MITRA Forum Question Details

EditDeleteIf you mean can you mix paints together bound in different drying oils (e.g. walnut and linseed) the answer is yes. It may simply affect the overall dry time although I suspect this would hardly be noticeable in practice....this would depend of course on the nature of the drying oils (are there driers added? are you using stand oil?) and how much linseed (the fastest drying oil) is present after mixing. But you should not be too concerned with mixing different oils together. Layering, however, is a different matter. It is considered best practice to either use the same binder throughout the painting process following the fat over lean rule (thinned out paint layers first use faster drying paints followed by fatter layers) or to use faster drying paints in the lower layers followed by slower drying paints (e.g. walnut over linseed, linseed over alkyd, etc). The fact that alkyds are derived from various types of drying oils will not affect the bonding and therefore adhesion if you are applying drying oils derived from slightly different sources on top....it is the differing drying rates and the fat over lean principle that are far more important in this instance.