Thread: Wipe on varnish with lacquer thinner?

Probably not a good idea to use lacquer thinner with a varnish, wipe on or otherwise.

The sovents in lacquer thinners are quite strong and are likely to lift the previous coat of varnish when you put another coat on.

What type of wipe on varnish are you using?

i was gonna mix the thinner with bondall clear timber varnish. would of thought though that dissolving the previous layer would have been a good thing thus blending the coats and make a smoother more even surface and that one of the downsides of water based lacquer is that it doesn't dissolve the previous layer, but if your talking about somthing more extreme when you say lifting then it might not be so good.

Did a bit of research with mixed results according to its msds this thinner contains naphtha, toluene and acetone naphtha being the main ingredient turns out though that some "paint thinners" contain these while others contain just mineral spirits so its hard to say what im getting there either. one thing though i did find several people who recommended pure naphtha over paint thinner cuz it evaporates quicker also found one bloke who seemed to believe toluene was incompatible with the oil base, but his information seemed vague and unreliable. Just like to make it clear im talking about mixing my own wiping varnish (50% varnish (alkyd, poly or spar) 50% naphtha, turps or paint thinner) and not about commecial so call tung oil.

anyway might test it out on a scrap piece first, but if anyone has anymore information i'd be glad to hear it. thanks

Most of those solvents, lacquer thinners, enamel thinner, theres another one, can't recall off the top of my head which one it is now, have pretty much the same ingredients. What generally changes is the proportion, with the proportion you can change the speed "evapouration time" of the solvent, and to some degree how quickly it will affect whatever it is the bulk of the solvent is actually a solvent for.

Never seen a problem caused in an "oil" based poly, or varnish with any of these solvents, although you may find the tack off time is much higher than if you use Mineral Turps, although for a wiping result you might get a better result with gum turpentine, its slower still, tends to be a more oily product than mineral turps.