Making My Wood Conditioner!

I spent a couple hours this afternoon making my Wood Conditioner today because I only had a few tins available. If you are not familiar with my Wood Conditioner, when used on your wood cutting board, wood utensils or anything wood it will penetrate and helps to revive, condition and protect it. I also use it on my cast iron pans for conditioning. Read more about my Wood Conditioner!

My Wood Conditioner is made using 100% food grade mineral oil and 100% food grade beeswax.

I have a label on the lid detailing how to use the Wood Conditioner. 

Tins ready to fill, I use the syringe to fill each tin, it makes for easy work and clean up too! Each tin will be filled with my Food Grade Mineral oil and Food Grade Beeswax mixture. It will be hot but once cooled becomes solid.

Once the tins are filled, it takes about an hour for the Wood Conditioner to cool and harden. Above are three tins that were filled at different times, the one in the middle has not cooled and gotten solid just yet.

They are all done, cooled, labeled and ready!

For more information, view more images or to order, click the SHOP NOW button below

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Walnut Step Stool: Part I

My Work

This is my first post on making a walnut step stool for my wife. If you read my recent post, Walnut Slabs, you know that my wife asked me to make her a new step stool as soon as she saw the beautiful walnut slabs. I had made my wife a step stool many years ago using red oak which she uses everyday in the kitchen but she wants to move that step stool into her walk in closet. I sketched out three different designs and shared them with her. Below is the design that she chose.

Ok, I am not an artist but wait until to you see the finished stool, it will be beautiful! This is not a difficult project, but this design has a good many steps, no pun intended!! 🙂

As I continue this project, I plan to keep track of my time in order to know exactly how long it takes me to make one step stool. It will take me a bit longer since this is the first time I have made this design plus the extra work to mill the rough sawn walnut.

I started by picking a few walnut slabs that matched the width and length that I needed for the step stool. After measuring the boards, I decided to use the two boards on the right in the picture below.

Rough sawn walnut found last week, see recent post Wood Gloat

Each board is rough sawn, so after checking for nails I will need to dress each board. Dressing rough sawn lumber is the milling of the boards, getting each board flat, straight and square. All boards need to be ran thru the milling process before cutting the first piece for the stool. For the milling process I will be using my Dewalt 13 inch 2 speed planer and my jointer. The planer will be used to mill the surfaces and the jointer will mill the edge.

To start, I set-up my Dewalt 13 inch 2 speed planer, turn on the dust collection and planed each board. It took multiple passes on each side to plane the boards. Each board was a different thickness but all were slightly less than 5/4 inch, so I was able to plane each board to 4/4 inch thick.

Boards after going thru the planer.

All boards are planed but still have the live edge. Each has beautiful character and great color, the center of the boards are the traditional walnut color, toward the live edge is the sap wood which is cream in color.

I set-up my table saw jig to cut the boards to the maximum width minimizing waste but removing the live edge. I will try to save as much of the sap wood are possible as I think it will add character to the step stool.

Once I had all four sides of all the boards milled, I measured, marked out a rough draft layout for each cut based on my design. Set-up the table saw and I made rough oversized cuts for each piece see picture above, final cuts will me made as I progress. Then each piece was ran thru the jointer to true the edges.

The boards will need to acclimate over night. Before continuing tomorrow I will check each piece for cupping.

Next post: layout the top step and the stretcher using my adjustable French curve and cutting both to final size.

Time spent today on Part I: 1 hour and 35 minutes.

Next Post:
Walnut Step Stool: Part II
Walnut Step Stool: Park III
Walnut Step Stool: Part IV

Previous Post:
Walnut Slabs
Walnut Wood Gloat

Making Wood Conditioner

Making Wood Conditioner to care for all your wood kitchen items

For those of us that love using wood in the kitchen, wood cutting boards, spoons, spatulas, rolling pins and all those other utensils taking care of them can be challenging. The best solution is to use mineral oil and beeswax mixture for reviving, conditioning and protecting your wood items. It will keep wood items from drying out and make them look great again. My Wood Conditioner is very popular for use on wooden spoons, sometimes called wooden spoon wax.

With a purchase of wood kitchen wares from my shop I include a 2 ounce tin of Wood Conditioner. It has been a huge hit and many write to me requesting more.

I began making my wood conditioner years ago, sometimes called wood butter or spoon butter, or Bees oil for all my cutting boards that I make in the shop. I would make a good amount in a large jar and use it as I needed it. When someone purchased one of my cutting boards, they would always ask me how should I care for my cutting board. This year I began making up tins of my beeswax finish to sell and give away when someone buys a board.

It is wonderful for all your wood when they start looking dry. My Wood Conditioner penetrates wooden bowls, wooden utensils, cutting boards, rolling bins and more. Prevents drying and cracking, removes knife marks adding a soft lustrous finish.

I purchase the beeswax from a local source and the food grade mineral oil from the local pharmacy.

 

After melting the wax and adding the oil I add the Wood Conditioner to the tins. You can see the first tins I did are starting to get firm. When it is firm and cooled I put the lids on then add a label to the top and a label with directions to the bottom.

I include a tin of my Wood Conditioner with each cutting board that I ship. The Wood Conditioner is a nice gift or surprise to someone’s package. Then I know their wood will look great for many years.

My wood conditioner will keep your boards looking great.

To order, go to my Cutting Board Conditioner page.

Click picture to view more about my Cutting Boards!!

Beautiful Cheese Boards

Double Handle Cutting Board

Board Butter will protect all your boards, spoons, all wood items and help seal your cast iron skillets if applied when skillet is cold.

Directions for using Wood Conditioner:
All you need to do is apply sparingly in a circular motion using a dry soft cloth or paper towel. A little goes a long way. Let sit for an hour or so and buff using a clean soft cloth. The mineral oil soaks into the wood to condition it while the beeswax seals the oil into the wood and helps to keep the moisture out.

My Work