Solid Acacia Chopping Board

Details

A board thick enough to stay flat and soft enough to keep an edge. Solid plantation acacia, Acacia mangium, kiln dried to 10 percent moisture and laminated at the staves into a 30 mm edge-grain slab. Three things decide whether a wooden board is honest and only one of them is visible in a photograph. The glue is the first and it is the one nobody prints. A board is glued along every stave, and the cheap adhesive for that job is urea-formaldehyde: it costs less, it emits formaldehyde, and it fails when the board is soaked, which is why delaminated boards are so common. This one is a PVAc dispersion to EN 204 D3, with no added formaldehyde, and the glue lines are emission tested to EN 717-1 below the 0.1 ppm E1 threshold. The second is the core, because a thin acacia skin over a particle board or MDF core is sold as solid wood constantly and only shows itself when the edge swells. This is solid timber right through and the weight proves it. The third is grain direction, and here we are going to disappoint the photograph. This is edge grain, not end grain. End grain is kinder to a blade and closes over its own cuts, and it needs two to three times the timber and many times the glue line area, and it splits if it is left standing in water. At 30 mm and this price, edge grain is what can honestly be delivered, so that is what is written.

• Solid Acacia mangium, plantation, no particle core and no veneer over one
• Edge grain, stated plainly rather than left for a close-up photograph to imply otherwise
• 30 mm through, kiln dried to 10 percent moisture at packing
• PVAc dispersion adhesive to EN 204 D3, no added formaldehyde, glue lines tested to EN 717-1 under the 0.1 ppm E1 threshold
• Finished with pharmacopoeial white mineral oil and beeswax, and the oil is MOAH tested, because technical-grade paraffin sold as food safe is the shortcut here
• No lacquer and no varnish, so the surface can always be sanded and re-oiled instead of being replaced
• Density about 700 kg per cubic metre, which is where the weights come from: 40 x 28 x 3 cm is 3,360 cc and 2.4 kg, 50 x 35 x 3 cm is 5,250 cc and 3.8 kg. Multiply it out yourself
• Juice groove on one face, flat on the other. Recessed side handles, no metal parts to rust
• Wood is kinder to a knife than glass, stone or steel, all of which blunt an edge in a few strokes
• It must not go in a dishwasher and must not be soaked. Wash both faces so it dries evenly, and stand it on edge
• It will darken, and it will take knife marks. Sand it lightly and re-oil it and it comes back, which is the one repair a plastic board does not have