Reaction from tack rag?

[88v8]

Painting an old internal door. Part old paint, part sanded to bare wood.
Oil primer, oil undercoat, Sikkens AZ oil topcoat, all of which I've used before.

After sanding, I used a tack rag before painting. Sanded between coats as well of course, and tack rag again.
The rags, kept in their sealed bags, are about 8 years old.

Each coat has been very slow to dry. The primer took over 24 hours, longer where the wood was bare. The undercoat near 24 hours, yesterday's first topcoat is still slightly tacky after 22 hours. The room is around 66F.

Was wondering whether there might be some chemical change in the tack rags, leaving a deposit that inhibits drying.

Anyone had this problem?

 

[Fred Blogs]

I have no idea of the chemical reactions of very old tack rags but at 8 years old I would be binning them and buying new ones anyway.

 

[88v8]

Well I did say that I've used the paint before... about thirteen years ago to be precise, and even though it's been sealed it does appear that old paint 'goes off' . I bought a bottle of terebine driers and it says that it revives old paint that takes a long time to dry.
The driers were prompted by painting some copper pipe with even older paint, that took nigh on a week! I have another coat to do, we'll see how it goes with the driers.

So perhaps the tack rags were not to blame. I would apologise to them if they had not gone to the tip.

 

[opps]

I regularly use Terebene. I only started to do so in 2010 when the VOC regulations came in to force (new paints were still tacky the next day). Some (older than me) decorators say that it can make the paint more brittle- personally, I have seen no evidence of that over the last 14.5 years.