Aaaahhh! Attack of the turpentine!

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Building Materials & Supplies
1

A few weeks ago I put an oil-turpentine wash on an ejection seat but when I tried removing the excess, all the future and underlying paint (MM enamel) came off with it! [:'(] So I figured, “wow this stuff must be good for stripping paint” and I tried just that today. I filled a small plastic cup with the turpentine and put a pilot (which had been painted months ago, again MM enamel) in and sure enough, the paint started flaking away. After a while I decided to take the pilot out but when I tried opening the platic lid, turpentine somehow splashed everywhere without it even being open! It was immediately evacuated to the backyard and after an hour or two I came back and discovered that the turpentine had actually melted the plastic cup! The poor pilot is now covered in the stuff[:(((] What is this evil turpentine!? Did the devil make it himself??!

Anyways, what can I do to avoid the turpentine from eating away the future? I also found out that Solvaset eats away future so would multiple coats solve both of these issues?

As for the melted cup, I’ll just use glass ones from now on.

2

Turpentine is commonly used for thinning and cleaning airbrushes and brushes. Yeah it can strip enamels too. NEVER use plastic cups or styrofoam cups when using any type of cleaning solvent. I know first hand what happens to styrofoam and paper cups when using thinner.

My go-to wash is Model Master Black Detail Wash. Water removes excess wash. They do come in other colors as well.

3

Turpentine turns out to be a great solvent for epoxy too.

For washes I use Turpenoid, which is a petroleum distillate and not nearly so caustic, not to mention stinky.

And yes, Sol will mess up Future.

4

You used the “natural” turpentine didn’t you?

Better to use mineral turpentine/mineral spirits/white spirits as mentioned above.

5

This reminds me of the chemist who invented a solvent that would dissolve anything. The only problem was, he couldn’t find anything to keep it in!

6

It doesn’t take a very strong solvent to eat up styrofoam, but many types of plastic work fine with turpentine. However, never use lacquer thinner with most plastics. There are some plastics that are okay with lacquer thinner, but they are rare- not as common, and you need to know what you are doing to use lacquer thinner in plastic containers.

I save those plastic containers that many powdered drinks come in- they work fine with turpentine/mineral spirits.

7

Unfortunately I was never warned of this with turpentine.[:|] I knew about lacquer thinner melting plastic but not turpentine. I’m not sure what type of plastic the cup was only that it was one of those tiny transleucent cups restaurants will give you if you have leftover salsa

8

how do they get non-stick pan surface to stick to the pan?