How To Remove Water Stains On Wood Venner?

stogie

Had a water leak in the house and some water dripped on top of one end cap of my 1C's. The wood is walnut veneer which has an oiled finish. What is the best way to go about removing the stains on an oiled veneer finish? Steel wool, sandpaper, just re-oil (I have some teak oil here)? Any advice would be appreciated before I start and potentially make it worse. thanks, don

mhardy6647

those look to be extremely minor -- Howard's Restor-a-Finish followed by Feed-n-Was might be sufficient. A little very fine steel wool (0000 or so) can be your best friend on such projects.

The canonical answer for water stains (white rings) is still, AFAIK, to use oxalic acid.

EDIT:

1) here's some tutorial info: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=286413

2) having posted this, I just remembered/realized that there are wood finishing pros on this forum -- so take my advice with a big grain of salt! :-P

vmaxer

@F1nut is the man on this.

ZLTFUL

Oxalic acid and patience.

@F1nut will be along shortly with full instructions as I am lazy.

F1nut

Do not use Oxalic acid or Howard's stuff.

Oxalic acid is used for removing dark/black stains caused by a reaction to the tannin in wood, this isn't your issue. Howard's, not in my shop.

Scrub (with the grain) using a little lacquer thinner and 0000 steel wool. Wipe off with clean rags. This will remove the oil in the wood. You'll have to do both speakers as this will change the appearance caused by years of oxidation. You might have to do this a few times. Once the top is uniform in appearance again, re-oil the tops.

stogie

Thank you F1. As far as an oil to use: is teak oil ok? Attached is an image of what I have on hand. The label says it contains "pure Chinese Tung oil" but lists no other ingredients. If not this, what is your recommendation. thanks

F1nut

I'd use a Danish oil such as Watco, but that will probably be ok.

stogie

Found some Watco Rejuvenating Oil In the closet from a project last year. Will this work, or is it best to go ahead and get the Danish oil in dark walnut (I assume it has some type of pigment in it) and be done with it? I don't want to have to go back a redo anything. F1, thank you for your help.

soundfreak1

This might sound stupid but.... since it's vinyl the water probably hasn't obsorbed but is "on top of the vinyl" steel wool might scratch up the finish. I had an ink stain on vinly and used mr. Clean "magic eraser" took ink right off with a few soft rubs. Try it before you damage the vinyl might just work great. Costs a buck or so and is in the grocery stores. You have nothing too loose.

stogie

It's not vinyl, it's wood veneer.

soundfreak1

stogie wrote: »

Found some Watco Rejuvenating Oil In the closet from a project last year. Will this work, or is it best to go ahead and get the Danish oil in dark walnut (I assume it has some type of pigment in it) and be done with it? I don't want to have to go back a redo anything. F1, thank you for your help.

That stuff is great on wood. Vinly not so sure. But on wood it is fantastic for cleaning up wood surfaces. I always keep it around and have used it many times but concerned about it on vinly surfaces.

steveinaz

Trust F1 on this one, the man knows his wood. No pun intended.

soundfreak1

The OP is talking about vinyl not wood. May be an important diff.

ZLTFUL

soundfreak1 wrote: »

The OP is talking about vinyl not wood. May be an important diff.

The picture the OP posted is most assuredly wood veneer not vinyl.

vmaxer

soundfreak1 wrote: »

The OP is talking about vinyl not wood. May be an important diff.

Don't think so??

soundfreak1

vmaxer wrote: »

soundfreak1 wrote: »

The OP is talking about vinyl not wood. May be an important diff.

Don't think so??

My mistake (senior moment ) i stand corrected thought he was talking vinyl not wood veneer. In that case the watkins would be perfect with some 0000 wool and go with the grain..

F1nut

stogie wrote: »

Found some Watco Rejuvenating Oil In the closet from a project last year. Will this work, or is it best to go ahead and get the Danish oil in dark walnut (I assume it has some type of pigment in it) and be done with it? I don't want to have to go back a redo anything. F1, thank you for your help.

Try it and if it's not dark enough get the walnut Danish oil. It won't be a problem using one on top of the other. You should do more than one coat anyway.

IMPORTANT: when you're done with each application soak the rags in water, then lay them outside, flat on the ground to dry. You risk burning down your house otherwise.

msg

F1nut wrote: »

...

IMPORTANT: when you're done with each application soak the rags in water, then lay them outside, flat on the ground to dry. You risk burning down your house otherwise.

what the... lol
how does that happen?!? spontaneous combustion? or fumes to ignition source?

F1nut

Yep, spontaneous combustion. Wasn't long ago I read about a house burning down because the owner left some of those oil soaked rags in the garage, which burst into flames. Last year one of the shops in the area burned down for the same reason and he knew better.

Nightfall

We keep our kitchen rags in large totes at work. One day we smelled smoke, walked around looking for it. Saw smoke pouring out of one of the totes and dumped the lot into the grass outside and sprayed them down with a hose. Nobody knew why this happened, so it was because of the grease in them?

We're lucky it happened during business hours.

F1nut

Nightfall wrote: »

We keep our kitchen rags in large totes at work. One day we smelled smoke, walked around looking for it. Saw smoke pouring out of one of the totes and dumped the lot into the grass outside and sprayed them down with a hose. Nobody knew why this happened, so it was because of the grease in them?

We're lucky it happened during business hours.

I'm not aware of kitchen grease having spontaneous combustion issues, but that's out of my field. Perhaps someone's hot sauce......LOL

stogie

Thanks for the info on cleaning the rags- I never knew.

westmassguy

https://chubb.com/cpiebcontent/cpihomepage/pdf/resourceCenter/071911_Tips%20for%20Spontaneous%20Combustion%20.pdf

leftwinger57

As you see the dark water stain that was on my 2Bs is what Jesse and others were talking about. I went w/ Jesse's help the oxolic route and be very careful.The package is for doing a whole deck.What's needed is a paste type mixture and since water is in the mix be very careful because you can warp your top worse than the actual stain. In my case it worked and then after some minor sanding and tack cloth I used medium walnut stain and about 5 coats of Minwax poly clear.
yaci

stogie

Before and after pics. The 0000 steel wool and lacquer thinner wasn't getting all the water stain out so I hit it with some 320 sand paper and that did the trick. Three coats of Watco Rejuvenating Oil and presto. It looked so good I went ahead and did the other speaker.

westmassguy

Nice work!

mhardy6647

We have a very old table with a badly watermarked top -- the good information (as opposed to my disinformation! :-P ) in this thread has led me to plan to tackle it when the weather cools down (and life quiets down some from its current, too-hectic pace).

OldSchoolPolk

Looks great Stogie! And thank you to F1nut for the info.

F1nut

Looks good...yeah, a light scuff sanding is needed at times, but I try to avoid it if at all possible.

treitz3

Well done my friend. The end result looks great.

Tom

steveinaz

Nice save!