What are the precise uses of turpentine oil?

Question

Can it be used to preserve paintings, finished works on wood, paper, thermocol, plastics etc. If so how should the composition be made or prepared?

Answer 1

Turpentine is a solvent, and should NOT be put on paintings, finished works on wood, paper, thermocol, plastics or anything else.
When you finish using an oil based paint, you clean your brushes in turpentine, because it dissolves the oil and allows you to clean the paint and pigment out of your brush.
You can use turpentine to thin paints -- if, for some reason, you wanted to thin oil paints, you could add a brushful of turpentine -- but when you do, the paint takes longer to dry. But if you put turpentine directly on paper, all you get is an oily splotch.
If you want to preserve something, you can use lacquer, sprayed on in a very fine mist. But do not spray lacquer on top of oil paint. It isn't necessary.

Answer 2

Great to hear someone new to painting... hope it's fun and exciting for you! Be careful with Turpentine... some people can get sensitive to it really fast! I am one of them... what I do to clean my brushes after oil painting is to use baby oil! I heard about it on a radio program (it seems about 100 yrs ago). Wipe your brush to get rid of excess paint.. use a small container (baby food jar is good)... put a little baby oil in, dab the brush in it to soften the paint on the bristles. Gently rub the oil into the bristles using your hands/fingers (try not to mess up the bristles, go in the direction of the hair) Next, have some gentle liquid dish detergent and a bit of warm (almost hot water) 'work' that into the brush and rinse with very warm water, pat the brushes dry and let them completely air dry. This method has been very helpful and useful for me. Someone else will probably tell you the proper way to use turpentine but pleas keep in mind, if you use it have a glass container with a lid... the paint particles will settle to the bottom in the turpentine leaving it clear towards the top to reuse again... don't dump it please!

Answer 3

Since I am an oil painter, I use turpentine for 2 main reasons:
1) To remove paint from a canvas that I put too much of or looks bad;
2) It helps to clean your paintbrushes so you don't blend your colors.

Answer 4

It removes oil based paints form things.

Answer 5

No, it cannot be used to perserve paintings or any finished work. turpintine is what you dip your oil brushes into, it thins out oil paint, it disolves oil paint, like what water does to acrylic paint.