I did a search and didn't find anything about this. Maybe I don't know what
I'm doing with the "Find" button, but here goes. I have some poplar, red
oak, pecan, and cherry. I want to make a stirring paddle for big pots of
food. Which one or more will make a good paddle that won't ruin the food?
Thanks in advance for your help.

In article ,
"Rick Spivey" wrote:

I did a search and didn't find anything about this. Maybe I don't know what
I'm doing with the "Find" button, but here goes. I have some poplar, red
oak, pecan, and cherry. I want to make a stirring paddle for big pots of
food. Which one or more will make a good paddle that won't ruin the food?
Thanks in advance for your help.

No direct experience with pecan - suspect it might be fine considering
woods it's similar to. Poplar - cottonwood/popple or yellow/tulip?
Popple at least should be fine, albeit weak and prone to rotting. Cherry
should be fine, might leach a tiny bit, but not be obnoxious.

I would avoid the red oak - it stinks, I suspect that would get into the
food. White oak should be fine - closed pores, and barrels are made from
it.

Traditional spoon wood in these parts is maple and birch - nice bland
tasteless woods. Also fine-grained, not prone to splintering and
splitting, good if you eat from the spoon, or lick the paddle.

Most wood toxicity lists are concerned with reactions to the dust, etc
when turning, but that may be at least a pointer to woods to avoid for
food. Here's a couple of links on that front.

http://old.mendelu.cz/~horacek/toxic.htm

http://www.awwg.org/awg_woodtoxicity.htm

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

Of those choices I would pick the poplar and cherry. In fact I would pick
them as choices regardless. I have never used pecan and red oak is not my
favorite for spoons and such. By the way, a spatula is better suited for
your purposes.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS Canada
http://aroundthewoods.com
http://roundopinions.blogspot.com
"Rick Spivey" wrote in message
. ..
I did a search and didn't find anything about this. Maybe I don't know
what I'm doing with the "Find" button, but here goes. I have some poplar,
red oak, pecan, and cherry. I want to make a stirring paddle for big pots
of food. Which one or more will make a good paddle that won't ruin the
food? Thanks in advance for your help.

In article ,
Ecnerwal wrote:

In article ,
"Rick Spivey" wrote:

I did a search and didn't find anything about this. Maybe I don't know
what
I'm doing with the "Find" button, but here goes. I have some poplar, red
oak, pecan, and cherry. I want to make a stirring paddle for big pots of
food. Which one or more will make a good paddle that won't ruin the food?
Thanks in advance for your help.

No direct experience with pecan - suspect it might be fine considering
woods it's similar to. Poplar - cottonwood/popple or yellow/tulip?
Popple at least should be fine, albeit weak and prone to rotting. Cherry
should be fine, might leach a tiny bit, but not be obnoxious.

I would avoid the red oak - it stinks, I suspect that would get into the
food. White oak should be fine - closed pores, and barrels are made from
it.

Traditional spoon wood in these parts is maple and birch - nice bland
tasteless woods. Also fine-grained, not prone to splintering and
splitting, good if you eat from the spoon, or lick the paddle.

Beech is a classic.

Butternut will work well -- the sap is edible.


Most wood toxicity lists are concerned with reactions to the dust, etc
when turning, but that may be at least a pointer to woods to avoid for
food. Here's a couple of links on that front.

http://old.mendelu.cz/~horacek/toxic.htm

http://www.awwg.org/awg_woodtoxicity.htm

I have made and use a lot of homemade "treenware". Any really closed
grain moderately hard wood is up for grabs. I stay away from most
nutwoods and most ash as they have those damn tubes. We have a lot of
pecan around here, so it gets used for other things. I have a yellow
pine spatula that I made years ago that is almost indestructible.

That being said, one of my best spatulas is made from an exceptionally
tight grained piece of white oak. Most will tell you to stay away
from oak, but this little piece I had was too good to burn in my
smoker. I don't know where it came from, but the growth rings in the
piece I got were just about a pencil lead in thickness apart. Hard
and tight, the spatula I made from it has been exceptionally hard
working and has seen an awful lot of meals in the last few years.

Just make sure the grain is tight on your subject and you should do
fine with about any wood except the heavily grained woods.

Robert

"Rick Spivey" wrote in message
. ..
I did a search and didn't find anything about this. Maybe I don't know
what I'm doing with the "Find" button, but here goes. I have some poplar,
red oak, pecan, and cherry. I want to make a stirring paddle for big pots
of food. Which one or more will make a good paddle that won't ruin the
food? Thanks in advance for your help.
Cherry. Open grain woods might sequester some bacteria in their pores.
Yellow poplar, which is what a guy with pecan probably means by "poplar,"
might do fine.

Any close-grain wood should do. I've made thousands of cherry utensils over
the years, a few yellow birch or beech, as well as the odd apple. Maple
looks ugly if you let it soak, so I don't use it often. I made, years back,
a bunch out of a fallen tamarack, sap and all. Microwaved them over paper
to clear them, and still have one. Date on the handle is '98, and still
surviving.

Have fun by turning a big spurtle, or carve something more whimsical.
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...onDiagonal.jpg

You want to use a tight grain wood.


On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 19:56:43 -0500, "Rick Spivey"
wrote:

I did a search and didn't find anything about this. Maybe I don't know what
I'm doing with the "Find" button, but here goes. I have some poplar, red
oak, pecan, and cherry. I want to make a stirring paddle for big pots of
food. Which one or more will make a good paddle that won't ruin the food?
Thanks in advance for your help.

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:21:00 -0800, wrote:

You want to use a tight grain wood.


On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 19:56:43 -0500, "Rick Spivey"
wrote:

I did a search and didn't find anything about this. Maybe I don't know what
I'm doing with the "Find" button, but here goes. I have some poplar, red
oak, pecan, and cherry. I want to make a stirring paddle for big pots of
food. Which one or more will make a good paddle that won't ruin the food?
Thanks in advance for your help.


Beech is a very good choice for kitchen woodenware. Supposedly, beech
will not impart any taste to the food.

"Phisherman" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:21:00 -0800, wrote:

You want to use a tight grain wood.


On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 19:56:43 -0500, "Rick Spivey"
wrote:

I did a search and didn't find anything about this. Maybe I don't know
what
I'm doing with the "Find" button, but here goes. I have some poplar, red
oak, pecan, and cherry. I want to make a stirring paddle for big pots of
food. Which one or more will make a good paddle that won't ruin the
food?
Thanks in advance for your help.


Beech is a very good choice for kitchen woodenware. Supposedly, beech
will not impart any taste to the food.

I knew they made airplanes -- are they making kitchenware too?