Oil stain on unfinished table top - Help!

[captainkirk]

Hi all,
I am in the process of sanding and refinishing a dining table. It appears to be made of Silky Oak, but I am no expert in this area. In order to sand the legs of the table, I turned it upside down on a large cloth sheet on top of a plywood workbench. It was in this position for some weeks and when I turned it over again, I noticed that oil has leeched from the surface of the plywood workbench it was resting on. This oil is either tung oil or penetrol oil.
I have not yet decided what I will use to finish the table, but am at a loss as to how to move forward with this oil stain.
Any advice in dealing with this situation would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.

[orraloon]

I would try some turps then paper towel on top to soak it up. I have also heard of sawdust or kitty litter being used to absorb oil. Repeat the process a few times if required. There will probably still be some mark left so an oil finish would be my choice.
Good luck with it
John

[ubeaut]

If it's penatrol you should be able to give the wole thing a wipe over with the same oil. If it's tung oil it will probably have dried to a hard surface so using turps probably won't help at all. Don't use kitty-litter as most of it is clay based and can make a real mess. Also pretty useless unless it's really wet.

You could go to a safety outlet and buy a bag of spill station pallets. Brilliant and will clean up everything left behind long after kitty-litter has done it's absolute best work. Costs a little extra but I can't recommend it highly enough.

I have had a few spills at the factory over the years and this stuff is second to none. Last spill was about 8-10 litres of heavy grade Paraffin oil and it cleaned it up so well that you would never have known there was a spill there. Kitty-litter would have worked to a certain extent but would have left the cement with an oil stain.

I think the stuff we have is called ChemSorb and EcoSweep but Snow Universal Absorbent might be an even better thing for you to use.

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers - Neil

[mike100jobstodo]

I would suggest to do the following:

• First, soak up the oil by pressing some old newspaper onto the oil stain.
• Then firmly rub the stain in a circular motion with a damp cloth with some mineral spirits.
• This should to the trick. If the stain is still there, then mix some mild detergent with warm water.
• Then put the mild detergent mixture onto the stain.
• Scrub the stain gently with a soft brush.
• Then rinse and dry with a cloth.

Let me know how it goes.