Bamboo

[jenni belle]

I just bought a beautiful 2" (or so) thick, round bamboo cutting board. (Which I love by the way!) Anyhow, I was just curious about it's care. Do I need to take any special precautions with it or treat it in any special way?

[chrose]

That's a good question, I wish I could help you. I post just to commiserate. My sister gave me one for the holidays last year and I haven't unwrapped it yet. It's too pretty to use so I keep it on display instead.

[hipjoint]

i have two of these boards (one i bought and the other was a gift) and not only are they beautiful, they are harder than maple and are great for chopping meat chinese style with two cleavers. they don't require a lot of care, but i do wash them under a hot faucet (never tried a dishwasher but why would you want to??) and have wiped them down once a month with the boos mystery wood oil and they are as beautiful as new.

my concern for the dishwasher is not the bamboo but the glue holding the whole thing together.

[mudbug]

Care for them the same way you would a wood cutting board.

Compared with wood boards, bamboo won't shrink or swell as much when exposed to water, and you won't need to apply oil as frequently. Regular rinsing with warm water and mild detergent and an occasional sweep of mineral oil are enough to keep the sheen intact. With proper care, a bamboo board will last at least 10 years.

www.realsimple.com

[corndogggy]

Mineral oil? I would have assumed that any cutting board would be as free as possible from any oils or stains or whatever due to fear that it would get into your food. We just bought a bamboo board but I have been thinking about making my own just because I love the checkerboard look, and I just like woodworking. If I made my own and have it shaped like I wanted to, what would I add on it before I use it, if anything, and how would I care for it later on?

[hipjoint]

Originally Posted by corndogggy

Mineral oil? I would have assumed that any cutting board would be as free as possible from any oils or stains or whatever due to fear that it would get into your food. We just bought a bamboo board but I have been thinking about making my own just because I love the checkerboard look, and I just like woodworking. If I made my own and have it shaped like I wanted to, what would I add on it before I use it, if anything, and how would I care for it later on?

there are already natural oils in the wood and any oil you add is only enough to replace the oils leeched out due to washing, hot water, etc. the oil also repels moisture (like chicken juice) from going into the wood and providing a new home for all sorts of nasty bits.
john boos, totally bamboo, and all the other makers of fine wooden cutting boards recommend using mineral oil to freshen up your boards. (olive oil, corn oil, safflower oil and all other organic ... as opposed to inorganic ... oils will tend to spoil. mineral oil, being inorganic, won't spoil)

[Mezzaluna]

But isn't bamboo, at least botanically, a grass?? It's woody, but not truly wood. I have a bamboo board and I do like it. I wash it with soap and hot water, but haven't needed to oil it yet. It doesn't have that dry look yet.

[corndogggy]

Yes, but it's still hard and woody enough to be able to make hardwood floors out of it. I assume that people like it if it's a little softer which I think it is. What I mean is that if you get a nicer chopping block, it's hardwood but the grains are up so that your knife won't be dulled as bad, the end grains will give a little. I assume that bamboo kind of does the same thing, preventing your good knives from getting dulled but I dunno.

[corndogggy]

FYI - if you have a T.J. Max nearby, they apparently can get the Tru-Bamboo boards, but the way that store works, there may not be the same deal in your town, it's all overstock and scratch and dent but I couldn't find any problems with these. Anyway, they are only like $10 each. Also found Wusthof and Henckels knives, All-Clad LTD pans for like $30 each, all kinds of crazy mess.

[MikeLM]

Originally Posted by corndogggy

Mineral oil? I would have assumed that any cutting board would be as free as possible from any oils or stains or whatever due to fear that it would get into your food. We just bought a bamboo board but I have been thinking about making my own just because I love the checkerboard look, and I just like woodworking. If I made my own and have it shaped like I wanted to, what would I add on it before I use it, if anything, and how would I care for it later on?

Doggy-

Rummage around on Google and you'll find some technical articles done by the Commercial Foodservice department at the U of Wiosconsin about cutting boards. They concluded wood boards were more sanitary tham plastic, since bacteria couldn't live on or slightly into the surface of wood. They specified mineral oil - the non-rancid thing. Making your own, you can use Titebond glue- it's FDA approved for food equipment use. No dishwasher, though.

You can use hard maple, or maybe mix with walnut or hickory laminations for artistic effect. You're gonna need a jointer, a thickness planer, a belt sander, and lots of clamps. (Remember what Norm always says!) Since it's your (cheap) labor, you might want to chop up short pieces and make an end-grain board, which is even classier than a face-grain one.

Have fun.

Mike

[corndogggy]

Yeah I figured I needed a bunch of clamps but I'm not sure about the other stuff. Lowe's has a bunch of hardwood in perfectly milled strips. Even if they don't have the exact wood that I want, I'm sure I can get it elsewhere. Putting the strips on a jointer is just going to make it worse than they were to begin with. Also, with a planer, the only thing I can think of that this would come in handy for is planing down the finished product. However, if I make an end-grain style, all of the wood will be facing up, and the planer would be going against the grain of the wood. As far as I know, you're not supposed to do this.

My plan is simply to buy a bunch of pre-milled hardwood strips, cut them all into identically long pieces such as 2" by using a jig on a miter saw with a fine blade, then glueing it all up on as flat as a surface as possible, route the edges with a rounding bit and possibly plunge route a groove around the edge by using a jig, then sand the crap out of it and put whatever oil I need to on it. Assuming that you used the edge of a board to clamp everything together, you really only need like 4 clamps, two for horizontally and two for vertically. There's no way that you could get enough clamps for every little square. Also another alternative is to surround the vertical pieces with horizontal pieces, kind of like a picture frame. This would make it much easier to plunge route a groove around the edge, just route it out before you glue it up.