Thinner or Mineral Spirits?

[Leon]

I just finished helping a friend paint the interior of probably our 20th house in the last 10 years. Typically he rolls on the latex to paint the walls and I cut in. Also I do most of the oil based enamel trim painting. Through the years he has always used thinner to thin the paint and to clean the brushes. It has always been a pet peeve of mine to come back after lunch and begin the trim work again. I always clean the brush in thinner before leaving and when I resume painting the residual thinner in the brush blends with the paint in the brush and runs down the handle for the next hour. I HATE THAT! And It never starts immediately, it begins 15 minutes after thinking I am starting with a "basically dry" brush. I often will prime the brush with a very small bit of thinner but what resides after cleaning is way way more than "a bit".

This time around he brought mineral spirits, odorless AAMOF.

I noticed,

1. No odor, although Swingman would testify that is smells like a refinery

13.6 miles NE of Pasadena, TX had just released .003 atoms of smelly stuff into the atmosphere about 15 minutes prior. ;~)

1. It works just as well as thinner for cleaning the brushes.

2. I never once had a friggin dripping brush after lunch.

Does mineral spirits evaporate faster than thinner?

[Robatoy]

Do you use a pump-style spinner after you clean your brush?

[Artemus]

I don't know about the evaporation rate. When I have to take a less than overnight break from painting/staining I wrap the brush/roller/pad tightly in kitchen plastic wrap and set it aside. If longer than that I'll clean an oil based applicator. This will work for latex paint too and if you freeze it you can save it for days. I've not tried this with lacquer so I can't say if it will work for it. Art

[cm]

I always spin my brushes and rollers or both oil and latex.

Craig

[Leon]

No, and I may not have to worry about this with mineral spirits.

[Leon]

Often we are painting all day long and the brush has to be cleaned periosically any way, same thing happens.

This will work for latex paint

Painting empty houses does not always lend themselves to habing any appliances.

[John Grossbohlin]

Seems unreasonable given that paint thinner is primarily if not entirely mineral spirits. This information is based on the various cans I've looked at over the years...

Try wrapping the paint wet brush in plastic wrap during lunch rather than cleaning the brush. --OR-- Spin the brush to get rid of the fluid trapped in the heel and then dry well with paper towels and wrap the brush in newspaper to absorb fluid during lunch. It helps to suspend the brush by the handle, bristles down so that gravity helps the fluid migrate out of the heel.

John

[Leon]

Primarily, but there is a difference. I also notice that mineral spirits washes off of my hands more readily with out soap than thinner does.

Brushes have to be cleaned periodically during the day any way. Avoiding cleaning is problematic.

--OR-- Spin the brush to get rid of the fluid trapped in

Seems to be a moot point at this point, the Mineral spirits seem to solve the problem. I was hoping to get an answer as to what the real differences in the two are.

[Nonny]

Jeez- a zip-lock baggie to hold the brush over lunch should do the trick, with no thinner, cleaning or solvent needed. Just stick the brush in, with lots of paint in the bristles, and zip the baggie's top as closed as it will go.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 10/28/2009 3:27 PM Leon spake thus:

[snip]

Welllll ... thinner *is* mineral spirits. But you obviously got a different type of spirits, a different fraction. So in your case it seems to have evaporated faster.

[Robatoy]

Wellll, yes and no. "Thinners" can be mineral, but don't have to be. Petroleum based "thinners", like Varsol are purely petroleum based. Then there are turpentine based (pine-resin distillate) and blends of both of the above. Pure terps stink to high heaven , but not too offensive to some, but boy does it clean a brush. Then again, so does gasoline, favourite brush-cleaner of many. ( A little Agent Orange never hurt anybody.) The **ulene types of thinners/cleaners can also be found blended with either terps or petroleum based solvents... lacquer thinner can be one of those. My paint-booth guru of yore sold me 2 grades of "thinners", one to thin my lacquers, one to clean my equipment. Smelled the same, but clearly weren't. Sikkens M600 is still THE stuff that cleans my Iwata HVLP the best. Varsol, on the other hand, is what I would consider a 'real' mineral spirit. "Varsol Fluids can be used in a wide variety of applications, including thinners for paint and coatings, general purpose cleaners, dry cleaning fluids, fuel additives and asphalt viscosity reducers."

What I like about Varsol, is that it is cheap. It won't screw up your $ 30.00 Purdy brush. The other so-called cleaners and thinners don't go near my arsenal of Purdy's. (I love those round pointed french sash brushes...)

[Steve Turner]

I have to hide my Purdys. My wife gets a hold of them while I'm away at work, then has NO idea how to clean them out. When it comes to women I've mostly learned when to keep my mouth shut, but these little episodes completely blow it for me! :-)

[FrozenNorth]

I have a wife, a good one, she buys her own paintbrushes. ;-)

I may have gone off on her once or twice.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 10/29/2009 4:39 AM Steve Turner spake thus:

then has NO

Please don't tar all women with that same brush.

I have a client--a woman--who's *far* more fastidious about cleaning and maintaining her painting tools than I am. And I'm not particularly a slouch about such things; I value my few good paintbrushes.

[Steve Turner]

I wasn't. Not sure how you drew that conclusion...

I believe you. But if she left your best cordless drill out in the rain to rust would you keep your mouth shut or give her a lecture? I kept my mouth shut when my wife did that to me. But after about the third Purdy brush she clogged up with latex... well a guy can only clam up for so long. :-)

[Nova]

If my wife decides to paint I'd gladly buy a new brush when she finished. I HATE painting!

[Lew Hodgett]

"HATE" doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about painting.

Of course, the fact that I'm your basic "3 and 1" painter, probably doesn't help.

3 and 1 = 3 parts on me and 1 part on what I'm trying to paint.

Lew

[Leon]

LOL, I remember those days. I was there. I guest after doing 20 something homes you get better at it. You eventually learn not to touch the wet stuff, LOL. Oil is unforgiving, it doesn't just wipe off although if you carry a rag with a little thinner on one corner it removes the unexpected immediately. Latex rubs off just like TBIII.

[Swingman]

Feel your pain ... a pox on the caveman who first put hair on the end of a stick to slop pigments around.

[Robatoy]

A friend of mine, who used to own a paint store, always had a 55gallon drum out behind his store. Any of us who needed some, would fill our jugs, toss a few bucks in a can and away we went. All was fine for decades, till some environmental, tofu-sucking, Birkenstock-wearing, Tilly hatted, Prius-driving, Ed Begley-grade tree-hugger called the authorities and they wanted to make him install a permanent CO2 extinguisher and drip-trays with pollution-control labels and piles of paper to fill out...he took the drum away.