Thinner Question

[Phil Coopy]

What is the difference between nitrate thinner and butyrate thinner?  I've always used butyrate thinner for both and never noticed any bad effects.

Phil

[Clint Ormosen]

  I've always used butyrate thinner for both and never noticed any bad effects.

Phil

Me either.

[Neil Rogers]

I'm looking at a can of Sig thinner and it says For use with Sig Supercoat Lite Coat and Nitrate dope.  So I would say that nitrate and butyrate thinners are the same.

Neil Rogers

[Scott B. Riese]

Nitrate thinner is a slow drying product. Butyrate is usually has a faster solvent product. How ever you can purchase different speeds of thinners and custom paint shops. You can use a Butyrate solvent in nitrate as long as you use that thinner through out your finishing process. Don't mix thinners.

[Bill Little]

Like Scott says, I have found that using the same thinner has always proven very helpful in reducing the problems of mixing lacquer type products, which dope is one of.  The only times I have really had finishing problems was once using retarder and once using a hotter thinner.  Both times it messed things up, so now all I use is 3608S in everything.  No crazing, no lifting, no problems and that is combining Nitrate, Butyrate, automotive lacquers, and clear coating with automotive urethane, all on the same models.

Of course, I have been often accused of being the blind hog..........

Mongo

[Bootlegger]

     Big Bear, Did ya' find that acorn    LOL     

[Chuck Feldman]

      Mongo      You crack me up. Please always sign with MONGO.

Chuck

[billbyles]

What is the difference between nitrate thinner and butyrate thinner?  I've always used butyrate thinner for both and never noticed any bad effects.

Phil

Hi Phil,

You can use nitrate thinner in the nitrate dope, but you cannot use the nitrate thinner in butyrate dope; the nitrate thinner is not aggressive enough for the resins used in butyrate dope.  You can also use nitrate thinner in nitrate dope applied under butyrate dope with no problem.

You can use butyrate thinner in nitrate dope as the butyrate thinner is more aggressive than the nitrate thinner and will work just fine in the nitrate dope.

Way back when dope was developed to be applied to either Grade A cotton or Linen cover on aircraft it was cellulose nitrate dope, essentially cotton treated with acid with additives to yield nitrate dope.  Nitrate thinner was developed as a thinner for the nitrate dope.  The problem with nitrate dope which led to the development of butyrate dope was the extreme flammability of nitrate dope (it is pretty close to the formula for gunpowder.)

While butyrate dope is flammable, it burns much more slowly than nitrate which burns almost explosively.  I was an expert witness at a trial in Little Rock, Arkansas a few years ago at which this flammability was demonstrated and it is startling to say the least.  Just FYI, since we modelers don't have much of a problem with the flammability of nitrate or butyrate dopes.

Just for further info (since this is probably worth what you are paying for it) nitrate dope shrinks more than butyrate dope when drying, but the nitrate dope has lower film strength than butyrate.

Bill