Thread: Kitchen benchtop finish

Danish Oil is the stuff we use and formulated to to the job.

If you are looking for a penetrating oil that you can touch up and reapply without sanding back then one suggesstion would be the Livos Kunos counter top oil. it is food safe and heat resistant to 50 degrees so coffee cups etc. If you do decide to give it a try dont sand the timber too finely as it needs to penetrate and not sit on top. you can always achieve the finer finish by sanding with a finer grit prior to the appliction of the next coat.
If there is timber between the bench top and splash back, you can use the same product. decant any left over product to keep for rejuvenation puposes.

Hi Reprint,

Another product you could try would be Organoil Hard Burnishing Oil.
Food safe, heat and moisture resistant.

Here's my method,
First sand to 400g, then wipe down with Turps. Let the piece dry and saturate with HBO. Allow to soak in for about 15-20 minutes, then add another coat, fairly thick. Start sanding (Random Orbital Sander) straight away. You will notice a slurry start to form as you sand. This is good. It fills the grain while you finish the piece!
I usually go up and back along the grain for about 8 reps. Change the sanding pad to something higher (600, 800g) then repeat sanding.
Then move up to something higher (1000, 1200g) and repeat.
If you want, you can go higher still. I use grits up to 4000. Wipe down with a clean dry cotton cloth. You should have a silky reflective finish with great grain pattern visible.
Important: Do not wipe the slurry off during the sanding process. If the sanding leaves the work piece dry, you can damp down the sanding pad with oil. Don't put any further oil onto the work piece surface.

Give it a try on a scrap piece of timber and make any personal mods you think are necessary. Remember that ambient temp and humidity will change the time needed for the oil to soak into the wood.


Regards,

Rob

So the above options are fine if you want the natural finish of a penetrative oil and are happy to regularly re-oil it. For a harder wearing finish that will protect the timber more and require less maintenance, use a water based floor polyurethane like cabots CFP water based.

A floor coating will be way more hard wearing than the oils mentioned above and less work.

The trouble with poly on kitchen bench tops is that wear areas or any scratch let moisture penetrate the finish and cause it to flake and peel. Then you have to remove the entire finish to start again. The great thing with the oil finishes is that any little bits of damage blend in and big bits of damage can be repaired with a quick rub over with abrasive and a bit more oil.

I agree Len. But it would take A LOT of wear to reduce a bench top to that condition. I'd say bench tops usually get significantly less wear than floors - and even in high traffic areas you get many years from a flooring poly.

I guess if you didn't have a cutting board and were continually slicing the bench, then oiling would be the best option.

I took the middle path with my own bench tops and used a varnish that can be easily rubbed back and re applied. As you know with poly there is no such thing as a minor repair and I can't imagine a kitchen top that doesn't get the occasional knife dropped on it or hot frypan.
Benches that I did 25 years ago with oil ended up almost black but I think the formula has improved since then.
But just yesterday I was looking at a friends red ironbark benchtops which were done with hard burnishing oil two years ago and they look really good with fresh bright colour and warm wood grain surface.
I,ve got a set of kitchen and laundry tops coming up this year so I have been thinking about it a bit. I guess I will go with the hard burnishing oil this time, the main decider being that any wear will blend in and over time develop into character/patina. Whereas my dining table I did with mirror finish poly and now in the morning sunlight every little scratch is written on the surface, so much that I will have to refinish it (this time with HBO)