Suckin out oil

[4thebrdz]

A leather scabbard was about to drip off oil. It was apparently stored this way for years. I put it in Kitty Litter over night and the oil has been sucked out. It looks better and I will finish with light coat of boot grease and neutral polish.

Now I wonder if Kitty Litter might help the oil soaked furniture. The stock has some dried areas of storege grease which will be loosened up a bit then I was thinking of puttin the wood in kitty litter to see if it gets the excess oil out, in stead of baking and mineral spirits.

Any Thoughts?? Thanks

[mold maker]

Put the oil and grease soaked wood in a black garbage bag with just enough Kitty litter to make contact with most of the wood. (too much will act like insulation) Place in back window or trunk of auto for a couple days in hot sun. Turn and shake it to redistribute the litter. The heat will melt and expel the grease, while the kitty litter soaks it up.
While the stock I did was a really slimy CMP 1903-A3 It should work for any other. Afterward I cut the bristles off short on a cheap paint brush to remove the dirt and dust left behind in the grain of the walnut stock.
Of course mid summer sun will greatly speed up the project.
I steamed out some of the dents ect, but left all the markings intact. Finally a coat of Boiled Linseed Oil and a good buffing produced a beautiful stock for a fine old warhorse. I'm sure those who carried her would approve. I'd sure like to know their stories.

[Morgan Astorbilt]

I use a thin paste of MEK and whiting. I brush it on, the MEK disolves the oil, and the whiting absorbs it. When dry, I rub the whiting off with steel wool, and repeat. This has always worked for me.
Morgan

[johnly]

I wrap the stock in paper towels, soak them to the dripping point with acetone, then place it in a sealed garbage bag for a 48 hours. I remove the oil filled paper towels and repeat the process a second time. Usually even the most oil soaded stocks only require two cycles, but the paper towels give you pretty clear indication when the job is done.

John

[4thebrdz]

Morgan- Methel Ethel Keytone? What is whiting? Thanks Sounds like something I might like! Thanks
mold maker- The kitty litter works good but the heat will help.
johnly-I wonder if the acetone will dissolve the plastic bag?
Thanks all. I run intro another recipe of alcohol and baking soda paste.

[smokemjoe]

methel ethel, isnt that something you get before moonshine comes off.

[4570guy]

Good idea kitty litter -- hadn't thought of that one. I've used straight Clorox bleach for a number stocks (recommended by on old gunsmithing book I have) and it worked well. I don't think I'd put bleach on leather though.

[johnly]

Acetone is methyl methyl ketone
MEK is methyl ethyl ketone.

So the materials are quite similar. Acetone has a higher vapor pressure and so it evaporates faster.

Plastic bags are LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene) and are resistant to ketones.

John

[JeffinNZ]

Search this site.

http://www.surplusrifle.com/articlesNew.asp

These boys know their stuff.

[Morgan Astorbilt]

Morgan- Methel Ethel Keytone? What is whiting? Thanks Sounds like something I might like! Thanks
mold maker- The kitty litter works good but the heat will help.
johnly-I wonder if the acetone will dissolve the plastic bag?
Thanks all. I run intro another recipe of alcohol and baking soda paste.

Whiting is what was used instead of white lead, in exterior house paint. We used to mix it 50-50 with the expensive Dutch Boy white lead for most jobs. It is actually a very fine grade of white lime, which can be substituted for it. I use MEK, instead of other solvents, such as acetone, lacquer thinner or naphtha, because it's got just the right vapor pressure, to give it time to dissolve and raise the oil to the surface, without wasting unnecessary time. A lot of trying over the years has been done by better gunsmiths than me, and this has become the standard. It was given to me by P.O.Ackley, one day back in the fifties, when we were hanging around Griffin & Howe, up at Abercrombie & Fitch.
Morgan

[WineMan]

The organic chemists use Methyl for one carbon groups, Ethyl for two carbon groups, Propyl for three, Butyl for four (it gets more complicated after this)

The process of moonshining or distillation is to get the Ethyl (two carbon) alcohol that the yeast produce during their time without oxygen consuming the sugar in the mash (or grapes etc) out.

This is not very toxic (at least in small doses) and for the most part quite enjoyable in Spirits, Wine, and Beer. The mixture that is distilled is quite complex and may contain other volatile substances. If stone fruits are used as the sugar source (Fruit Brandies) there can be substantial amounts, up to 500 ppm, of Methanol (one carbon) that get derived from the pectins in the fruit. This stuff is the same as Sterno fuel and Funny Car fuel. Also known as wood alcohol it is very toxic and typically dissolves the stuff in your optic nerves hence the tendency toward blindness if consumed in anything but trace amounts. I believe it also powered the "steam" torpedoes used throughout WW1 and WW2.

Ketones are carbohydrates that have an oxygen and two carbon functional groups bonded to another carbon like this: RRC0 R= Carbon to Carbon bond


They tend to have high vapor pressure (easily smelled,) and the smaller the more volatile they are. Acetone is the smallest with three carbons: two Methyls and one bonded to an Oxygen and evaporates very quickly. Its technical name is 2-propanone as the Oxygen is on the second carbon. MEK has four carbon atoms: one in Methyl, two in Ethyl and one bonded with Oxygen it is also called 2-butanone. They are not as happy mixing with water but do like to mix with more oily things hence their use as solvents

These would come out of a shine or brandy still in the "heads" or the earliest stuff that boils at the lowest temperature.

In chem lab we would wash our glassware with a high tech detergent, rinse with copious amounts of distilled water then use ethyl alcohol to mix with the remaining water then use acetone to mix with and evaporate the alcohol.

Wineman

[Ricochet]

I'm sure it was on this board where I saw the warning that certain kinds of kitty litter contain oxidizers (doubtless put there to reduce litter box odors) that can cause spontaneous combustion of oil. That wouldn't be good in the back window of your car. Get the cheapo clay kind.

[Nelsdou44]

My cheapo substitute to MEK and whiting is denatured alcohol and powdered garden lime. I get good results w/o having to handle MEK.

[Buckshot]

..............Similar to Morgan I used MEK but I couldn't find whiting, so I used talcum powder. An addition was an infrared heat lamp. This was on one of the first $49 Turk Mausers. It had copious quantities of grease and Turkish real estate embeded in all the nooks and crannies in the action inletting. I first took it to the dollar car wash and pressure blasted the thing.

I set the stock across a couple sawhorses behind the garage and put the heat lamp on over the action inletting. Before too much time had passed it was literally oozing oil which was dripping on some newspaper I'd laid down. I ended up doing this the length of the stock wipping off the oil and grease with rags.

After that is when I went to the MEK and talcum powder. The wood was warmed with the lamp and then the slurry of MEK and talc was brushed on (and almost immediately began to turn brown). I probably could have made a freaking career out of trying to get the last of the excess oil out, but I became bored with the process on a $49 rifle and reached a point I considered 'Good Enough'.

To this day that rifle will bead, and ooze oil from crossgrain cuts like in the pistol grip and behind the action tang. You could prolly get a good quart out yet, if you could wring it like a rag :-)

..................Buckshot

[waksupi]

Spray on Easy Off oven cleaner. After about three applications, you may need to rub a little oil back into the stock!

[newfoundlander]

[SIZE="4""]Whiting" is nothing nore than Sodium Carbonate. Go to you local paint or garden center ad you should be able to find some. It's dirt cheap to and nowhere near expensive as Brownell's. I've used it for years and I've found that methyl alcohol is by far the best mixing agent. Acetone is quite hard on the noggin and MEK slightly less so. Stay the hell away for toluene or lacquer thinner! The "whiting" slows the evaporation of such chemicals so if you keep the wood indoors while it does its thing (some applications can take days to leech out the deep stuff) low level fumes might be a problem. The great tying about this stuff is it will WILL get rid of the deep down nasty stuff that was added after the wood had seasoned. If you have lubricating oil soaked into the stock or acquire a piece that was once owned by somebody who was heavy handed with teak, tung or linseed oil this stuff will help make things right. Don't be in a hurry though as I've had to apply over a dozen coats on some pieces over a two week period. I make a slurry the consistency of pancake batter and apply with a clean white synthtic el-cheapo brush. As the coating dries the poild is brought to the surface through the woods capillary action. The stuff deeper down will acquire longer "soaks" When I rem0oved the dried slurry disposable paper towels and a sofy nail brush are the cast ass. WEAR A MASK as there will be plenty of nasty dust! When you're done with your last coast aset of find soft and hard toothbrushes will foot th bill to get the tiny bitys of whiting out of the wood's pores. Go over the poiece with a tack cloth and dry clean rag and you're done/[ /SIZE]

[Ricochet]

Oh, but acetone smells so good! Remember the fresh mimeographs in school? Mmmmm!

[WineMan]

This is good info too:

http://www.odcmp.com/services/rifles/wood_cleaning_article.htm

Wineman