Step 6 of the process
Finish and repair
Figures are sealed and painted with thinned acrylics, or simply oiled or waxed. Spoons get an oil that suits food contact. Cracks from drying are repaired with glue and prevented by drying more slowly.
- Figures
- oil, wax, or thinned acrylic paint
- Spoons
- food-grade mineral oil, or a drying oil fully cured
A carving does not need a finish to be done, but bare wood picks up dirt from handling. The common routes are an oil or wax that leaves the wood looking natural, or thinned acrylic paint over a sealed surface for painted figures. How to finish a wood carving compares the options and gives the order of the steps.
A spoon that touches food gets a different treatment. Food-grade mineral oil never hardens and has to be renewed. Drying oils such as pure tung oil and raw linseed oil harden in the wood but need time: pure tung oil takes about 15 to 30 days to cure fully. Walnut oil is a nut product, which matters for anyone with a nut allergy. Food-safe finish for carved spoons has the table.
Cracks are a drying problem, not a finishing one. They open when wood loses moisture too fast, mostly from the end grain. Small cracks are glued and clamped or filled with glue and fine sawdust of the same wood, and a broken part is glued back along the break. How to fix cracks in a wood carving sorts the repairs by crack type.
Ready to move on when: The finish is dry to the touch, and on a spoon a drying oil has had its full cure time before first use.
Common mistakes at this stage
- Using a spoon before a drying oil has cured.
- Leaving oil-soaked rags in a pile: rags wet with drying oils can self-heat, so lay them flat to dry.
- Filling a crack while the wood is still drying, so it opens again.