# Burrs on wood cutting boards



## Sohona (May 26, 2020)

Anyone has experience with wooden boards? I bought a new Walnut wood board for my bread. After one wash, I realise the wood became red spiky with lotsa burrs. Its never the clean smooth board I brought home. Any idea what went wrong? How can I make it nice and smooth again like store bought?


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## peachcreek (Sep 21, 2001)

The board can be carefully sanded with 220 grit sandpaper, then oiled with mineral oil. 
Hope this helps.


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## galley swiller (May 29, 2013)

When you washed the wood, water entered the capillaries and that cause the expansion. The only way to restore the surface is to set the board aside for several days until the water evaporates off, allowing the surface to subside. Pray that the wood won't split from the water. If it does split, then there's no effective way to repair it and you'll need a new board.

Once the wood smooths out, then apply mineral oil to the board, and lather it on until the wood won't absorb more immediately. Because your board looks like an edge grain board, be sure you really slather on a lot of oil into the exposed capillaries in the ends of your board, Set the board aside for half a day (until the wood from the previous oiling is absorbed) and do the back side. Don't wipe any oil off - your goal is to saturate the board with oil. Do all of this for at least 5 to 6 heavy oiling cycles.

To keep my costs down, I buy my mineral oil where I can find it cheapest - in my case (here in the western USA ), from off-the-shelves of the pharmacy area of a grocery store. The product is no different from the fancy specialty knife retailers, but it's vastly cheaper. Avoid any vegetable or non-mineral oils - they will simply turn rancid with oxidation.

I have to disagree with using sandpaper - all you will do is scour out the soft pith wood inbetween the ridges of the wood year grains. If you need to resurface a wood board, take it to a woodworking shop and have the shop run the board through a planer.

Galley Swiller


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## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

peachcreek said:


> The board can be carefully sanded with 220 grit sandpaper, then oiled with mineral oil.
> Hope this helps.


To amplify... this is good and well-established woodworking 101 advise. Interpret "carefully" as VERY LIGHT in the direction of the grain. All you want to do is knock down the raised grain, not re-sand the board. A scraper is the alternative but that's a bit more of an advanced technique.


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