[speakspokespok]

Could you deep fry the spoons in your oil of choice? Imagine a commercial fry cook from a fast food restaurant. The heat would open the wood pores there by removing moisture content replaced with penetrant from the oil bath. Remove, let cool, and wipe off. In theory I don't believe there's anything wrong with the idea.

[coryrc]

Deep frying works well when the oil is held well above water's boiling point, keeping excessive amounts of oil from soaking in because steam escaping from the food keeps excessive oil from entering. That doesn't work with wood.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

That's exactly why it will work great, allowing deep oil penetration, no?

[coryrc]

Aha, I think I get the confusion. Deep oil penetration is easy. The problem is not filling every pore (void) with resin. I mean, you can do that if you want, look up PEG https://www.rockler.com/polyethylene-glycol-peg-green-wood-s...

But usually you don't want to. The pores and void structures are part of what makes wood, wood. If you managed to fill everything with polymers then what you have is cellulose-fiber-reinforced plastic and not really what people mean when they talk about "wood". (Wood being a tangled, but directed mess of cellulose fibers lightly glued with lignin)

What you're trying to do with finishes is coat the surfaces with just a little more even of a layer of polymer; that includes the pores too, but just their surface and not their volume. Wood had good wicking action and will evenly distribute oil (or water) on its own. If you tried deep frying, you don't have enough time for the oil to evenly distribute.