: ...of their epoxy this year from 500 cps to 800 cps.

At the Wooden Boat Festival last September, I spoke with a MAS representative at their tent display. After some chitchat, I asked him what solvent, if any, they would recommend for thinning their epoxy.

He darted his eyes left and right, leaned slightly toward me and in a lowered voice said that ordinary mineral spirits would work, with the only 'caution' being that one had to let the stuff dry out thouroughly before recoating. I was slightly taken back after all I've heard about petroleum products being anathema to epoxy resins, but he insisted that it was all right.

A few weeks later, at the Fiberlay store in Seattle, I repeated this to the fellow helping me. He was a bit surprised himself, then, after some thought, he said that maybe it had to do with the chemistry of the MAS hardener. His take on it was that just about all epoxy resins are very much the same, with the differences mostly being in the hardeners of each brand. For the Fiberlay house brand of epoxy resins, they sell aliphatic alchohol.

So, has anyone ever tried thinning MAS with mineral spirits?

And, would denatured wood alchohol be too different from aliphatic alchohol to use? My dictionary says that means simply that it's derived from fatty ingredients.