Preserving Paint

Bloxygen

Here is a product that I have come to really like. It is an aerosol can of some type of inert gas. It is called BLOXYGEN. It comes with one of those thin tubes (like WD40 cans) which you stick into the spray nozzle so that you can direct the gas exactly where it needs to go. By spraying a shot of this gas into paint cans just before you close them up, you get a layer of inert gas that keeps oxygen away from the surface of the liquid paint. This way, you do not get that crusty layer of solidified paint (you've seen them, in old paint cans). I use it with all of my oil based finished, paints, linseed oil, etc.

I buy it from Woodcraft Supply, part #127965, $1 1 .99. I believe, I bought my first can at their Baltimore store, just off the Beltway, exit 29 in Towson. It is available from their web page www.woodcraft.com or 800 phone number 1-800225-1153. I have also seen it for sale at woodworking shows and in other woodworking catalogs. This product is very strange in one way. It feels like the can is empty (after all, the can only contains gas, but then it is a gas that is heavier than air). You shake it and there seems like there is nothing in the can. Fear not, the label says you should get about 75 "shots" per can. And that seems about right.

By Albin Drzewianowski

-- RebStaup - 08 Feb 2008