Hi Alun

I had something like that, though not as severe I think.
Friend of mine bought 2 salad/fruit bowls for his daughters wedding,
then about 3 years later he comes over one day, brings me some nice
yellow birch burl he had cut off and one of the bowls that he had
bought, and the question can you fix this up ??
As the story went, daughter and SIL had gone to a wedding and brought
back a bouquet of flowers and MIL who was baby sitting their little son
had set the flowers in the bowl with a generous amount of water, which
was discovered only days later, sure did a job to the looks of the bowl.
The bowl, made from burr oak, was not cracked or warped, only the color
had aged as I will call it G
So I put it on my lathe on the vacuum chuck, sanded it down a bid, then
polished it, and applied my oil finish on it again.
Told my friend that next time I would not fix it and keep the bowl.

Moral of the story, a well made bowl can stand a lot of abuse and a oil
finish can be applied again and again, not so easily with a damaged
lacquer, urethane etc. finish.
Olive oil, sunflower oil and tung oil are three finishes that are safe
and good finishes for turnings used with food.

Have fun and take care
Leo Van Der Loo

Alun wrote:

My wife sells a lot of my stuff at her workplace to co-workers, and as
it's coming up to Christmas she's on a sales offensive right now.
Someone who had been given a plate I made (about 12", ash with some
lovely swirling olive pieces in it) last year as a wedding present by
her colleagues asked her if I could "take a look at it for her", since
she had (accidentally?) put it in the dishwasher !!! I didn't hold out
much hope, but said to her to bring it in anyway and I'd see what I
could do. Well, the wife has just rung me to let me know that not only
has any semblance of a finish been comprehensively removed (presumably
by the dishwasher episode), but that she apparently uses it every day to
eat her breakfast off of!?! I've no idea what finish I applied at the
time, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't food safe If it's still
possible to get it onto the lathe I'll try and give it another sand, and
put some kind of food safe oil finish on it and give her instructions on
how to look after it, but I'm thinking it's beyond hope.

So, has anyone else had any similar experiences?