I purchased a beautiful 3-inch thick maple top that I want to use for a bench. It was stored in a garage for years with a bunch of cans of paint, varnish, motor oil, and god-knows-what-else stacked on it. Something leaked over a long period of time and some oily-gooey non-volatile stuff soaked into the wood in one 6×6 inch area. It can be wiped off the surface with solvents such as carburetor cleaner and paint thinner, but new material from deep inside the wood then diffuses out to the surface. I am not sure how deeply the stuff has penetrated, so I am not sure I could plane it out. I suppose I could wait for several years until all this stuff diffuses out, but does anyone have a better idea for getting rid of it? I could use the other side of the top, but it has the manufacturers logo burned into it and that would require considerable planing to remove.
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1. Wicking it out may speed things up. Place a wad of absorbent tissue over the stain and use a weight to press it down. Replace as necessary.
However I doubt that you will ever get it all out.
2. This would be more daring. There is a product called "Goddard's Stain Remover" for clothes. When sprayed onto fabric the solvent dries off and leaves a white powder which brushes off. Grease stains are drawn into the powder. It works very well on clothes.
Is the top flat enough to use as is or are you going to have to plane it anyway?
Top is very flat, although I plan to clean it up a bit once I master my hand plane skill. I will check out the wick method.
Can you turn it over?Gretchen
The manufacturer's logo is burned deeply into the other side. A great deal of planing is necessary to remove it. I may have an easier time planing down the stained side, but I need to perfect my skills before I tackle that.
Dang, they knew how to ruin a nice piece of wood.
Have you tried acetone for the removal of the stain?Gretchen
I will try other solvents,although I suspect carburetor cleaner has some ketones in it. All solvents that I have tried remove the stuff from the surface. The problem is drawing the stuff out from down deep. I will try wicking with a cloth that has solvent in it too. I may have to drill down and measure the penetration. That could tell me whether planing would be feasible. I could try to locate the hole where I expect to place a dog hole (: .
The problem using any type of solvent is that it will thin the material causing it to be further absorbed into the wood. You can try it but it is unlikely that you will be able to get it the stain out.
Some choices:
o Paint the table
o Rip out the boards that are stained and re-glue them. Makes a smaller panel but you may be able to use it for some other project.
o Rip out the stained boards and re-glue in some contrasting wood boards and consider it a design element.
This top is 3-inches thick, 30 inches wide, and 10 feet long. It is going to be my main workbench. I may live with the logo on the reverse side as a character mark, and dressing the top with a plane over the years of use it will have may ultimately eliminate the logo.
are you going to use this as a top for a woodworking bench??? is so, i would flip it over and ignore the manuf logo being burnt into the wood . . . . . . with regular use it will be but one of many "blemishes" on the top, all of which will give it character .
on the other hand, if this is for a bench inside the home and is going to have a finish on it . . . . then, i don't know . ..
Please see my response to HowardAcheson. Thanks.
Router out the 6" area and put in a "dutchman."
Interesting idea. Thanks.
That's cheating! :-)It goes beyond "removing the stain", surgery rather than therapy.
dave , yeah , it's like curing the problem instead of treating the problem .
Swimming pool filters used to use a powder called diathomatious earth (sp?) also known as Fullers Earth. Put a hand-full of it over the stain and wet it with your favorite solvent (carb cleaner, etc). It is made to soak up stains. Rub it in a bit, then let it dry completely. Vacuum off the powder and repeat a few times.
If you're willing to live with the branded name facing up, then why not clean up the stain as best you can and live with it or cover the stain with sawdust or a project in progress. It's not a piece of living room furniture, and it will not take away from the beauty of what you are making.
SawdustSteve Long Island, NY (E of NYC)
Thanks for the suggestion re diatomaceous earth, otherwise known as talc. I have concluded that the best approach is just what you suggested. That is, clean up the stuff a well as I can, turn the top over, and live with the logo. I can't ignore the stuff top-side-up tho, because it is very sticky and gooey. Even on the underside, it could drip or mess up anything it touches. That is why I have to get rid of as much as possible.
I have never known that DE was talc, but I would not do it because it needs water, and that introduces an entirely 'nother thing to wood!!Gretchen
Sawduststeve set me straight on DE and talc. I was wrong. I do wonder whether fine sanding dust might do the job though.
iam,
An old gunsmithing book I have recommends whiting (available at paint store) to do the same thing, ie mix as a paste with acetone or lacquer thinner and pack onto gunstocks to wick/absorb grease and oil from the wood.
Ray
Hi IAM... FINE sawdust may work, but not as well. I've used absorbant cat litter and a bit of gasoline to remove an oil stain from concrete on my patio. It works but not as well as proper oil absorbing stuff my local mechanic uses. My point was that if diatomatious earth (sp?) is available and relatively cheap, why not use it. As someone else pointed out, (and I didn't know) gunsmiths use Whiting to absorb oil from gunstocks when refinishing gunstocks. If it works for them, why not for 'us'.
Thanks to you and joinerswork. I will try.
Your source of info on Fullers Earth (it's talc), unfortunately, is off. As the last paragraph of this post says, It's used to absorb oils.....
Here's an exerpt from wikipedia:Fuller's earth usually has a high magnesium oxide content. It comprises the minerals montmorillonite or palygorskite (attapulgite) or a mixture of the two; some of the other minerals that may be present in fuller's earth deposits are calcite, dolomite, and quartz.In some countries, like the UK, calcium bentonite is known as fuller's earth, a term which is also used to refer to attapulgite, a mineralogically distinct clay mineral but exhibiting similar properties.The name reflects the first use of the material. In past centuries, fullers kneaded fuller's earth and water into woollen cloth to absorb lanolin, oils, and other greasy impurities as part of the cloth finishing process. Similarly, it has been used as an ingredient in powdered, "dry" shampoos, such as the (no longer manufactured) Minipoo. Fuller's earth was also sold in pharmacies until recently for compressing pills and it is sometimes used by crane operators and their oilers to absorb grease and oil off the brake bands on the winches to make them function properly.
My source re DE and talc was my faulty memory. Sorry about that. I might try it, but I wonder whether sanding dust would work just as well.
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