Yet another finish question

[Dan Stromberg]

Good morning!

I have followed many of the finishing discussions over the years, so I understand the debates over food safety in finishes. (I usually come down on the side of "if in doubt, why risk it", but that is just me.) This project, though has a couple of wrinkles that has thrown me for a loop.... I would like to turn a plate and then have my daughter decorate it (somehow) and then be able to safely use the plate for incidental food contact. I have archival ink pens and a small collection of woodburning nibs. I also have access to a laser engraver at the local library if I choose to go that route. What sort of finish would you use in this case? My concern is both having the ink from the decorations bleed and also ending up with something that is safe to put food on. The bleed concern leads me to think a spray finish is easiest, but I'm not sure what spray finishes I'd feel comfortable eating off of.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!
Dan

 

[Steve Tiedman]

Any spray finish from a store-bought shaker can will have the added chemicals of propellants. I've never seen a can that says compressed air is the propellant, but then air would cure the finish in the can... Not sure why simple inert gasses aren't used as propellants, such as argon or nitrogen.

But, as store-bought sprays go, shellac comes to mind first as a food safe top coat over the artwork. But with a good cure time (meaning 30 days for me), spray polyurethane is fine. Lots of plastics are already in our kitchens, holiday cookies on a poly-coated plate would be perfectly healthy for me.

You may want to make sure the solvents and propellants in the spray finish don't adversely affect the inks and paints, do some test pieces on a board first. You and your daughter, have fun!

 

[William Rogers]

It the plate will be subject to cutting a film finish would not be recommended. Watco butcher block oil would be ok for cutting, but you would need to do some test on the ink used to see if it is affected. For film finishes, I like Waterlox (wipe on) as the mfg states it is food safe. Also polyurethane (spray) or shellac is considered food safe, but not sure if the mfg states it. Again you need to test the ink with any of these. There are other finishes that state food safe, but I haven’t used them.

 

[Dan Stromberg]

Yep, no cutting will be done. I basically want to seal the ink in and not have to worry about incidental contact. I have both spray shellac and polyurethane, so I will give both a try! Got about three weeks to make it happen....

 

[Dean Center]

As noted, if you use ink, test the finish-ink response on something you don't care about. Long ago, I used to sign by turned objects in ink and have been through this. Many inks will run when exposed to the solvents in finishes. For example, alcohol is good at dissolving ink stains, and would be the main solvent in a shellac product. It's possible to cover the ink with a light coat of a spray protective film (fix-a-tif), such as artists use, to keep the ink from running when the finish goes on, but it's also possible for the fixatif to make the ink run.

You might be best off with the pyrography. Perhaps your daughter could do a design and then you plug it into the laser engraver. With pyrography, you could use whatever finish you like.