Removing floor polish from carving

[SkirlGHB]

I have an english oak sideboard that M-I-L polished with good coats of floor polish over 40 years ago and it's now time to restore. I'm skilled at general restoration of the flat surfaces, but there are 2 lightly carved oak panels that also have taken on the dark patina of aged floorpolish!

Search of previous threads revealed some methods of removing, rather than forcing the polish further into the grain, but any ideas please about the carved areas. I think the method will need to be mostly non-nechanical to preserve the detail.

Thanks in anticipation.

Ross

[joe greiner]

Hard to tell without a pic, but carving would expose end grain, which just loves to absorb almost any liquid, the same as sap migration in the tree, and thus appears darker. As a wild UNeducated guess, some sort of alky might dissolve the polish, and some sort of vacuum extraction might extract some of it.

Note: I'm not a restorer, nor do I play one on the tube, but I have stayed at Holiday Inn Express. Hopefully, you'll get better advice.

Joe