I could swear that I read about infusing an alcohol(?) solution which
attracted water and evaporated quickly...


Bruce in Bangkok wrote:
If you mix alcohol and water you get a mixture that will evaporate at
a lower temperature. However, whether this mix will take place
throughout the saturated area and whether the mix will totally
evaporate and leave a dry core, is another question.

But try it. As I implied, the only sure method of ensuring that all
wetted core material is removed is to de-skin it, so all other methods
are really sort of "suck it and see" solutions. Thus my caveat that
there is "no evidence of a failed core, so far."


I've used denatured alcohol to speed up evaporation & drying of wetted
core. How much it helped I can't say. This was two years ago and the
balsa-cored section I repaired is still sound... no idea how dry it is
inside since I'm not going to drill test holes just for fun.

I also could not say for sure how much it speeded up the drying
process. The section was less that 2 square feet and I rigged a
gravity alcohol irrigator on one side and a vacuum pump on the other.
It ran for a couple of days and it seemed dry, so I ran the vacuum
pump and a heater for one more day without alcohol

Fresh Breezes- Doug King.