I looked up penetrol ( which was mentioned in the next thread -about a particular paint) and it said it was a "stoddard solvent" I looked that up and got this info on wikipedia.
part of they mystery we face is that product names often hide the ingredients. for any paint or solvent you can ask for the MSDS sheets. often that gives a bit more information as they talk about the toxic ingredients.
I thought this was worth reading, as it simplifies things by speaking more about hte basic ingredients. It also mentions "Turpentine substitute"
basically from what I'm understanding is that paint thinner and this Stoddard solvent and white spirits are derivatives of crude oil whereas the turpentine we use is derived from wood, which I assume provides it's bug resistant properties.
another factor is the absorption properties of the wood. If you buy new wood that
s been through a planer it has a "mill glaze" because the blades sort of hammer the wood. You can give it time to open up or do things like pressure wash to disturb the grain to get a better hook. Ive often heard it said that you shouldn't go paint a set of stairs after installation but rather wait a year. - then it will stick better and peel less.
anyway I think this is worth reading, It might take me a couple of re-reads to really absorb it, but most is pretty understandable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_spiritthis other link shows a "mineral turpentine"
http://www.recochem.com.au/files/downlo ... _Apr11.pdfthis other link will bring up a search of MSDS sheets for various brands of turpentine. some from other countries. I think if we were to take a bit of time to try to disseminate the information we may learn more about how different brands compare, How continuous exposure to one brand may be better or worse than others and perhaps get some info about how the turpentine that is derived from wood resins protects against bugs. They dont exactly give an ingredients list but you can sort of use the info from toxicology to understand what the solvents are that they use in a particular brand. some ingredients may still be trade secrets, but it gives some clues as to what's in it.
https://www.google.com/search?q=turpent ... refox-b-abOil is at a low point because of economic conditions and perhaps the green movement away from internal combustion engines may have an effect as time wears on. , while trees become more scarce. perhaps this affects the cost of the solvents we like to use and we could see a change in trends towards the use of petroleum products because they will become cheaper while tree resins may become more sought after and increase in price, but that's just my take on it. It seems that turpentine may be derived from other vegetable sources as well as wood. the shelf price on traditional turpentine is a lot higher than most oil based solvents, so far as I see. now that newspapers and a lot of paper use and need has been replaced with electronics, perhaps we manufacture less wood pulp , Was the turpentine a product of the pulping process?
It might be good to understand more about long term exposure of the various types especially if we are treating big projects with it or using it on a continuous basis, because these things can be accumulative, and may lead some of us to us loosing our marbles or our screwdrivers over time
my layman's analysis is that if your turpentine stinks, good , it should and that probably means it also kills bugs. Now maybe bugs aren't so much of an issue for interior woodwork, so perhaps the application affects what properties we need from the stuff? i dont see the baseboards Im working on being eaten by bugs but maybe it affects how moss forms on something painted or termites. Here we dont have the termite issues they have out east I dont think. maybe because humidity is less?
Phil