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Hello,

I was given a dozen 2oz bottles of Hanovia gold and most of them need thinning- 2 are completely dry. They are (or were) sealed up and looking at the prices on them they are fairly old. I don't want to experiment putting something like clove oil if its not the correct thing. Does anyone know what to use to thin these?

Many thanks!
Shereen

health food store pure lavender oil or you could buy their thinner.
Do not overthin or your gold will fire purple.
Nice gift.

Guessing here that they're really .2 oz bottles instead of 2 oz bottles. At any rate that's a nice score. Kathy Peterson at thegoodstuff.com is helpful. She may have some tips on reconstituting the dried-up stuff. She sells several different thinners for gold. I suspect they're functionally pretty similar to the stuff Kevin recommended but again, Kathy knows her stuff and is good about answering questions.

suppliers of metallic lustres have a product called essence. I believe it is highly refined turpentine. This is what they recommend for thinning.

Hi Shereen,

I have a 4 oz bottle of Hanovia Brush Cleaner. It lists the contents as: benzyl acetate, camphor, oil of turpentine, toluene and wood turpentine. The cautions make it out to be very nasty stuff.

Let me know if you need some and we can work something out.

Jim

You are right on that listing Jim. Check out the msds for toluene. It is nasty stuff.
I'd try a drop of lavender oil, see what it does when stirred with a plastic Dr's Toothpick. Use the brush end to stir the bottle.
Give it time. Add another drop. Give it time to work.
Check out the good stuff essences if you can't mix it up with the lavender oil.
Beware even innocent sounding lavender oil can cause nasty headaches if you are doing enough gold work without adequate ventilation etc.
After having opened one of the bottles I suggest when storing it for later use to seal it tight and then use black electrical tape to further seal the lid/bottle joint.

Also beware of firing lavender oil without adequate ventilation. In sufficient quantities it makes pretty nasty smoke. The one time I tried firing it in my kilns I wound up boarding the cats and sleeping in a hotel for a couple of nights while the place was aired out. Took about a week for the reaction to wear off.

Anything other than glass fired in a kiln can cause air quality problems with inadequate studio ventilation.
I've never fired at once the amounts Cynthia aspired to try without consequences.

Metallic lustres are particularly sensitive to the by products of the medium burning off. You must vent the kiln until 1000ºF, to get the fumes out of the kiln. If you don't, residue will land on the glass and make permanent marks.

Note: Lustres (exact spelling) are a totally different product than luster sold by Thompson Enamel. Their luster is just a mica product in a medium.

Thank you all, Yes I did mean .02 bottles - I wrote kathy and she replied very quickly - here are her instructions (I know how much the search tool has helped me in the past)


The proper thinner for Bright Gold is the OH1 Essence $9.95/1/2 oz. It is made by the gold Factory and is the only thing I would ever use.

Directions: never put anything into a Gold bottle. There is always a possibility of contamination. Try to get some of the gold out and onto a clean tile. Then add one drop of Essence at a time and mix with a stainless steel palette knife until it is usable again. Use this Gold off off the tile until it is gone. Repeat.

Liquid Bright Gold is a luster and as with all lusters, it does have a shelf life. If it is totally dried up, it may not be able to come back to a usable state. But it's always worth trying.


Thank you , again!
Shereen

Interesting. I don't quite get the 'don't put anything into the bottle' imperative but it sounds pretty emphatic. You'd be inclined to put essence into the little bottle and stir it up of course.....its not like cooties are going to jump in there and get things all dirty. I'd guess she knows what she's talking about, but I don't understand that prohibition of the obvious approach.

Don Burt wrote:Interesting. I don't quite get the 'don't put anything into the bottle' imperative but it sounds pretty emphatic. You'd be inclined to put essence into the little bottle and stir it up of course.....its not like cooties are going to jump in there and get things all dirty. I'd guess she knows what she's talking about, but I don't understand that prohibition of the obvious approach.

me too don. probably one of those thingd folks were taught because they were in a 'school' setting where one never knows what might be in any bottle of liquid. i always thin my gold and palladium in the bottle as i do know what is in my bottle of essence. essence. r.