Linseed Oil Drying

[TimRobinson]

I emailed Diggers Australia to ask what was in the gum turpentine and all they could tell me is that is from a pine tree in China. Should have known :-)

Tim

[fiddlecollector]

That tree is related to the mastic tree and is the source of Chian or Chios turpentine.(which is extremely expensive stuff)

[HongDa]

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Interesting.

I have been using Windsor Newton English distilled turpentine. I can't find specifics on it but they do mention on their site that it is the only artists grade turpentine strong enough to easily disolve damar.

I had this suspicion that maybe turpentine disolves something undesirable in the mastic that alcohol doesn't.

So, perhaps different turpentines have different disolving powers and the one I am using is too strong?.

I have a few grams of mastic that I disolved in alcohol an let evaporate to test my suspisions. I'll now devide that in half and use a different turpentine in one half and the same turpentine in the other.

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I tried this alcohol disolved mastic. After letting the alcohol evaporate I then mixed some with 2 different turpentines but it doesn't dry any differently.

I guess this means that it doesn't really matter if the mastic is disolved with turpentine or alcohol first.

I'll keep trying to find some pure gum turpentine and see if that helps. But for the moment all I can find are artist grades of turpentine.

[HongDa]

I found a new art shop recently and noticed they have mastic varnish there. It is a 75ml jar (2.5 oz.) for about 12 dollars.The mix is 30% chios mastic with turpentine.

Has anyone ever used this and know if this is just diluted as with Michael's varnish or is cooked?

I think I'll buy some and mix it with linseed oil to see what happens. Hopefully it will solve the problem and I can just buy this ready to go from an art shop when needed.

[Andres Sender]

If it's made according to the usual recipes it's probably heated.

An artist's grade turpentine should be the best you can get, it would be awfully strange if an international grade of artist turps was the problem here.

[HongDa]

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If it's made according to the usual recipes it's probably heated.

An artist's grade turpentine should be the best you can get, it would be awfully strange if an international grade of artist turps was the problem here.

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The only problem I could think of with something like Windsor Newton turps is that for some reason it is actually too strong in the initial dissolving process.