Homemade Bottles of Wash

[Joe Kutz]

That is one which I will never understand. Adding soap (hand soap, dish soap or any other kind) to paints without the express purpose of washing them away. Soaps always leave residues, usually include dyes and often have fillers like lipids. The end result ends up being a paint which has more in common with soap scum than paint.

 

Breaking the surface tension (which is all the soap does) can be dealt with in a few dozen different ways without using soap. Most are cheap, and all of them avoid the problems with soap (like being washed away with water or Tilex ). A bit of alcohol is probably the easiest way - and most people have a bit in their medicine cabinets. Delta's acrylic thinner will work quite well too - costs about the same as a bottle of soap too for about the same volume.

 

Floor cleaners, window cleaners and other stuff - I understand. They are easy sources of chemicals which are otherwise hard to get a hold of for some people. However soap...I just don't get it.

[PaintByNumbers]

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Diethylene glycol ethyl ether is a little less common, and in concentrated forms is a skin irritant - but other than that...still all good. However it is hazardous to cats.

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FUTURE MSDS:

Chemical Name Wt.% CAS

Diethylene glycol ethyl ether 1 - 5 000111-90-0

 

I wonder if that concentration is at all toxic if a cat walked over a still-wet floor and licked its paws?

[Sergeant_Crunch]

Future isn't entirely evil. Using it as a first coat of sealer on a finished "working" mini under a couple layers of matte sealer has saved several of my paint jobs. But yeah, don't mix it with your paint. Use a more appropriate thinner, it just works better.

[Joe Kutz]

Unlikely. It can cause kidney failure in cats like anti-freeze though, so it is something to keep an eye on if you have a cat and use Future on the floors. The chemical itself evaporates fairly quickly, so you normally have very little left by the time the cat would get to it (and get to licking it's paws).

 

I don't have my HAZMAT books in front of me right now, but if I recall correctly it was around 5 mL of the diethylene glycol ethyl ether that caused the kidney failure (I don't think it was an exact number though that was the threshold number). Given the percentage and the threshold quantity...a cat would need to drink a quarter bottle or so to get a fatal dose. Less would still likely be problematic...so if you have cats, don't use Future where they can get a hold of it.