Is liberon "woodturners lathe polish" foodsafe?

[nathansmith]

Hi, like the title suggests, found a tin of the liberon wood turners polish, shellac based, and wondered how foodsafe it was. Heresthe link http://www.liberon.co.uk/woodturning/wo ... kmfA%3D%3D
Icouldntget anything from the data sheets but im useless when itcomes to knowing what the chemical breakdown etc is. Any help is much appreciated, nathan

 

[Glynne]

I would be inclined to go for a finish that specifically states that it is food safe, rather than something that doesn't make mention of it. You can probably assume it isn't highly toxic as that isn't mentioned, but it could still be harmful so I'd err on the side of caution.

 

[AndyT]

There are lots of older posts about safe finishes, many of them going round in circles.

I suspect that it's easy to accidentally ask for more than we need. For a manufacturer to sell a finish as 'food safe' needs a lot of expensive testing, not only of the cured finish itself, but of the finish in contact with a wide variety of common foodstuffs. Some long established finishes are perfectly ok but cannot be sold as such without the maker paying for the official testing and certification.

I thought this thread was more informative than many, distinguishing "food safe" from "toy safe": https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums...fe-have-any-food-safe-implication-t71534.html

If I were you, I would think about what the item is, how it will be used, and how long it will stay in contact with anything. I'd also tell myself that the shellac on which your turner's polish is based is safe enough to eat (according to http://www.shellac.net/information.html it's used on foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals intended to be eaten) and that the alcohol solvent will all have evaporated by the time your bowl or whatever is in use.