Oil based paint does not dry! It oxidises! My total frame of structured thought about how paint hardens and the relationship beween the two things that the hardening process implements has shifted. It never did dry. It has always oxidated. That is the process. It is different than the one I thought was involved as a matter of faith: Things got dry by evaporation of something in it called water or petroleum base because it went out of the "wet" and into the air. Maybe so because I could smell something but discovery of why the paint did not dry requires an understanding of what is really happening to cause the result instead of what I think is happening and should give me the result I expect and want.
My belief of a lifetime about paint drying is shattered! There is a chemical process involved, not just evaporation. Isn't that what happens when things dry? That is the way my clothes dry.....I think!
Drying is not all that simple at lower level structures of the process and objects involved. Understanding that will lead to a solution to my problem of stairs that are too "wet" to walk on for apparently a long time.
My conclusion: I used old paint. It even looked funny, smelled different. Rancid? Oxidation of its elements, whatever they are, is a process that took place in the can over a long period of time. The can was sealed so the volatile petroleum product remained in it. Maybe that deteriorated too?
The result is (was) that the paint had already oxidized but remained in liquid form so it is not going to "dry" as a function of oxidation after application because it has already done that.
I have a problem..........
What (I think) I know is that heat increases oxidation rate.
A hairdryer applied to the table top gets no results in drying. It is still a semi-sticky mess.
It has already oxidized to a great extent and it will rake forever to oxidize more!
What a mess.
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