bokuda

My Feedback: (7)

What is the best way to remove fuel from fuel-soaked balsa so that it can be recovered?

Longaly

I have used a spot remover called K2R on the advise of several people on this site. I picked mine up at the local grocery store (Publix). I have looked at WalMart, Kmart and others to no avail.

All you do is spray it on, let it dry and wipe it off. You may have to repeat this a few times depending on how much you need to remove. Hope this helps you out.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

K2R

Blackie

K2R can be found at Albertsons grocery. A word of caution! Its said that it eats away at one of you organs, can't remember which one so its advised to make sure you are in a well ventilated area if not outside when you spray it on.

Randy

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

I had an old girlfriend that could do that

Blackie

HaHa! I left myself wide open for that one.

bokuda

My Feedback: (7)

Thanks, guys. I'll give it a try.

kougarII

One other possibility. We cannot get K2R here, so when I had a fuel line spring a leak and soak the wood with fuel, I asked one of the veterans in the club. He told me to get naptha from the local building supply place and make a thin paste by adding corn starch to it. Brush it on the wood and allow an hour or two for the naptha to dry. Then brush away the corn starch. I was amazed at how well it works.

As with all such solvents, make sure you have plenty of ventilation and/or a charcol cannister mask.

Blackie

Here's a couple more tricks that work but not quite as good as K2R.

Get some talcum powder and sprinkle over the soaked area and let sit over night, you will need to do this a few times. Then get a heat gun and heat the wood this will draw the oil to the surface get a paper towel and wipe the oil off.

Mikerjf-RCU

K2R

http://www.americarx.com/6079.html

Mike

doctor jason

I have found that by soaking the wood in acetone then setting fire to it for a short period of time [20/30 seconds] then extinguishing it with water burns of the old oil
please note you must use gloves when doing this!

DavidAgar

My Feedback: (108)

I have a few concerns about setting acetone on fire when the acetone has been poured on oil soaked balsa wood. It kinda sounds like an accident waiting to happen and could present a person with serious burns. If this method is selected, extreme caution should be used. K2R is much easier and safer. Thanks Dave.

doctor jason

True K2R is safer but with the knowledge that my firewall and
formers will not depart from the fuselage in mid flight due to fuel
soaked balsa , I would wholey suggest that the burning acetone
method totally removes the oil from the balsa much better than K2R which leaves an oily residue behind.If you don't believe me try this method.I have told all my friends about this method and they all think it works a treat.
happy flying !

mat

Hey Dr Jason

Thats an excellent way to clean oil from a model. ive been reading this thread for the best way to clear the oil from my acrowot and was going to go the K2R route, however as you report using acetone and setting fire to it for (20 / 30 secs ) is better and quicker ill give it ago and let you no

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

I have too many planes that, when set on fire, I would be too tempted not to extinguish.

doctor jason

Further to my last thread ,I should let you know that this burning trick with ACETONE also works very well on oil soaked lite ply!
I hope your acrowot has come up well and flys like new.
ps now that you have burnt you oil off the model should be lighter

majortom-RCU

My Feedback: (40)

Got a used plane, needed recovering, stripped monokote off, found extensive oily spots. Laid on strips of newsprint, put a covering iron to it set at max temp, amazing how much oil soaked up into the paper. Repeated until just a little oil was coming up. At that point laid on more strips of paper, saturated the paper with denatured alcohol (dripped on from a plastic pipette). Let the alcohol soak into the wood for a few minutes, then hit that with the iron (still at max temp setting, which is not hot enough to ignite the alcohol.) This is sort of like steam-cleaning your balsa. Alcohol evaporates quickly under heat of the iron, draws out whatever oil is still in the wood. As soon as that process was complete, tried a practice patch of monokote with iron set at 1-1/2, covering stuck pretty good. No long waiting, done in less than an hour. Paper towel would probably work as well.

jaka

Hallo!
The secret to succed with K2R is to first soak the wood with aceton and then spray on K2R and then brush or use airpressure to blow away the dust....and repeting the process several times!
To set fire to such a delicate thing as a balsa airplane ,even for a short period of time , sounds
scary to say the least!

Regards!
Jan Karlsson
Sweden
Been into this hobby for 27 years!

lnorris

My Feedback: (1)

I just had to do this last night. Was using K2R over and over again and still believed to have oil in the wood.

So I hit the wood with heat from my heat gun and the oil bubbled out. I dabbed with a paper towel and repeated until no oil came out.

elevator_up

I found K2R at True Value hardware in the spot remover/cleaners section. There is a customer service phone number on the side of the can where you can call to ask where you can find it locally ( thats how I found it). I dont have the number here now, perhaps someone could post it.

Mike

Dago Red

My Feedback: (11)

I had a 24 ounce tank in my kadet senior and leaked half of it. All I did is rip out the guts and build a new front end. took 2 days. I planes on repairing a small fracture in the fron --tor the cover off and found me alot of oil dripping from the wood--like I said(i ripped out its guts) and I mean I rippped it out with needle nose plyers. lol

bokuda

My Feedback: (7)

I finally got around to repairing my fuel soaked plane. Used KR2 which I found at a local hardware store. Three applications had it fairly dry. I then had spread corn starch on the wood and let it sit overnight, then brushed it off. The wood seemed dry after that and I recovered with Moneycote. It stuck just fine.

I guess there are several methods that work well.

I learned a lesson. When there seems to something amiss in your fuel system, DO NOT GAS UP untill you've checked it out! After 40 years at this addiction, I should have known!