Butcher blocks redux
An astute reader noticed that I never followed up on my butcher block project. Here, then, is my final analysis on the matter.
The tung oil I put on it seemed to take ages to dry, and the sucker sure soaked up a lot of it. Still, it did dry eventually, and seemed to be ready for use. I put it to heavy work, cooking an eight course dinner for 12. Actually, it was enough to feed a professional football team and still have enough for doggy bags. But despite many hours of aggressive cleaver-hacking, it fared beautifully. The only damage happened when it was knocked off the countertop–it sustained a ding on the corner.
So my overall recommendations are:
1) If possible, use a non-porous wood for your butcher block. Hard maple is the leading contender. White oak, unlike the red oak I was using, is nonporous and a better choice. Don’t use spalted maple; the fungus that makes the pretty spalting is toxic.
2) Definitely make an end-grain butcher block. This is a three step process: glue up strips to make a square, cut the square perpendicular to the original cuts so it is in strips again, rotate the strips so the end grain is showing, glue the strips back together. My experimentation confirmed the conventional wisdom that endgrain is much better for projects involving extended use of a meat cleaver.
3) For finish, either use the wacky system I described (if you ignored my advice #1 and used open grain wood), or just soak the sucker in salad bowl finish, which should work well for open-pore woods (and is foodsafe). If it’s closed-pore, you can just use mineral oil, although you’ll have to reapply regularly.
4) If possible, make your butcher block slightly smaller than the width of your planer/drum sander. This simplifies things dramatically, since you can just run the sucker through to level it out. Expect tearout on the trailing edge, though. Remember that you can make it 12.5″ x reallyfrigginlong and cut it into multiple butcher blocks when you’re done–they make great gifts.
5) Don’t drink while working with a meat cleaver.
This project is a no-brainer. It’s fast, fun, useful, and you can build it entirely with scraps from past projects. Crank out some butcherblocks–you’ll thank me for it.
(This particular butcher block is mostly for when we have company and I need a large surface to hack at. For day-to-day uses, I’m just using plastic–our kitchen is small and it stores better. When we remodel the kitchen, I’ll build a nice butcher block into the countertop.)
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