Housekeeping for oil painters

  1. 6586
    Independent
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    DEC
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    2020
    Housekeeping for oil painters
    I've recently switched from acrylics to oils and have found that disposing of brush-cleaning residue is a bit more involved.
    With acrylics you just pour carefully and keep the sediment in the bucket, then wait for it to dry, scrape it up and bin in.
    Oils take so long to dry, the residue from brushes washed in thinner stays wet almost forever so you have to mop it up with paper towels.

    When cleaning your pallette, scrape off as much as you can with a knife (if I have a lot of unmixed paint left over, I save it in syringes - glass is best), then dip a paper towel in some thinner and just keep wiping and replenishing the towel until it's gone. Don't soak your pallete, especially if it's wood because the process just described creates a nice patina.

    NEVER put paint down the drain, indoors or outdoors. Everything sticks to it, it clogs up your internal plumbing and adds to 'fatbergs' in the sewers.
    For that reason I put a bin liner inside my washing and drying buckets so that anything I can't mop up is already safe to dispose of.
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  2. 6587
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    DEC
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    Housekeeping for oil painters
    If your easel has a shelf to store materials, remember to cover it with a dust sheet... I've just ruined four new canvasses with splashes!
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  3. 6588
    Scrotnig is a rightard nutjob and an out and out liar ✅
    BC Team
    Cyprus
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    Housekeeping for oil painters
    Careless. My Father used to paint with oils. I still remember the smell of the turpentine he used to clean everything.

    I just looked turpentine up on wikipedia, because I actually had no idea what is was actually made of (it's difficult to get the real stuff now as cheaper substitutes are used), apparently it's a mixture made by distilling the sap of certain trees. While looking that up I found out that Argentina used to give turpentine enemas as a punishment for political dissenters. Ouch!

    "They don't like it up 'em!"
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  4. 6589
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    Housekeeping for oil painters
    Fork Me
    Careless. My Father used to paint with oils. I still remember the smell of the turpentine he used to clean everything.

    I just looked turpentine up on wikipedia, because I actually had no idea what is was actually made of (it's difficult to get the real stuff now as cheaper substitutes are used), apparently it's a mixture made by distilling the sap of certain trees. While looking that up I found out that Argentina used to give turpentine enemas as a punishment for political dissenters. Ouch!

    "They don't like it up 'em!"
    I use an odourless thinner (it says "Odorless Mineral Spirit" on the tin). It feels like peroleum spirit so I'm guessing that's what it's based on, or at least contains some. No idea how they removed the odour but it literally has no smell at all. And I don't get the headache I used to get from long exposure to white spirit.
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  5. 6590
    Scrotnig is a rightard nutjob and an out and out liar ✅
    BC Team
    Cyprus
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    Housekeeping for oil painters
    Memnoch
    I use an odourless thinner (it says "Odorless Mineral Spirit" on the tin). It feels like peroleum spirit so I'm guessing that's what it's based on, or at least contains some. No idea how they removed the odour but it literally has no smell at all. And I don't get the headache I used to get from long exposure to white spirit.
    It's probably a mixture of medium chain alkanes. Alkanes don't smell much at all (the customary gas smell you get with "natural gas" is actually an additive put in for safety reasons, so you can smell a leak).
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  6. 6591
    Scrotnig is a rightard nutjob and an out and out liar ✅
    BC Team
    Cyprus
    Joined:  Jun 2002 
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    DEC
    14
    2020
    Housekeeping for oil painters
    Just looked it up in one of the science catalogues at work. The one sold by Sigma Aldrich is a "petrol based aliphatic hydrocarbon solvent". So yes, I was right, basically a mixture of alkanes.

    In petrol, it's the aromatic compounds (toluene being an example that's really smelly) that smell, so they've just removed them.
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  7. 6592
    Unsatisfactory ☑️
    BC Team
    BC Team
    United Kingdom
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    2020
    Housekeeping for oil painters
    I love it when you two get all scientific.

    It means I can pretend to understand while nodding sagely.
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