> The most reasonable proposal I've seen so far calls for 1/2 linseed
> oil, and 1/2 mineral spirits. I'll end -up a couple of the junkers, and see
what happens. details and results to follow....

First, I question the addition of the solvent. if the goal is to fill
the pores of the wood with something to retard the movement of water
(and thus the movement of the wood) you'd want all the solid material in
there that you can get. Besides, the solvent is going to take a looong
time to get out.

Second, Why linseed oil? It's lousy at stopping water vapor and if you
let this process (the ooze) happen passively it seems to me that you'll
only fill the largest pores while letting zillions of little ones stay
mostly clear. If you can put the plane into a vacuum tank (like a paint
pressure pot,) pull a modest vacuum on it, wait an hour or two, then
replace the evacuated air with the oil, you can penetrate several inches
of any wood with total saturation of the oil.

If you must use the linseed oil, I'd suggest using it straight up. But
if you want the best water vapor barrier this side of some plastic
resin, shellac is king. It's not the best for liquid water but is
reportedly so for water vapor. Hey, all those lac bug larvae can't be
wrong.

Just wanted to muddy this thread up a bit.

Good luck,

Ron