best thinner for enamel paints: gasoline...???

[iiipopes]

Gasoline can blow up on you with the least provocation. So you may live long enough to post again on TubeNet, please don't use gasoline. Go to your local hardware store and use only what they recommend.

[Normal]

It's the gas fumes that will cause the most problems.

Speaking of gasoline being dangerous, I was on a section leader trip back in high school and we were having trouble starting our fire because it had been pouring cats and dogs all day, so we asked one of the attendants at the campsite for some help. He then proceeded to take a mix of oil and gas to light our fire. It worked and we got our fire but we thought twice about asking him for help again.

I've spent many hours at the end of a container with a mixture of 25% gas & 75% diesel lighting slash fires and back-burning wildland fires. Even right up against the fire these containers did not blow. This is mostly because the mixture of gas and diesel did not give off the same amount of volatile fumes that just the gas gives off. I would guess that Bloke's paint and gas would be similar. Be aware of sparks and flames in the area while you are mixing the gas in.

[Normal]

Bloke,

Does the gas mixed paint lay down on the surface the way say lacquer does? Are there more air bubbles with the gas mix? Does the gas stay well mixed with the paint or are there uneven patches? I wouldn't expect so, but curious.

[iiipopes]

Gasoline can blow up on you with the least provocation. So you may live long enough to post again on TubeNet, please don't use gasoline. Go to your local hardware store and use only what they recommend.

Thanks for informing me that gasoline is combustible...



Again, what they recommend seems to be sh!t.

fwiw, I was doing this out in the country, over wet grass, out in the open, about 60 feet away from anything. The compressor was about 250 feet away, and the closest electrical switch was 60 feet away (behind a closed door)...

...OH! I almost forgot! I was smoking a pipe and playing with sparklers.

bloke "who has had, over the last thirty years or so, just a wee bit of experience with flames, flammables, and combustibles"

And so have I. From the clean up the mess later end, legally speaking. Also, a couple of months ago a house around the corner caught fire from a defective light fixture in the laundry room next to the garage. It would have been a routine scorch a room, make an insurance claim, and fix it until the gas can in the garage blew up. Now the remains of the house look like a war casualty. Thank God no one was home at the time.

My mother has sold insurance on and off for forty years. I've seen nasty claims. I've seen too many accident reports from all aspects of lawsuits, both criminal and civil. The 8X10 glossy photographs are not pretty.

I'm serious. Please don't be snide on this one. Your thirty years of experience with gasoline, as well as other solvents, should have told you better. I didn't want to remind you of the obvious. I'd rather read your posts than your obituary.

[lgb&dtuba]

Thinning paint with gasoline and then spraying it is asking for trouble. The fact that you got away with it this time doesn't make it a smart move.

[Todd S. Malicoate]

Around these parts, people have been thinning paint with gasoline (or diesel) for implements, trailers, and a variety of other outdoor items for decades.

They also run propane in their vehicle air conditioning.

They also drink too much, smoke too much, and eat fatty foods.

The gub'ment has tried to take most of these things away, but darn the gumption of some of the old timers around here...they just won't listen.

Oh, and BTW...gasoline is combustible under 7:1 or better pressure...not so much at 30 inches of mercury (regular atmospheric pressure). A touch flammable, yes (although many common household products are much more flammable), but it isn't going to explode in your paint gun. Paint thinner is a petroleum distillate, just like gasoline...but for some reason, you feel safe with paint thinner in the gun...hmmmm...

[tubatooter1940]

I never have used gasoline to thin paint to spray (good idea), but I have always used gas to clean oil based paint out of my expensive bristle brushes because it dissolves more quickly and completely. I then wrap the bristles tightly in newspaper and stand the brushes up in a can of kerosine (which can also burn your butt up) because kerosine evaporates slowly and I only need to top up my brush holding can every few months.
Leaving a paint brush in gasoline for long will melt the bristles so I quickly kick 'em out, wrap 'em and drop them in the kerosine. Paint falls out of suspension in gasoline in just a week and the clean clear gas can be poured off and used over and over.
I have oil paint brushes that are 20 or more years old - good as new -that I have always cleaned and stored with this method.
My grandfather used to bend in the sides of his brush storage can to use less kerosine.