Official Luthiers Forum!

I did a dumb thing. For Christmas this last year I made a couple cutting boards, which I used mineral oil on. I thought I had gotten rid of all the oily rags and gotten everything clean. I apparently used a towel that had come in contact with one of my oil soaked papertowels, and rested a guitar body on it on my bench for a few days while I was working on sanding the top. So now there is an oil soaked spot on my East Indian Rosewood back of a little parlor guitar. The oil spot's about 1" x 1-1/2". Rather than risk making it worse, I thought it'd be wise to ask for advice before I proceed. What do you think?

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

I'm not sure this is exactly comparable, but I had some thread tapping fluid soak into the mdf spoilboard on my cnc machine. A few months later I left an EIR back sitting on the mdf for about two weeks. The rosewood absorbed the cutting fluid and in some spots soaked all the way through to the other side leaving dark stains. I soaked the back with acetone and wiped it down with paper towels. Left to dry, the result looked "muddy", but a light sanding brought the set back to as new. You might try staining a piece of scrap and testing first.

Bob

you may also want to try an alcohol - whatever you would use for french polishing - rub some on and scrub and see if it desolves the oil. pretty much the same a suggested above with the acetone.

_________________
It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Thanks for mentioning this, it might just be an oil stain from my mdf bench top that soaked through.

I'll try some Everclear and see if I can break up some of it. It doesn't look like it soaked in terribly deep, but it's hard to tell.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Try some clay Cat litter (clean of course ) ground up to a powder or Corn Starch sprinkled on the stain. Let it sit for a day. Both soak up oil very well.

When I have used mineral oil on purpose, I have found it to disappear on it's own relatively quickly. Since I covered the whole piece, I may not realize how much stayed behind.

If I were in your situation, I'd first try naptha. If that didn't work, I'd probably just oil the whole thing to make it uniform.

I'd love to hear how it works out. Let us know.

Mike

_________________
Mike Lindstrom

I tried alcohol on it last night, but didn't have a good chance to check it out after the alcohol around it all dried. I think it helped, I'll check it when I get home tonight and see. I may try naptha, too, since I have that on hand as well. Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll post back with what does/doesn't work.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR