What finish to use on wood cutting board without it turning yellow?

Use only food safe mineral oil. Others use linseed oil or "salad bowl" finish which can be found at Home Depot and Lowes, but they are expensive!! You can buy the same amount of mineral oil at your local grocery store for a tenth of the cost.

How to use mineral oil:

Put the cutting board on top of a sheet of aluminum foil covered by paper towels. Apply a large amount of mineral oil to all surfaces and rub it into the wood grain. You will start to see some parts of the cutting board become dry (it soaked it up). Keep on rubbing it down and apply some more oil and let it sit for a couple of hours. Keep on doing this until the wood cannot absorb anymore mineral oil. Wash the board with some light detergent and wipe dry. If you did this right, you should see some mineral oil start to release from the board. This is normal and all you need to do is wipe it off. This will happen for a few days and will stop.

Hope this helps

Many people use linseed oil for this purpose.

I assume the wood is well sanded.

When I do it, I use raw linseed oil and for the first coat, I thin it about 1:1 with paint thinner and I coat the wood; it will soak in, the thinner will rapidly evaporate, the linseed oil will soak in and it will start to cross link. It will feel wet and oily for at least a week. If you can put it outdoors in the sun so it gets heated, the cross linking happens faster. Do not put in an oven or similar heating device; heat lamps that do not raise surface temp over about 40 degrees C - 102 degrees F will work but watch out for overheating.

After the first coat is dry to touch (fully cross linked), I usually fine sand if needed and apply a coat of undiluted linseed oil and let it cross link as before.

If it needs a third coat I then apply it after light sanding.

I apply the linseed oil by rubbing it with an old rag that I toss out when done. Careful! the oil soaked rag can spontaneously start to burn.

I strongly recommend all coating be done outside with good ventilation.

Do not apply a coat of linseed oil until the previous coat is completely cured and dry.

Experienced woodworkers only use mineral oil for cutting boards. It is inert, will not turn rancid and can be purchased at any drug store.

Linseed oil can have additives and tends to be very sticky.

I have done numerous cutting boards and one large butcher block chefs table using mineral oil.

You can buy it from Rockler but that just makes it more expensive

You DON'T finish the cutting surface on a hardwood cutting board.

Mineral oil Nothing else

cutting board for food,.. don't use anything toxic..

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