: It would be hard to get all the oil out of the wood. Maybe you might get some
: to come out if you saturated it with boiling water, or got a big pot and
: boiled the blade, but that could create bigger problems than you already
: heave. So don't expect any glass to stick should you apply it to the face
: of the blade as a potential bandage.

: I'd start by trying to fix it without using glass. Mix a small amount of
: resin and paint over the crack. It should soak in. Hopefully the crack
: will have opened up wood which is deep enough that it has not been
: saturated by the oil treatment. Your epoxy should stick nicely to that
: newly exposed wood, and hopefully it will prevent the crack from
: spreading.

: Another thought is to let the thing go without being repaired, at least for a
: few years. I've had varnished canoe paddles with splits in them for years.
: They look old and ugly, but they still work. If the split ever gets so big
: that the blade comes apart, I'll use resin and glass to hold the parts
: together--but that will probably still be many more years down the road.
: Your paddle may last a good long time without any intervention on your
: part. If you quit oiling the blade, in a few years of use enough oil may
: leach out, or polymerize, so that future repairs will stick nicely.

: Another thought is to coat the blade with a sealer which can contain the
: oils, yet provide a sufficiently strong base which the epoxy can bond to.
: I've used lacquers for sealing oil paints, and artists have used varnishes
: for centuries. But those old varnishes can take years to get hard enough
: for your needs. If you have some oil-based polyurethane varnish you might
: try that. Allow something like Varathane to dry for a couple of weeks and
: it has an armor-hard finish. That's why it is used for floors. Lacquer
: would dry faster, and shellac would possibly work as well. There are
: probably a few other sealers you can find at your local paint store. They
: may have local trade names, but check the labels and you will probably
: find they are based on either a urethane, polyurethane, lacquer or shellac
: base. Whatever you use, once it is hard you can roughen the surface by
: sanding with a coarse sandpaper, and apply glass and resin over the
: surface of the blade.

: But leave that as a future idea. it is probably not worth the cost of buying
: a can of any of them for this small of a project. You may be using some of
: these sealers for other projects in the years to come, and you can use a
: few drops of whatever is left over to experiment with.

: Hope one of these ideas helps. Good luck with your repairs.

: PGJ
Thanks for the info. I may do a little sanding to see if I can tell how deep the oil had penetrated. It has not been oiled sense the crack but it's about 10 years old so it has many coats.