April 15, 2019 - 2:27am
oak table for small bakery
ive been offered a large heavy oak table for a small bakery im setting up - id love to have a wood table as opposed to a stainless steel one however im wondering if an oak table is suitable and how best to treat it etc.
Any advice?
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What kind of purpose(s) were you considering for the table?
If I was planning a bakery and was offered a heavy oak table, I'd want to impress the customers, not just myself - the table would be for elegantly displaying today's featured products, not for kneading dough (and having to figure out how to safely sanitize without damaging the table).
Most butcher block tables I have seen are made from hard maple but there is nothing wrong with oak theoretically speaking. Make sure it hasn't been treated with some sort of urethane finish or non-food safe penetrating oil. Typically bakery tables are simply treated with mineral oil. If they get too beat up they can be planed, sanded and re-treated with mineral oil. All you have to do is put a large amount of mineral oil on the table and allow it to sit and soak for 5 minutes or so and then wipe off the excess oil...
thanks for the info - ive been offered it as the woman who owns the building wants to get rid of it....its a dining table so i was wondering what i might need to do to make it suitable....perhaps i should get it planed, sanded and treated?
and I think you would find it will be very difficult to clean. You could lay on layer after layer of varnish to fill in the grain and protect it but as much as I love wooden tables, I would forgo.
I couple of years ago I turned a beautiful piece of walnut into a rolling pin, along with another of maple. I was so excited to use the walnut one on for the first time. Then I saw how it had bits of dough embedded into the grain, even though I had sanded it with 400 grit paper to a remarkably smooth state. It now sits and looks beautiful, but never used. The maple one is awesome. Hard as a rock and closed grained. Never fails to clean perfectly.
Shit. Thought I’d get a wooden table to knead on ? ok. Thanks for the advice. Maybe back to the steel table.
I think by asking your question you may have saved yourself one of those "It seemed like a good idea at the time" type of regrets.
I believe that as part of the display "out front" it could conceivably even boost your sales, by making your work look even more elegant than it is. And if that turned out to be true... well, furniture that even MIGHT increase profits just by sitting there is pretty special, you'd have to admit. ?
If he sees the language you're using ???
???