ralph m martin wrote: > > Some of the houses selling furniture touch-up supplies also list mineral > spirits for the removal of silicone in response to Mike Swendsen's> > >The only solvent that will clean silicone is naphtha...... > >try that and you might be able to glue the parts.... > >maybe In fact, any non-polar solvent will do the job--the more non-polar the better [water is very polar, alkanes are non-polar, and alcohols are in between.] That means alcohols are not too good, and the heavier alcohols (propanol, butanol, etc) are better than the lighter ones (methanol and ethanol), but will have the unfortunate tendency to form hydrogen bonds with the cellulose in the wood --bad idea--polyethylene glycol is a heavy alcohol. Lower molecular weight alkanes like naphtha (kudos to Mike for spelling) are good candidates. If you want really good performance at some risk to your health and that of the environment and the ozone layer, try perchloroethylene or methylene chloride. The trick, if you are removing silicone oil from a finished surface, is not to dissolve the finish too. That is probably the reason furniture types recommend the less aggressive mineral spirits. I think that when you are talking about gluing, however, you are probably talking about an unfinished surface in most cases, and there you have a problem. You can probably never practically remove *all* the silicone oil from a piece of unfinished wood once it is contaminated. You may be able to remove enough to get a good glue bond, but it will require several washings in the solvent of your choice. Many tropical hardwoods are notoriously difficult to glue because of their high oil content (teak in particular), but they can be treated in this way, just on the surface to be glued, and once the glue has penetrated the temporarily oil-free cells on the gluing surface and set, it cannot be subsequently displaced by the oil leaching back in from cells deeper down (presuming the cured glue is not soluble in the oil in question). (--i studied wood technology as well as chemistry and biology in a former life-- Tim Keenan, Terrace BC
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC