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Solvents
A number of other solvents are employed in the making of paints, varnishes, and enamels, but as they concern the manufacturer rather than the painter there is no need to discuss them at any length in this work.They include:
Benzol.-A colourless liquid, derived from coal tar.
Owing to its great penetrative properties, it is used as a solvent for dyes employed for wood-stains.
It is also an ingredient of many paint removers.
Solvent Naphtha.-Another coal-tar distillate, distilled in two fractions; light solvent naphtha and; heavy solvent naphtha.
The former is chiefly employed as a solvent for rubber but the latter is fairly extensively used in paint manufacture for certain quick-drying paints and in primers for woodwork.
Unlike turpentine or white spirit, it has solvent action on old-paint films and thus, except in modified form, is unsuitable for paints other than primers.
It has exceptional penetrative properties and fairly strong germicidal powers.
Wood Spirit.This spirit is distilled from various hard woods and is used largely in the manufacture of spirit varnishes.
Methylated Spirit.- This is an alcohol, with a small proportion of adulterant and distinctive colouring matter, in order to make it unfit for drinking.
One of its principal uses, so far as the painting trade is concerned, is as a solvent for shellac, to produce knotting and French polish.
In the USA, it is known as " denatured alcoho1."
Amyl Acetate.-This colourless, limpid fluid is well known for its " pear-drop" odour and is extensively used in the preparation of nitrocellulose lacquers.
Acetone.-This highly inflammable organic solvent is extensively used in the manufacture of cellulose ester lacquers, aeroplane dopes, and paint removers.
It is one of the few solvents which will act upon linoxyn (oxidised linseed oil), and this makes it particularly valuable as a paint remover, though it evaporates rapidly when exposed to the air.