oil stain on unfinished cherrywood

Hi, all. :) I have a large oil stain in the middle of an unfinished cherry wood coffee table and I'm wondering how to get it out. My husband stored a new weed-wacker on top of the coffeetable for about 10 years (the table has been in the basement for about 15 yrs.) The small vial of oil that came with the weedwacker leaked out onto the coffee table top.

I have hopes of putting the table back together (I had it professionally stripped before storage) and I'd like to have it for my new living room. But now I have no idea of what to do about that oil stain. The oil is the type used for lubricating the weedwacker; it's a clear oil, and not car oil.

Should I sand it out? Should I add more oil to the rest of the table top to match? Or can I use a paint stripper to remove the oil - again, this is unfinished wood the oil is on? I hate to have it professionally stripped _again_ just to remove the oil stain. Any help from this group would be very much appreciated. TIA. :)

Linda

Reply to
bluemaxx
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I doubt anything will get it out very well. I'd look at using an oil finish on the entire piece. The problem that I see is that motor oil will not polymerize like a Danish oil or varnish oil.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Linda:

You have a difficult problem here. A few thoughts:

  1. Can the table top be removed and turned over? Depending on how it's fastened this may not be possible, but if screw holes on the bottom are close to the edges you may be able to re-cut the top to eliminate them and then re-engineer the fastening system with the old topside on the bottom. Of course the current bottomside may not be cherry if the piece was originally veneered, not solid.

  1. Overlay the existing top with a piece of veneered cherry plywod, as thin as you can find it. Gluded down and edge stained to hide the plys it may be acceptable to you.

  2. Failing that, and as a last resort, truy the method described in "The Furniture Doctor", an ancient but good book. Essentially, one uses mineral spirits (paint thiner) pooled over and around the spot, spinkled with cat litter or equivalent, then sealed with a sheet of plastic (like a plastic drop cloth held down with masking tape). Leave it on for a couple of days and it'lll draw out "some" of the oil. Maybe enough, maybe not.

  1. Final thought. After 3 above, sand the top to 220 grit, seal it with shellac, the dewaxed sealer coat type. A couple of coats will do. Then use a mildly cherry colored stain (not water based!) on top like a toner to try to even out the color. If the first stain is not dark enough, add a bit of dark walnut to the some of the cherry stain and try again. Continue until until the color matches. The problem here is that it won't ever look like a pure oiled finish cherry, but cherry colors vary a lot naturally and no one may notice. If you get close, you may have won the battle.

For a good discussion on the use of toners I can suggest Jeff Jewitt's book, it's close to gospel on finishing.

Regards.

Reply to
Tom Banes

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