How to Remove greasy marks on hardwood

[beech1948]

I have been asked to help a friend who has had all his downstairs doors replaced with 6 panel hardwood doors about 10 yrs ago.

4 have been left unfinished for all this time due to an illness and family problems.

These 4 doors have been marked by repeated handling by the occupiers, greasy hand marks for 12" above the door handles and about 4" wide.

How can I remove this before I start to finish the doors to match the other 4 which my friend finished. What will remove the greasy marks to allow the finish to stick.

I thought maybe:-
1) A gentle scrape with a hardened scraper ? Possibly a bit rough as the door may not be solid all the way through.
2) Hot water, soap and something but what ??
3) Degreaser diluted and mopped up with a cotton rag
4) Gentle sanding with say 220 grit or higher

Please lets have some ideas. I'm concerned to not make the doors worse and to help David sell his house.

 

[Dee J]

Scrub with sugar soap, rinse and dry. If there is staining maybe move on to oxalic acid. Then deal with any raised grain.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Sugar soap could be an option. The main cleaning agent in it is an alkali for degreasing. A paste of Bicarbonate of soda and water similarly might help if applied, left for a couple of minutes and washed off - as they say, "test on an inconspicuous area first" !

 

[mbartlett99]

Our deck boys deal with this all the time - suntan lotion, crisps, me. K2R is their weapon of choice - its a dry cleaning spray. Give it a shot first, pretty easy; spray on, let dry, brush off. I wouldn' be surprised if it was a mixture of a solvent and bicarb.

 

[rafezetter]

another possibility is fullers earth - takes a bit longer but is supposed to draw it out. It's a very fine powder you sprinkle on and let it sit a while, it's super absorbant properties draw out grease and such from wood (apparently).

 

[Racers]

White spirit?

Pete

 

[Eric The Viking]

+1 for dry cleaning spray. I've used the sort that sprays on and dries to a white powder.

 

[mbartlett99]

Solvents generally just spread it around.

 

[ED65]

Given handling contamination is more than just oil I think sugar soap is probably the best way to go. You can buy it in dry form and make it up into a liquid yourself so you can make it a stronger solution than the commercial type (probably desirable here, but be sure to wear gloves). Making it up yourself also allows you to easily make it warm or hand-hot which hugely improves its grease-cutting action, but obviously you'll need to take more care around glue joints and possibly about the potential for warping.

You'll want to do some amount of sanding or scraping regardless, but my experience dealing with very greasy or oil wood is you do want to degrease the surface rather than try to take it down to fresh wood.

Once you're done it may be advisable to use shellac first prior to your planned topcoat.

 

[ED65]

Solvents generally just spread it around.

Not if you use them the right way. Degreasing using solvents isn't as straightforward as people tend to think and in another context it is well recognised that workers tend to end up just spreading the oil around, but if you use the right process solvent degreasing is very effective and has some advantages over alkaline degreasers.

I don't think solvents are the right way to go here though, it'll require loads and it'll stink the house out and as well as that it poses a risk to any glue joints in the areas being treated.