Are Wooden Products Stained?

Recently, a customer at the Farmer's Market asked Kat if Rough Cut Product's wooden products were stained. Because that's quite a common question, we decided to add a short blog post to answer the question about how our products are finished.

Utensils:

After Kat finishes each of her wooden utensils, she pulls out her container of Dark Tung Oil. It's a combination of tung oil and citrus solvent.

Supposedly Marco Polo introduced tung oil to the West. It comes from the seed of tung trees which are native to southern China, Myanmar and northern Vietnam. The oil is a tough and highly water repellent coating and is a drying agent similar to linseed oil, safflower, walnut, soybean and other oils. It penetrates the wood well and slightly darkens the color of the wood. But it is not a stain.

The Citrus solvent part of the product is derived from lemon, orange, lime and grapefruit skins. In fact, when you hold one of Rough Cut Products utensils, you may even get a citrus-y aroma.

Kat uses two applications of the Dark Tung Oil on her utensils. And no stain!

Benches

Rough Cut Products benches are produced for indoor and outdoor use. After Anthony finishes the chainsawing, planing, sanding, chiseling, epoxying, and everything else, he is ready to complete them for use. Specifically, he first covers the benches with a tung oil, and then he finishes them off with a marine grade polyurethane to ensure they are ready for any weather. So he does not use stain on the benches either.

Tables

Anthony uses the same basic process for making his tables as with the benches, in terms of the chainsawing, planing, sanding, etc. However, his finishing process is different. He uses a product called Osmo Polyx Natural oils to seal the table. After two to three coats and some buffing, his tables are ready to go. So no stain on the tables either!

Summary

So the bottom line is, Rough Cut Products LLC does not use stain on any of their products. Since much of the wood comes from Larch, Rocky Mountain Maple, Douglas Fir trees on their property, no stain means the natural beauty of the wood shines through!

If you have any other questions you'd like us to cover, please let us know! We can be reached at roughcutproductsllc@gmail.com or via phone at 406-270-3667.