I just treated a piece of wooden furniture with linseed oil. Unfortunately, I'm an idiot an I didn't spot that some parts of the furniture were already treated with lacquer, which presumably means that the linseed oil won't soak in (it certainly doesn't look like it's soaking in so far, anyway). Assuming it doesn't soak in I'll need to remove it somehow, so:
a) How should I remove it? Wipe off? White spirits? Something else?
b) How should I dispose of the rags afterwards? I've seen plenty of warnings that oil-soaked rags may spontaneously combust (linseed oil dries through oxidation, which produces heat) and I am quite keen not to burn anything down. I'm in Zurich and it seems the Hagenholz waste centre takes hazardous waste ( https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/ted/de/...melstelle.html ) — can I just show up there with some oily rags?
Turpentine and naphtha (benzine) are common solvents for linseed oil. Depending on the specifics of the furniture you’ve been working on, there may be a “best” option.
You can put the rags in a metal container filled with water until you dispose of them. You can also spread or hang the rags as a single layer in/on a non flammable area/surface to dry and then dispose of them. Once oxidized the oil is no longer flammable. As long as you provide adequate ventilation, it shouldn’t be a problem.
I use a high pressure water cleaner to strip lacquer off wood, then let dry then apply new coat. Works great.
I used to sand off the lacquer and reapply the linseed oil, but some of the previous posts have interesting alternatives. The linseed soaked rags are kept in a terracotta plant pot on the balcony and won't be used again as I've switched to a different type of oil which is better suited to the bamboo garden furniture I was treating.
Any thoughts on using a Karcher steam cleaner for the same job?