Covering Oily Wood

I stripped the old silk covering from the wings of my FW190A and found the covering had not protected the wood from the exhast oil. Not enough dope or, too many cracks in the finish not repaired.

The entire outboard wing, ribs, spars and all, is well oil soaked. I'm taking steps to get the oil to come out but, nothing I know of will get it all out. I tried a test piece of Monocote and it just barely sticks.

My question is: What is the best way to cover oily wood? Would it be better to cover with silk and dope or, paint with balsarite and try the monocote?

Thanks,
Giffy

Last time I had this problem I used a lot of denatured alcohol brushed on and soaked off with paper towels. Got rid of most of the oil at least enough to recover successfuly. Other threads here have discussed using K2R after the alcohol process. If you believe the adds balsarite is supposed to make it possible to cover oil soaked wood.

I've been mixing talc and methanol, brushing it on then dry it with a heat gun, clean it off and repeat. Doesn't work real good but, I'm making slow progress.

I didn't want this to turn into another cleaning the oil thread, I wanted to know what sticks to oily wood the best.

I hope the balsarite works as advertised, I'd like to go with the monocote.

Giffy

K2R drycleaning fluid. Supposedly comes in cans at the grocery store (I've never tried it, or bought any, myself, but I've heard it mentioned so many times with regard to the oil problem..).

I've used spackle, red devil from Wal-Mart I think, remove as much oil as you can, then spackle over it, and sand most of it back off. It's worked in the areas I've used it, but I don't know if I've done that large of an area oil soaked. I've also put a thin layer of ca on the wood before to seal it, again sanded it, then monokoted it. I don't know about silk and dope with either of these methods.

I haven't seen K2R in a grocery store in a while, but our neighborhood
Ace Hardware carries it. Works well, spray a wet coat on and let it dry (pref overnight) and brush/wipe off. Do it outside as the dust is a little tough on the nose.

You CAN'T cover oily wood- and WILL hate yourself for ever trying it.
K2R works great- if you can find it.
Plain old corn starch from the grocery store dumped on and brushed off (probably several times) will too.

John

PS: Of course the kicker to all this is that the wood never got a chance to get oily in the first place, because it was properly sealed prior to covering- just like the full-size dudes do, right???

I think the best solution is one from a previous thread. Stick the whole thing in a big box and fill it with cat litter. You can find some pretty big boxes at an appliance store and cat litter isn't that expensive.

I went through the K2R deal with a 20 year old bipe and never did get all the oil out. I ended up just hitting the real oily spots with CA and painting over it. If I had heard about the big box with cat litter before I had it re-painted I sure would have tried it.

Yes I have used K2R on the oil soaked nose of a "Mauler" -- IT WAS BAD I could almost squeeze the oil out. (on one of the other threads they were saying that you can't buy K2R in Calif. (Polically correct)Spray it on and then use your heat gun to dry it to dry powder and brush it off. Yes it will take several applications BUT it does work. The Balsarite does a good job of sealing the oil in and I have covered--both with film covering and paint afterwords.Enjoy--Dave S.