The last bit of a wooden boat to rot is the engine bearers.
A gentle flame held under it will get rid of the diesel...
If you are able to take the timber out you can heat it with a gas torch until the diesel starts to burn off. It's a slow process as when the diesel burns it eventually starts to burn the timber. Put it out, allow to cool and then go again. It does work but takes a time. I did this on some mahogany 3/4 ply which was too good to replace. I then used CPES pentrating epoxy to seal, primed and repainted or you could varnish depending on the finish.
It was a joke, but that's quite interesting.
I for one thought you were joking, too. I don't really want to do anything with fire on a diesel soaked piece of wood.
From experience in a laboratory in about 1970, I can say that if you have a severe cold, washing hankies in acetone revives them very rapidly! But that laboratory would have driven any H&S person to drink. I hate to think what I was exposed to there.
Similar experience. I once managed to stain a customer's marble garden table top with linseed oil and nothing I tried could make it better, I gave them a hefty reduction on the bill. A couple of years later I was back there again, time and sun had made it disappear. Nothing was said
Well, when I first posted here it was just the seat fiddling (one of them). But turns out the back of the bulkhead behind the cushion might be affected, too. What a nightmare. Stupid diesel heater. First it burns my cushion when I tried it out, then it ruined my clothes that were under the v berth bunk, then the fiddling, and now it's seemingly the wood of the bulkhead, too.
