this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
147 points (98.0% liked)

Dull Men's Club

2992 readers
93 users here now

An unofficial chapter of the popular Dull Men's Club.

https://dullmensclub.com/

1. Relevant commentary on your own dull life. Posts should be about your own dull, lived experience. This is our most important rule. Direct questions, random thoughts, comment baiting, advice seeking, many uses of "discuss" rarely comply with this rule.

2. Original, Fresh, Meaningful Content.

3. Avoid repetitive topics.

4. This is not a search engine
Use a search engine, a tradesperson, Reddit, friends, a specialist Facebook group, apps, Wikipedia, an AI chat, a reverse image search etc. to answer simple questions or identify objects. Also see rule 1, “comment baiting”.

There are a number of content specific communities with subject matter experts who can help you.

Some other communities to consider before posting:

5. Keep it dull. If it puts us to sleep, it’s on the right track. Examples of likely not dull: jokes, gross stuff (including toes), politics, religion, royalty, illness or injury, killing things for fun, or promotional content. Feel free to post these elsewhere.

6. No hate speech, sexism, or bullying No sexism, hate speech, degrading or excessively foul language, or other harmful language. No othering or dehumanizing of anyone or negativity towards any gender identity.

7. Proofread before posting. Use good grammar and punctuation. Avoid useless phrases. Some examples: - starting a post with "So" - starting a post with pointless phrases, like "I hope this is allowed" or “this is my first post” Only share good quality, cropped images. Do not share screenshots of images; share the original image.

.

founded 11 months ago
MODERATORS
 

I had a cutting board made from some nice wood, but which was starting to lose its bright appearance.

A bit of research later, and I get some food-safe mineral oil and wax to restore the surface. Long story short, I was so impressed by how my cutting board came back to life, now I'm looking for any excuse to touch up all the wood in our house. I don't even mind if I clean the cutting board and wash off some of the wax, because then I have an excuse to apply another layer. There's something fun about buffing and polishing a surface.

I'm thinking of getting into woodworking just so I can do this more. I don't even really want to make anything, just apply a bunch of tung oil to a random plank and then wax it to a shine.

top 41 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] hactar42@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My wife would love if I did this to her cutting boards. You mind sharing what oils and wax you used?

[–] CrackedLinuxISO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I got a mixture called "Butcher block conditioner" for food-safe surfaces, and another called "Feed-n-wax" for surfaces that don't touch food.

[–] hactar42@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago
[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I made bbq from scratch a couple days ago. I'm talking boiling the tomatoes down with garlic and onions, brown sugar, fermented tamarinds, little liquid smoke. It's silly but I enjoyed myself.

[–] sneekee_snek_17@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

Try the barbecue pork shoulder recipe from serious eats, it's UNBELIEVABLE

[–] Buffalobuffalo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I find polishing my wood a few too many times in close frequency gives me soreness of the shoulders and elbow. Doing a little jerking off first can help loosen up for the important bits.

Whats your tung oil routine?

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Also using shampoo on my wood makes it burn like a motherfucker.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 2 points 2 days ago

Clean Energy!

[–] prex@aussie.zone 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Solid advice.
This is why I came to lemmy.

[–] Makhno@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

This is why I came to lemmy.

nice

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I have a bunch of magnets and I want to put bumpers on them for protection, and make some kind of sliding puck game. Could this technique shine up something and make it slippery like a shuffleboard surface?

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 24 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I love doing this to random items.

I loathe doing this to the deck outside.

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why is the deck different?

[–] jimerson@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The gratification is not as instant.

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

Weak initial dopamine hit. It’s a certain fail.

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I've never conditioned any wood before. Why is the deck not as instant gratification?

[–] jimerson@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

It just takes much more work and time to complete the job! Something relatively smaller, like a cutting board, can be done quicker.

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't know, sanding it takes days for starters.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

I have a friend who was refinishing and sanding his deck.

Between starting and finishing the sanding, his neighbour tore down and installed a whole new deck. He said he had never felt like such a chump.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Have you been introduced to cast iron?

If not, I think you’ll enjoy it.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Oh yesssss. Get middling quality cast iron, grind it flat, and reseason. A couple of hours of work and you have primo quality cast iron cookware.

Also: you can clean cast iron with soap.

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well, that's an instant subscribe. Thx!

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What do you use to grind it flat? Mines got some crators I'd like to get rid of and didnt know this was an option.

[–] IMALlama@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

A random orbit palm sander, or really any other sander that's round, will do just fine.

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

As someone that's been doing woodworking for the last couple of years: buy a pack of sandpaper of various grits to smooth and watco natural or medium walnut color danish oil to finish. Will cost you like $40 on Amazon or at a hardware store, but will let you see how you like the hobby without having to learn a ton. If you like it, get a saw and a 2x4 and make some simple little household object like a key hook or poop knife. Once you've started making handy little things for yourself, you'll get sucked in and develop a nuanced taste in glues and sandpaper while spending all of your money on the "one more tool I need" and growing to fully occupy all space in the garage. The custom furniture is a nice plus.

[–] jaek@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Is a poop knife what it sounds like?

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago

Do you not have a poop knife at your house?

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago

No, it's a specific type of croquet hammer. Don't worry about it.

[–] phtheven@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] jaek@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Join us over at woodworking@lemmy.ca, which seems to be the place for woodworking on the fediverse.

[–] Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio 7 points 2 days ago

Get you some quality wood handled tools. If it has that shiny slick varnish whatever on the handle, scrape that shit off with a sharp knife and season the fuck out of those handles!

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 8 points 2 days ago

I've got a bunch of wooden utensils I need to do this to. I'm more of a wax/oil paste guy myself though. Guess I know what I'm up to tomorrow afternoon

[–] adhocfungus@midwest.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

See if there is a woodworker you can team up with. Sanding and finishing is loathed and dreaded by us, at least in my carpentry circle. We want the cutting and glueing and clamping jobs.

I don't really mind sanding, I tend to put on some headphones and zone out. It can be a lot on big jobs. Planing and scraping can reduce the amount of sanding you need to do.

I often look forward to the process of at least starting the finish because I like watching the grain pop out.

But yes shortly after vacuuming sanding is probably the first major task I'd assign to an apprentice.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 7 points 2 days ago

Wait till you discover conditioning leather

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago

Agreed. Did my wood knife handles recently. Gotta do my spatulas, maybe some spoons even.

[–] Darohan@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are you me? This is blow-for-blow exactly what has happened to me over the last year or so. I am hanging on by a thread against the desire to get into woodworking, someone send help.

I've been woodworking for a few years, I've been tempted to start a Peertube channel about it, and I'd be tempted to do woodworking for beginners kind of content.

I have a background in flight instruction, I work well when I have a student to work with, would you (or @CrackedLinuxISO@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) be interested in somehow collaborating on something like that? Record some shop-to-shop video calls or something?

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

What wax did you use?