How to make Asphaltum Varnish...

[Larry White]

Found this on the internet....

Asphalt, also known as asphaltum, is used in varnish form as a resist for acid etching, blacking for wrought iron or as a dark varnish and sealant for wood. Asphalt dilutes readily in turpentine. When an asphalt-turpentine mixture is applied to a surface, the turpentine evaporates, depositing a layer of smooth asphalt on the desired surface. You can purchase both asphalt and turpentine at a hardware or home-improvement store. Make sure to buy pure asphalt and not an asphalt mixture. The finished product will be thick but can be diluted to the desired working consistency.

Things You'll Need
2 woven canvas bags
5-gallon bucket, with lid
25 cups asphalt
3 gallons of turpentine

1) Select two canvas bags so that each will fit inside a 5-gallon bucket like a garbage bag. After putting one of the bags in the bucket, you should be able to pull the sides of the bag over the edges of the bucket and lift the bag eight inches off the bottom of the bucket.

2) Place one bag inside the other and hold the ends together.

3) Add the asphalt to the doubled bag.

4) Pour the turpentine into the bucket.

5) Place the doubled bag containing the asphalt into the bucket. The turpentine will seep through the bag and cover the asphalt.

6) Fold both bags over the edge of the bucket and adjust the bags until they are eight inches off the bottom.

7) Hold the bags in place and secure the bucket lid. The lid will hold the bags above the bottom of the bucket and allow the asphalt to dissolve into the turpentine.

8. Allow the asphalt to dissolve for three to four days.

9) Lift the bag from the asphaltum varnish and allow the liquid to drain. Any insoluble asphalt particles will be trapped inside the bag.

10) Stir the varnish thoroughly before use to ensure an even distribution of the asphalt throughout.

11) Transfer the varnish to another container and dilute it with more turpentine to achieve the desired consistency for each project.

eHow.com website link - How to Make Asphaltum Varnish

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[Anthony Bennett]

Great find Larry.
Thanks for sharing

[Patrick Mackle]

Here I go again into the mysteries of asphaltum. I used to be able to buy pure petroleum based asphaltum in gallon cans as non fibered "lap cement" found as a roofing product. But environmental changes have bastardized those products into water based products. (it is alarming when opening the new product and finding condensed water droplets in the lid)
Anyway, while I was searching for a source for the original untampered asphaltum, I looked at the hard, almost glass like tar product that is broken apart into chunks and melted in a roofer's trailer tar pot. I was told by many roofers that that product was not asphaltum. But now after reading Larry's find, I think that possibly his post suggests that putting this hard block tar into bags and allowing it to dissolve back into a liquid state may be the route to making an original liquid asphaltum again. In a sense, we may be putting back the volatile distillates that the block tar manufacturer purposely removed to make hardened meltable roofing tar. A small test could be made by begging a chunk from a roofer, and soaking it in a jar of paint thinner and turps.
Pat

[Tony Segale]

Builder, gilder, glass etcher, bonzai master, sushi eater, asphaltum maker...



what's next? the Green Frog?

[Larry White]

The Green Frog will have one easel, I'll do reverse glass signs and showcards
both, but mostly glass signs. I'll try to run it myself for a while if I can keep
good help, and I'll have to learn how to screen print. Or I'll just give it all up
and sell it and go out and live at the Salton Sea. Maybe I'll go out to the
vinyl happy town of Boarshank and paint signs with Mr. Olafson and a left-handed
signwriter named Jason. The Morton's had run Mr. Olafson out of Hilmar,
but don’t ask me what for. Call it a misunderstanding and let it go at that.

Hey, you forgot, Poet...and Banterer!

-Aho!


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[Bill DeBekker]

Pat if it's still available in your area they still make Brushable wall Tar for waterproofing Concrete walls before backfilling around a foundation. Works Great for Glue Chipping.

Also I am going to test/try to coat some glass with Scotch Guard and see how that repels the glue since it has it is super hydrophobic. (Repels Water Better then Oil)

Another Source for Asphalt is check with your local road Contractor. They will have raw Asphalt for making Road Base Asphalt.

[David Slade]

I got some powdered asphalt from the dry pigment section of an art supply shop. You might check there...
I mixed the powder with turpentine in a glass jar. Mix it little by little until it is like thick mud. Pour a little turpentine on top of the asphalt mud and let it sit for a couple days. Aaah...it's like smooth molasses! I figure thick is better because adding powder takes a couple of days until it smooths out. Thinning with turps is immediate.
I keep it closed with a little turpentine on top so it doesnt go to tar.

Here is my little bag of evil.

asphaltum.JPG (37.97 KiB) Viewed 16743 times

I put the shades on the picture and scroll beforehand with thinned asphaltum.(the green plastic is not mine)

asphaltum shades.JPG (137.42 KiB) Viewed 16806 times

[Patrick Mackle]

Oh! Woe is me!
What times are these, when good sign men and embossers are made to breathe life back into a withered spoon's worth of powdered asphaltum so's to put a wee shadow on a scant banner. Oh! woe is me!
Paticus of Tardom
I guess I could always move to the Texas gulf and await the next big oil spill. I heard tell they had football sized globs of tar just rollin' around in the waves, just ripe for the pickin'. That's it. I'm goin'.

[Lee Littlewood]

Ah Ha! So asphaltum is dissolved asphalt, and asphalt is:
(from the web, my bold text)

WHAT'S THAT STUFF?
November 22,1999 Volume 77, Number 47
CENEAR 77 47 p.81 ISSN 0009-2347
Asphalt -Michael Freemantle

Where would we be without that black sticky stuff called asphalt? We walk, cycle, and drive cars on it. The aircraft we fly in take off from and land on it. And sometimes it sticks to our shoes.

"About 70 billion lb of asphalt is used annually in the U.S. alone, and asphalt usage will grow dramatically in Asia during the next 10 years," notes Arthur M. Usmani, chief scientific officer of Usmani Development Co., Indianapolis, in the preface of his book "Asphalt Science and Technology" (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1997). He adds that asphalt-containing materials find application not only in paving and road construction, but also in roofing, coatings, adhesives, and batteries.

The widespread use of asphalt relies on its remarkable waterproofing and binding properties. The hard surfaces of roads, for example, depend on the ability of asphalt to cement together aggregates of stone and sand. Most asphalts are also perfect absorbers of light. That's why they are black.

The American Society for Testing & Materials defines asphalt as a dark brown to black cementitious material in which the predominating constituents are bitumens that occur in nature or are obtained in petroleum processing. Bitumen is a generic term for natural or manufactured black or dark-colored solid, semisolid, or viscous cementitious materials that are composed mainly of high molecular weight hydrocarbons. The term includes tars and pitches derived from coal.

"Almost all asphalt used today is derived from the bottom of the barrel--that is, the last cut in the petroleum refinery after naphtha, gasoline, kerosene, and other fractions have been removed from crude oil," Usmani tells C&EN. "Very little is produced from other natural sources."

Asphalts are highly complex and not well-characterized materials containing saturated and unsaturated aliphatic and aromatic compounds with up to 150 carbon atoms. Their composition varies depending on the source of crude oil. Many of the compounds contain oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and other heteroatoms. Asphalt typically contains about 80% by weight of carbon; around 10% hydrogen; up to 6% sulfur; small amounts of oxygen and nitrogen; and trace amounts of metals such as iron, nickel, and vanadium. The molecular weights of the constituent compounds range from several hundred to many thousands.
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Larry's post helps to explain why I have seen asphaltum shading in the matte centers sf window gold "creep" - the darkness moved over a number of months from where it was brushed in. (It also faded out in a few years, and that in not-too-sunny Portland, Oregon.) And since it is a natural material, one batch may be different from the next.

[Larry White]

So, that being said, it would lead me to believe that CRL Bituminous Coating, just might be asphaltum.

CRL Bituminous Coating

...and for $134 for 5 gallons, that's $6.70 a quart....5 gallons just might last the duration....

Anyone....like Pat.....know if this product would work as asphaltum?

-TBF


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[Patrick Mackle]

It would all be based on how unadulterated it is from it's original name sake. If it has been fortified with fibers or fillers for brushability, or if it has been altered to meet new environmental requirements could affect its use as a product for our purposes.
Pat

[Billie DeBekker]

Well if you care Larry.. Yes.. That was the material I was talking about.

[Larry White]

I'm gonna get me some!


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