Can you thin hammerite with white spirit

Can You Thin Hammerite With White Spirit?

While you can buy specialist thinners direct from Hammerite, they are expensive. So many people wonder whether you can just use good old white spirit and seen as though you are here I guess you are one of those people. There is only one way I know how to answer this question, let’s test it. I grabbed some Hammerite from my stash, along with a bottle of white spirit and decided to spray some Hammerite.

Spraying will be a great way to see whether you can thin Hammerite with white spirit. In order for Hammerite to work in a sprayer, it will need to be thinned. Regular Hammerite is way too thick to spray ordinarily so it needs to be thinned. So let’s see how it got on.

The Test

So in order to test if you can thin Hammerite with white spirit, I will be painting this jerry can below.

The Jerry Can Ready To Be Painted
The Jerry Can Ready To Be Painted

Let me explain why I have taped it off into three sections. The bottom third will be painted with thinned down Hammerite hammered, the middle with normal Hammerite spray paint and finally the top will be painted with thinned down Hammerite satin.

I want to use these three different paints to see whether there is a difference between thinning hammered Hammerite and normal Hammerite. The spray can is there to work as a reference, this paint is being used as intended so will be good to test the results against.

I have a hunch that hammered Hammerite may not work once thinned, I have a feeling it won’t achieve the same hammered look.

Painting With Thinned Down Hammerite Hammered

So it’s time to thin down some hammered Hammerite and see how it works.

Hammered Hammerite Before Thinning
Hammered Hammerite Before Thinning

Here is the original recipe, really thick paint.

Mixing in White Spirit
Mixing in White Spirit

Now we pour in some white spirit and begin to mix the paint down.

In this quick video, you can see the kind of consistency we thinned the Hammerite down to.

Now it’s time to spray!

You can see in the close up at the end that the hammered effect is starting to take effect, let’s see how it turns out in the end.

The middle part of the jerry can has been sprayed with regular Hammerite metal spray paint. This is here to work as a control, something to compare the two thinned down paints to.

Painting with the regular Hammerite spray paint
Painting with the regular Hammerite spray paint

Painting With Thinned Down Hammerite Satin

Now time to thin and paint the Hammerite satin. This is a completely different paint to the hammered finish which is why I also wanted to test it.

Hammerite Satin Coming Out of the Tin
Hammerite Satin Coming Out of the Tin

Here is the satin Hammerite coming out of the tin. You can see how thick it is just from this photo, it looks almost like a treacle.

Satin Hammerite With White Spirit Before Mixing
Satin Hammerite With White Spirit Before Mixing

Here you can see the white spirit and the paint before I mixed it.

So now let’s get painting with it, watch the video below to see how I got on.

The Result

So below we can see the finished result, the jerry can be fully painted with the three different types of Hammerite paint.

The Painted Jerry Can
The Painted Jerry Can

Now let’s get some close-ups and see how the paints have done.

The Hammered Hammerite
The Hammered Hammerite

You can see that it still has the hammered effect that you usually get with this paint. However, it definitely doesn’t look as strong of an effect to me as it normally does. It definitely feels like it has been toned down due to the thinning.

The section painted with a can of Hammerite spray paint
The section painted with a can of Hammerite spray paint

Above is the section painted with Hammerite spray paint. It has covered the rust really well.

The top section painted with thinned Hammerite satin
The top section painted with thinned Hammerite satin

And above now we can see the thinned down Hammerite satin. This has worked really well, it has covered the rust brilliantly. You can’t really tell any difference between this and the can of spray paint.

So, Can you thin Hammerite with white spirit

Yes, I think my testing proves that. Both the hammered and satin Hammerite worked well although the hammered effect wasn’t as strong as with the full-fat paint.

Sam Wood

Wood by name, wood by nature. I am a fully qualified, time-served, award-winning joiner with an NVQ Level 3 in Carpentry and Joinery as well as an HNC in Construction. Beyond my joinery qualifications, I have also earned a degree in building surveying. I believe these qualifications make me perfectly positioned to provide expert advice on many different areas of DIY as well as share all of the tips I have picked up in over a decade working on building sites!

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