Water born stain or poly solvent question, why not antifreeze?

[JAMES COCHRAN]

The thinner/solvent recommeneded is ethylene glycol monobutyl ether. Butyl Cellosolve brand? Can one not use antifreeze? Which of course is ethylene glycol. Why asking? I am new to using water born products(GF brand). Stain over large table top more difficult with this water product compared to the solvent base which I have decades experience with. Have not used antifreeze for this purpose, just curious as certainly more readily available in the garage and cheaper.

[David Utterback]

My guess is that the ethylene glycol will not dry completely. Their are other solvents with lower boiling points that might be better choices, maybe isopropyl alcohol. Not the drug store variety. It needs to be around 90% concentration. Denatured (ethyl) alcohol may also work. If you want to only thin it slightly, you could try water.

In case of any experimental process, I would try a small batch on a similarly prepared scrap or excess piece. Let us know how it goes.

[John TenEyck]

If you want to increase the open time of GF's waterborne products you should use their Extender. If you plan to use a lot of it you can buy the generic version, which is propylene glycol, not the chemicals you talked about in your post. For WB stains and paints, Benjamin Moore makes another Extender product that works well, too.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MS8F1UW/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_10?smid=A1U3JYLF2Q5Y2Z&psc=1

In any case, don't use ethylene glycol.

John

[Steve Schoene]

Even if the glycol in the antifreeze were compatible antifreeze has other ingredients--color, rust inhibitors, etc, etc, Waterborne finishes do require different techniques to apply, but the solution is generally practice.

Products specifically recommended by the manufacturer may also be useful.

Ad hoc additives, whose incompatibilities may not be revealed for months or even years are a bad idea.

[roger wiegand]

Just because chemical compounds share a few syllables doesn't mean that they share much in the way of structure, and certainly not properties. This is ethylene glycol:

400279

and this is ethylene glycol monobutyl ether (aka butoxyethanol):

400280

Just as you wouldn't want to drink it just because it contains a substructure related to ethanol (as found in Jack Daniels), you wouldn't want to use it as a thinner for finish without understanding a whole lot more about its properties. At the least I'd expect it to be less volatile and more interesting smelling.