doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Diatemaceous Earth to remove oil?

I use the acetone and alcohol bath method to remove oil from stocks. It works very well, but I often wonder if I am damaging the stock further by removing more than just the oil from the wood in the process.
The wood does seem a bit more dried out after soaking, and I wonder if it has lost some of its strength.
I think the use of vacuum and heat sounds very interesting.
I wonder how long vacuum and heat would take to pull out oil, that might have taken 100+ years to soak in.
Just because there is a easy way to do a job, does not always make it the right way.

I would still want to finish up with a solvent soak just prior to finishing or doing any glue repairs because I don't think you'll ever get all the oil out of a heavily oiled gun stock. Just leave a stock that you think is de-oiled sit around for a few months and watch as that dry lifeless wood slowly darkens as more oil migrates to the surface. I agree that very long solvent soaks take out more than just gun oil and probably don't make the wood stronger or more resilient to future cracking. Alternate methods like ammonia and water washes, packing the wood in some absorbent material, or using mild heat and a vacuum to draw out much of the oil are just good ways to lessen the time of solvent soaks and to reduce the oil contamination of your solvents. Lots of dirty oil dissolved in your expensive solvents is not going to do a great job, and is going to create a more frequent disposal problem.

Ken, I don't think the marinade in your vacuum packed steaks would soak in so deeply if they were in a rigid airtight vessel rather than a plastic vacuum bag that allows outside atmospheric pressure to push the juice in from all sides. But a NY strip steak on the grill sounds great for dinner tonite. Thanks for the idea.

I wonder if the vacuum freezer bag, with a half box of corn starch covering the stock would draw out plenty of oil. I'm assuming y'all mean lube oil, not linseed oil. Air conditioner service vacuum pump is probably the most potent vacuum source. I know that a first few strings of rapid fire will cook out oil from a Garand stock!

Don't tell anybody, but I use only Wonko's brew. Works great😉

Sometimes I am nothing less than astounded - wait, that's a lie. You are collectively capable of appalling me but never surprising.

Your just totally ridiculous false economies are the stuff of fables. Whining about a few $ worth of chemicals while holding a salvageable chunk of wood costing hundreds of $ to replace. WTF are you thinking?

I'd bet vital body parts that the most of you spend your evenings straightening bent nails

have another day
Dr.WtS

Hey Wonk, didn't you mention using cement as an absorbent in one of your earlier posts? That stuff is cheaper than bent nails per pound. You're right about the cost of good walnut and restocking versus the cost of chemicals, but can you tell us what long soaks in organic solvents does to the lignin and cellulose structure in that expensive wood? What else besides old gun oil gets leached out of that expensive walnut? Does it maybe make sense to minimize that harsh exposure somewhat by utilizing inexpensive low-tech solutions such as kitty litter, corn meal, etc.? What do you do with your dirty acetone and other solvents when they are 10% oil and dirt by volume... just pour it down the drain? I don't de-oil enough stocks to warrant buying a vacuum pump to experiment along those lines, but I already own a good Robinaire, so why not give it a try sometime? I stumbled on a way to raise stock dents that won't respond to the usual steaming methods by thinking outside the box, and have shared that with guys here who have told my how great it worked for them. You'd have been a great influence upon some of the great inventors and experimenters throughout history. We'd still be using horses, buggies, and oil lamps. I think huffing those Wonko Brew fumes in unventilated areas had a negative effect on you.

Wonko,

It's sometimes a matter of time. I had to soak a KED stock for over a month to get the oil out. I'm wondering about processes that could shorten that time, not eliminate the soak.

Keith,

I tried alcohol when I steamed some dents last time, it does work well.

I was joking about the vacuum sealer, but now I'm wondering if one of those clothes storage bags, with a stock packed in some type of absorbent and the air vacuumed out would work? I have no idea.

Has anyone used the powdered Joint Compound normally used for Drywall as an absorbent? It's easy to buy that stuff at any hardware store, and it's finer-grained than Kitty Litter.

My Grandfather and my Great-Uncles used to sit around on the Farm and straighten nails. They were the square sided type used for horseshoes.

Regards
Ken

you're confusing practicality and efficacy with innovation. If you check around it seems that the brew was sorta innovative IIRC.

If you want to try the cement ploy you can have the credit for it no charge.

have another day

Dr.WtS

Oh, now I see what this is all about. If the solvent solution was called Homeless jOe Brew, it wouldn't be a problem to try other methods. Well I've got news for you. Antique furniture restoration folks have been using various solvents to strip and/or clean wood far longer than there was a so called wonko brew. Or maybe you actually invented acetone and alcohol??? If this is your claim to fame, and it means so much to you, maybe you should also take credit for rain rinsing bird shit off of windshields. You could call it Wonko's Aqueous Precipitate.

Seems as tho jealousy is impairing your rational behavior.

I never made claims for anything. I merely brought the method to the attention of the folks here a few years ago.

have another day

Dr.WtS