I have seen some products mentioned here that some use to soak oil out of wood.   I did some searches but couldn't find it.

Thanks George.  These are the ideas I had heard but just couldn't find.  Thanks again. 

            I've never found any of the methods offered on here to work to a satisfactory level. Of course this is based on my experience.  I've used all of the methods mentioned on this site.  No  method ever proved viable to adhere dope to. While the dope went on, in short order I could see discoloration within the oil soaked areas through the dope and then failure. K2r is a great product for making  you cough your b-lls off even using a mask. It's horrible stuff when initially sprayed on. Yes, you can see when the powder forms that oil is absorbed into it. It takes so much of this stuff not too mention countless hours of trying to iron and soak this stuff out and in the end the balsa doesn't even sand correctly. You never rid the wood of the oil.

         I then tried the acetone and lacquer thinner wash using Klean Strip products which caused the ply to delaminate. Not the plywood itself but the bond to the balsa. I then heated Systems 3 T-88 and let that run into the separation which did glue the ply back onto the wood. I chose T-88 due to it's ability to glue exotic oily hardwoods. However, in the end, the time, the money spent for all of the product I could've built another plane .

               I know the feeling and it's difficult to part with something you really enjoy. In truth, you really have to be committed to a project due to this problem because it's not a easy fix and in the end, the bad outweighs the good and you now have a plane still falling apart.

In my experience the only thing that effectively treats oil soaked wood is a #11 E-Xacto.   Best, perhaps only, way to avoid oil soaking is to use electric power.

Ken

Buying a NEW electric motor would be an expensive way to clean-oil soaked wood.  But I will check the dust bins for broken RC toys to see if electric motors really clean oily balsa.  It's worth a try.

Kr2 worked well for me on a totally saturated nose but I only used monokote over it. The stuff is expensive but a last resort on parts you can't easily cut out and replace. Using a heat gun and paper towels might be a good way to go before using the Kr2 to save some bucks. I tried the acetone and powder metnod and it was a failure.

Perhaps the results and whether it is worth the effort (and expense) depends on just how badly soaked the wood is.

I was given a Fancherized Twister whose Monokote was lifting off in many places, especially on the forward fuselage.   It wasn't terribly soaked but I knew dope wouldn't stick without some oil removal.   I used K2R and corn starch and alcohol (alcohol, I think).  But what made it work was that after I got as much oil out as I could, I painted the nose with a coat of Balsa Rite (the film formula) and had absolutely no issues applying Brodak medium silkspan with dope.  The silkspan was given a few coats of clear and some blue butyrate and the silkspan stayed solidly attached and the dope had no bleed through for a year or more before I finished the Twister off with a third ground impact.

The Balsa Rite is very similar to Sig Stix-it Dan mentioned.   I bought a can of Stix-it from Sig and it is very thick.  I used the Stix-it to make sure the monokote on my Sig Skyray .35 build would stay attached, and to prevent fuel soaking, but it didn't flow out well, so next time I use Stix-it, I'm going to thin it down some. 

Joe Ed Pederson