sealing wood toys

[KJoslyn78]

What's the best thing to use to seal wood toys? Specifically for wood cars.

A friend of mine got a bunch of unfinished wood cars from Oriental trading company for her kids, but they are too small since she has an infant still... so she is giving them to me for my high school best friend, who has no money for Christmas this year due to some issues at home. So i and a few other friends are stepping up and trying to get a few things each for the boys.

they are completely unfinished, made for painting - but i wanted to keep them plain.

Thanks!!

[cristeen]

That depends on what you want to seal them from. To completely seal them, you'd use a varnish or polyurethane of some kind. But that stuff is fairly toxic.

To protect the wood and help keep it "healthy", you can rub beeswax or tung oil into it. These are actually safe for a kid to put in their mouth. Some of the natural toy sellers sell their preferred rubs. Check Nova Naturals for their beeswax polish.

[KJoslyn78]

i might see if i can find something local... i'm not sure if i have time to wait for nova, etc to ship to me, before i need to ship them to her.. but i will check it out though - thanks!

[njsummer01]

Another mama on here (sorry I forget who it was) recommended melting beeswax and mineral oil together, letting it harden, and then using that as a wax. We've done it and it works great.

[KJoslyn78]

Where can someone buy beeswax??

[PumpkinSeeds]

My son has some handmade wooden swords that were finished with linseed oil and they smell soo good. My son loves to sniff his swords.

[operamommy]

My dh always uses mineral oil on the wooden toys he makes.

Tung oil is nice, but if you're pregnant don't use it - preggo ladies can't be around it. Or at least, the kind dh has used in the past wasn't; he built a stair rail for our basement steps and I had to be out of the house for a bit.

[Eclectica]

I posted a ton of wood finish info on this "natural wood finishes" thread:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=801461

Mineral oil is by far the easiest to find (and cheapest) option if you need to get them done fast.

KJoslyn78 not sure where you are, but they sell beeswax chunks at local health food stores. I've even seen it at Whole Foods. I get mine in bulk from a beekeeper.

[Baby Hopes]

Anybody know anything about butcher block oil? I saw it at Lowes the other day and Dh wanted to buy it to finish some doll cradles we're making. I looked at the ingredient list and it's a bunch of long, unpronounceable ingredients. But considering it's for butcher blocks... shouldn't it be relatively safe? It didn't look any more or less safe than tung oil. At least from an uneducated cursory read of ingredients.

[MamaJamie]

When my husband makes toys for ds he uses salad bowl (oil or finish?...I forget) that we got at Rockler. As PP mentioned about the butcher block stuff, we figured if it was safe for the wooden bowls we eat out of, it's probably safe for toy trucks!