Mineral Spirits? ?

[Big Shed]

Been trying to stay out of this as this has been done to death any number of times and usually everyone has made up their mind before they post so it is usually a waste of keyboard time.

Anyway here goes. Been a paint chemist for more years that I care to remember and we used a number of solvents amongst them BOTH White Spirits and Mineral Turpentine.

The main one used in oil based paints was Mineral Turps, but for certain specialist reasons we used White Spirits because Mineral Turps was not suitable.

One of those specialist reasons was in oil based enamels for sign writers, these guys did a lot of sign writing on clear polycarbonate sheet. If we used Mineral Turps as the solvent in these enamels, the polycarbonate would (very dramatically) stress crack. This was due to the high aromatic content in the Mineral Turps. So we used White Spirits because of it's relatively low aromatics, ergo no stress cracking on polycarbonate.

We would also use White Spirits when we wanted to lower the solids content of our cheaper trade enamels without them getting too thin, becuase of the lower aromatics in White Spirits it wouldn't "cut" the viscosity as quickly as Mineral Turps.

I could go on, but basically the Wikipedia article is incorrect, what is called White Spirits in the UK is also called White Spirits in Oz, it is equivalent to Mineral Spirits in the US.

It is yet another example that you should always take anything on Wikicamps with a large dose of scepticism.

Think about it, why would a company like Diggers sell both White Spirits and Mineral Turpentine, why would Bunnings stock both, if they are the same product. They are not.

PS Can you guys explain to me why you find it necessary to quote complete posts that you are replying to when that post is right above your reply? So forum members have to scroll past those big slabs of text twice, very annoying. It is just as easy to hit Reply as it is to hit Reply with Quote.

[justonething]

...why would Bunnings stock both, if they are the same product. They are not.

To answer your rhetorical question, bunnings do stock products that are exactly the same other than their names, and on the shelf at vastly different prices

1. https://www.bunnings.com.au/diggers-1l-low-odour-turpentine_p1670043 at 14.18
2. https://www.bunnings.com.au/diggers-...pirit_p1563471 at $8.25

Your should check out their MSDSs to see how vastly different they are.

1. white spirit
2. low odour turps

[Big Shed]

Knew I was wasting my keyboard time.

I will now leave this to the "experts".

[bueller]

PS Can you guys explain to me why you find it necessary to quote complete posts that you are replying to when that post is right above your reply? So forum members have to scroll past those big slabs of text twice, very annoying. It is just as easy to hit Reply as it is to hit Reply with Quote.

I know there are times when I do it unintentionally on Tapatalk, if you've selected a user's post it changes the context of the reply button so that it includes a quote. Don't always notice because it's not immediately obvious that a post is selected it you've scrolled past it.

[DaveVman]

So 'mineral spirits' in USA may or may not be white spirits or they might be something similar to white spirits. Is that the consensus?

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[ubeaut]

What's in a name????

Mineral spirits, mineral turpentine, white spirit, turps, the loosely named paint thinners, stoddards solvent (or solution), turpentine substitute, varsol, and possibly a few other names in foreign languages, are all basically the same thing just with different names and sometimes different prices.

Six of one and half a dozen of the other. All will basically do the same thing but some do it better in different situations or with less smell, as Big Shed rightly said.

They are all just common names for a similar product and all will basically do the same thing.

Victoria potato cakes, NSW potato scallop same thing different name.
Bathing suite, swimmers, togs, trunks, budge smugglers, etc, etc, etc. They're all basically the same thing just different names.

Go buy some turps and stop worrying about the names.


Just as an aside:
I've mentioned this before but never hurts to say it again.

Mineral turpentine and all the others mentioned above are safer to use than pure turpentine (gum turpentine) which is believed by some to cause nasty problems if absorbed through the pores of the skin including kidney failure, whilst fumes can damage central nervous system, lungs and more.

So use it with care. For that matter use all of the above with care. Potato cakes/scallops not included.

Cheers - Neil

[ian]

snip
matter use all of the above with care. Potato cakes/scallops not included.

potato scallops are deep fried, so should be consumed with caution if your waist line is important to you

[DaveVman]

Personally I've never come across the original turps from trees. It has always been mineral turpentine. But then again, I'm no expert in such things.

I posit that the deep fried potatoes are the most dangerous of the lot. I personally don't know of anyone with serious health problems from too much turps but I know of quite a few with serious health problems from too many deep fried potatoes.....sheesh I really need to get away from the computer and do something useful!!!

[soundman]

Just to weigh in on som practical issues.

As far as I understand, "mineral Spirits" in the US is what we call "mineral turps".

As far as I understand shellite is the same as white spirit but with a trade name that you pay for and some colouring. ....... likewise coleman fuel. ..... and dry cleaning fluid.

in use, mineral turps is oilyer than white spirit ....... I find that white spirit works better when thinning polly varnish, and tends less the make it go milky ..... I use white spirit when spraying pretty much any turps bassed product.

White spirit is all so good as a parts cleaner as it evaporates without residue.

back to the acrillic ....... clear acrilic sheet is effected by mineral oil ..... get pretty much anything oily on it and it will craze sometime in the future .... hence the turps problem.

all of the above come from a similar base as petrol.

White spirit is pretty much a clean white solvent, very much like petrol without most of the nasty stuff.

cheers

[Xanthorrhoeas]

What's in a name????

Mineral turpentine and all the others mentioned above are safer to use than pure turpentine (gum turpentine) which is believed by some to cause nasty problems if absorbed through the pores of the skin including kidney failure, whilst fumes can damage central nervous system, lungs and more.

So use it with care. Cheers - Neil

Thanks Neil,

It is really important to get that message out there and to keep repeating it.

Unfortunately, gum turpentine smells really nice (at least to me) and because it is also sometimes marketed as "natural turpentine" has also, in the past, mistakenly been thought to be safer to use than mineral turps. You know how it goes "if its natural it must be better for you" which completely ignores the fact that snake venom and many other chemicals found in the bush are natural but none-the-less very poisonous.

My wife is an artist - in oil paint on copper panels amongst many other visual art creations - and when she was taught to oil paint in the 1970s-80s she was advised to ONLY use "natural" turps. More recent advice is that the gum turps can have a very bad affect on memory amongst other aspects of brain function. She blames her poor memory on it anyway.

Many otherwise excellent furniture polishes also have a good dose of gum turps in them as the solvent, so antiques-lovers beware.

David

[DaveVman]

We used white spirits to clean parts of precision mechanisms back in the day because it left no residue.

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