doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Venice Turpentine For Horses Is Not Real

First post and wanted to thank everyone for all the great info on creating a great stock oil or Slacum. I am mixing up my first batch. Doing a little research on the components I found there are two distinct marketed types of Venice Turpentine.

There is one sold as Venice Turpentine for medicinal horse hoof repair and another sold for high end professional oil painters. The price difference is dramatic to say the least so I investigated a little further and came across a good painters forum blog several pages long. I put the link at the bottom.

The short version is the Horsey stuff is not Venice Turpentine, nor does it even contain any. It has never contained larch which is the prime ingredient. It is colophony which is the stuff left over from spirits of turpentine production, which yellows badly. A very very poor substitute.

The actual Venice Turpentine is a high quality thick medium resin mixed sparingly into oil paint when a jewel-like gloss is required. It also has unique drying and hardening properties. Much like a fine cognac there are subtle but noticeable differences in high end brands as well. The painters also mentioned some other types of resins with different properties that may prove interesting to use including copal and Canada Balsam.

When you only use a teaspoon or two it makes sense this would really be a highly unique product or just voodoo.

I left with the impression the Horsey stuff was like using Supermarket brand vodka when the recipe called for single malt scotch. I could be wrong and it could be insignificant but I thought it worth flying up the flagpole since so many seamed quite intense on their gunstock oiling brews.

I also learned the standard distilled turpentine and boiled linseed oil quality difference is quite dramatic as well. There is a significant difference between the Home Depot "bucket o chemicals" brand and painter quality boiled linseed oil and distilled turpentine.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=346181

First let me say welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your information.

I bought some Venice Turpentine a few years ago from an art supply store and I remember it was expensive. Long story short, I mixed one batch, the bottle rolled into a bottle of Cobalt drier and broke them both. I use little of both so have not replaced them.

I do not use any boiled (chemical drier added) linseed oil anymore, just raw. I have been working with a product called "Stand Oil" http://www.artspectrum.com.au/msds/msds_stand_linseed_oil.pdf
Which seems like a heavy as syrup linseed oil or boiled oil, no chemical driers added. I'm only using this on restoration so have no background with any mixes for a new stock.

For what it's worth I only buy these from an artist supply store and stay away from everything else. This way I know what I have.

Thanks for the welcome Michael.

I posted this because I saw dozens of people buying the horse foot medicine stuff and recommending it to others all over the place. I just wanted people to know what they were getting and have a choice to experiment.

The standing linseed oil sounds to thick to use as is. What do you use to thin it? Do you put anything else in it? What is drying time like?

The Stand oil is very thick, I first tried some Pure Gum Spirits Turpentine and that seem to work but no better than a mix using raw linseed oil (RLO). However the drying time was shorter. In any receipt calling for boiled I'll use stand oil.

I'm using it now as a touch-up oil on smaller spots. Rifles like the Kirkwood that are dry I use a lot of RLO until it stops taking it. Then a few drops of RLO rubbed into the wood with the hand.

I also do all stock cleaning with RLO, just wet it all down and use a tooth brush in the checkering. Wipe with a clean cloth or paper towel.

When I use the stand oil now I put a few drops into a tuna can and heat with a hair drier then rub that into the wood. I've even used the hair drier on the wood. All this fuss is to match the original finish.

If the stock has a lot of red I have some mineral spirits that have soaked up the red from alkanet root powder. I'm also experimenting with red dye that is used for identifying untaxed gas. Many have claimed that Shelhamer used this.

Regardless of what mix I'm playing with I put a thin coat on a pane of glass to see how long it takes to dry.

I will have to remember about heating things instead of diluting them when possible. I have heard of the blow dryer technique on other things. I am steeping my first batch of Alkanet dye/stain.

What do you recommend for a pore sealer on a new piece of wood gunstock prior to staining? I have heard so many different things from plaster of paris to polys to sanding slurrys and just a million coats of BLO/RLO.

Others say if you fill it will wash the grain out some and is a poor tradeoff.

The most effective ways to fill pores is to use barrier/film finishes (spar varnish, epoxy, etc.) sanded back to the wood surface- repeated as necessary- until the pores are filled and the surrounding wood is bare. Proceed with whatever magic oil solution you prefer. That stuff will stay put. It is very labor intensive and not for everybody. It is what I prefer and is merely offered up as one man's opinion/approach.

I have tried everything under the sun in 40 years of stockwork and cabinet making and that is what I keep coming back to. I actually sat in a driving rain once while hunting and watched the proprietary pore filling compound wash out on the freshly oil-finished stock. (Coincidentally at that point I switched to varnish finishes on stocks I planned to hunt hard with.)

Gary, using "spar varnish" kind of opens up a can of worms. My interpretation is that can mean any types and combination of oil, resin/poly and thinner. Now that brings in everything from highly diluted tongue and linseed oil mixes to TruOil types that are mostly poly.

What do you recommend and do you slurry it in or what technique do you use?

Thanks, I had been stopping occasionally at tack shops in hope of
finding Venice Turpentine, I will now be looking at art supply shops.

Having been a yacht carpenter for beau coup years, spar varnish= Epifanes (very high solids content). It is tough stuff and holds up very well in a marine environment (and on gun stocks). It is also the only varnish I use when mixing up an "oil" finish (equal parts varnish, Behlen's pure tung oil and mineral spirits)- essentially a thin wiping varnish that I apply following a schedule appropriate for most any "oil" finish. (Although I plan on stopping at the local art supply store for some of the magic ingredients mentioned above to substitute for my tung oil/mineral spirits.)