Posted by David Sherman on Sunday, April 06, 2003 at 3:27PM :
In Reply to: Re: Dumb inside Cab painting question?? posted by Vaughn on Sunday, April 06, 2003 at 11:39AM :
I think that rustoleum was originally a whale oil base, which they euphemistically called "fish" oil. Supposedly the whalers of old noticed that the iron fittings of their ships that got whale oil spashed on them developed a tough rust-resistant coating that protected them even when all the liquid oil was gone. I asked a friend who was in charge of painting airplanes at Boeing about this and he said that indeed there's a substance in whale oil that is excellent in paint, and they still use that substance (cetyl something-or-other) in good paint nowadays but they make it synthetically rather than out of whales.