There are three common alcohol products that are being confused here. They are
ethyl alcohol, methyl alcohol, and denatured alcohol.
Ethyl alcohol is booze, and as such is taxed. It's vapors can also get you
drunk. You can but it at a liquer store, somewhat diluted with water, as Vodka.
Methyl alcohol is also called wood alcohol or methylated spirits. It is NOT
drinkable and is, in fact, VERY TOXIC and causes blindness, among other things.
It's vapor is somewhat toxic also. This stuff is avalable at chemical supply
houses and from solvent dealers. It may require some forms and waste tracking.
Denatured alcohol is a mixture of about 83% ethyl, 16% methyl, and a few other
nasties, such as Ethyl Acetate and Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK). See:
http://www.syndel.com/msds/denatured_ethanol_msds.html The added stuff is to
make it undrinkable and are very difficult to remove to make drinkable stuff.
It is available at hardware stores and places like Home Depot for $8 +/- a
gallon.
Any one of the three above will burn (be carefull) and can be used as fuel as
described below. They burn to essentially CO2 and water.
> > Gosh; what I call methylated spirits - wood alcohol,
> > highly miscible with
> > water and used for pre-heating kerosene pressure
> > lamps, as anti-freeze in
> > screen wash water, up-market cook-it-at-the-table
> > restaurant burner things,
> > tiny model steam engine heaters and a general
> > solvent, to be had in every
> > hardware store. How ever do you get by without it ?
Hope this helps. I don't know if the denatured stuff is OK to use in brake
systems because of the other additives used to denature it might attack rubber
parts such as seals.
Take care,
John
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Sep 02 2001 - 11:15:38 PDT