from The Real Milk Paint website.

Thanks, all, for the great advice. I will post pix when it's all done!

Eliz

Late to the game but would echo the Waterlox idea. We have BB counters at the lake and have "experimented" with multiple finishes:

1) Our first try was satin urethane. Bulletproof, no maintenance, but even satin has the very glossy look of "plastic" and would seem to defeat the whole purpose of using reclaimed wood. Even on our BB counters it screams "fake" and I hated it.

2) Next, we went traditional with mineral oil. A huge PITA. Applied many many coats, laboriously worked them in, and the counter still stained at the first hint of wine, strawberries, grease etc. We also had some delamination which required repair, and I think that was in part due to the poor water repellency of the MO. I considered the beeswax/mineral oil approach but still felt it would be way too much trouble for less than ideal protection. I'd be even more concerned if we had used more "delicate" wood like yours as opposed to generic BB.

3) My "light bulb went off" moment. We had already done our floors in Waterlox and loved the look--totally natural wood with none of the plastic appearance of urethane. It's been four years and they are holding up great. Checked to confirm it was food safe and, having done so, sanded away and then used it on the counters. They look great and are totally stain repellent. Water beads up, unlike with MO.

If you use the Satin finish after the initial coats of Sealer the final result will be quite matte.

Waterlox is polymerized tung oil. It maintains many of the advantages of pure tung oil but to quote my definitive expert source (see below):

"Polymerized tung and linseed oils dry faster, harder and are more durable than raw oils."

Pure tung can take days to weeks to dry between coats. We didn't have that kind of time.

And, on the subject of mineral oil:

"Mineral oil is recommended for cutting boards. MO will not cure as it is a non-drying oil and will continually leach out with every washing, requiring periodic reapplication. It will also leave a mess on your countertops if you apply too much Ick! The problem with cutting boards is that you cut on them, so any type of film finish is pretty much out of the question."

I do not cut directly on the BB counters. I'm careful to use cutting boards, mainly for sanitation purposes (I can throw them in the DW, as opposed to having to try and scrub down countertops after raw meat exposure, for example). Therefore a film-forming finish like tung makes sense for my purposes.

BTW: I have been cautioned rightfully in the past to warn folks with nut allergies that there is at least a theoretical risk of reaction to tung oil based products including Waterlox. Though, as I said then, given the consumption of peanut butter in our household, anyone with a real allergy would anaphylax just walking into the kitchen.

Here's my source: Incredibly detailed, extremely useful discussion by SteveRussel of oil finishes for wood

Clinresga - great post! I did go to your link and got a mini education on finishing wood. Don't ask me any technical questions though :-)

A couple of comments on the link that you posted struck me:

I rarely use linseed oil for any finishing these days as it darkens considerably with age and is prone to yellowing.

and

One challenge with using a Polymerized Tung oil is the colour of the product. ItÂs a dark amber colour and this may be unacceptable to you if you are working with a light coloured timber. However, any timber that is of medium colour and darker should be a good candidate, as the colour of the finish will not significantly darken the preexisting colour of your timber.

So, the question is - how dark does it get? As mentioned, our wood will be oak, so I want to be sure that whatever finish I end up using will allow the *natural* colour of the wood to shine through.

We also want the wood to have a *sheen*, not a glossy look, but the following comment also seems to suggest that using pure tung oil will be a PITA:

"Pure" Tung oils will never produce a glossy finish, no matter how many coats you put on, or how long you wait. Pure oils will only produce a matte, or low sheen lustre. This matte sheen is a result of the natural expansion that takes place during polymerization. This expansion creates a very finely textured surface that appears to the naked eye as a matte finish. Pure Tung oils take a looooooooong time to cure, so if you really want anything more than a matte lustre, you should consider another product.

Any additional comments from Clinresga or others who have finished wood *would* be appreciated (esp. photos of how the wood looks)

Thanks!
Eliz

Call Waterlox and they will send you samples of their different finishes (for free), that's what I did. You'll be able to see the finish and color. I used mine on Eastern White pine and it only darkened a bit. Not sure how much darker it gets over time.

Good Luck,
Jenn

Clinresga: Thank you!!!!!

What are you cooking on your LaCanche these days?

elizpiz:
we have Waterlox (sealer and then satin finish over that) on standard issue butcher block. It has darkened almost not at all--very close in color to when it was polyurethaned before. But, jenanla's suggestion is the best of all, try it out first.

If you want more of a sheen, then somewhere between the satin and original finishes will be what you want I suspect. The original finish is glossy, not as high as urethane, and the satin has a slightly shine but much lower than urethane. Unless you want a really high gloss finish, I might guess you'd prefer satin. We'll see!

Agree that at least for us we just didn't have the patience to wait for multiple coats of pure tung to dry.

sayde: we're just geting enough stuff put away to be able to see our range now! Tonight we're doing my daughter's favorite seared salmon recipe, which will be a fair test of the LC's BTU output and even more of the Modern-Aire hood!

Our fir cabinets and our island top are finished with Waterlox (2 coats of original then 2 or 3 coats of Satin on the doors, about 7 on the island top). The wood only darkened as much as if it got wet. there is more sheen on the island because of the buildup of more coats. You can see both the more natural matte finish on the doors and the slight sheen on the island top in these photos:

{{!gwi}}

Rhome, always great to see your beautiful kitchen and that bread looks yummy! Thanks for posting the pix - it's always helpful for me to get a good visual. I will also do as Jenn has suggested and ask Waterlox for some samples. That makes me think that I'll also ask the company that's doing the counter for us if they can give me some scrap oak of the same type as the counter so that I can experiment on the wood itself.

Watch this channel for further updates!

Eliz

eliz: would love to see pix of your counter when done.

rhome: I love that island.