very silly question about meths

[May]

What do they use meths for? (I've just found some in the cupboard.)

[Gordon Henderson]

It burns very well....

Eg.

[Andy Hall]

It depends who "they" is.

Traditionally it was claimed that tramps drank it, but I've never believed that.

For household use:

- Cleaner for glass etc.

- Spirit burners in fondue sets

- Burners in model steam engines

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Alan]

In message , May wrote

An additive in wine?

[Malcolm Stewart]

Removing some types of self-adhesive label glue remnants. White spirit is also useful. Removing biro ink. Degreasing microscope slides.

[Fred]

Nawwwww, that's antifreeze

[Alex]

Meths drinking indeed was quite common,amongst alcholics in scotland in the

50,s and 60,s can not vouch for anywhere else

[Wayne Davies]

On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 22:30:15 +0100, "May" made me spill my meths by writing:

used to use it in the burners of small steam engines but mainly now only for a Trangier Stove. Adds a certain piquance when the meths bottle has been stored in the cook set for a while :)

I suppose it had many more domestic uses back in the days when dustbins used to contain mostly ash and we stood up for the National Anthem at the cinema.

All the best

[geoff]

In message , Fred writes

You mean ethylene glycol?

Gives it body

[John Rumm]

Used to use it in the burner that came with my chemistry set when I was a kid! ;-)

[nightjar]

Usually for burning or as a solvent. It is highly flammable, so a small amount can be used as a starter for paraffin in primus stoves or the like. With a dash of washing up liquid, it makes a good additive to a car windscreen washer bottle.

Colin Bignell

[nightjar]

T'is true though. In Glasgow, when I lived there, you used to have to sign the poisons register to buy meths. Another tramp favourite was coal gas bubbled through stolen milk. You used to look for lead gas pipes that had been cut, then folded back on themselves, when checking derelict houses to see whether they were being used by dossers.

Colin Bignell

[Andy Dingley]

Lots of things it's not desperately good for.

Meths is:

- mainly ethanol (drinkable)

- methanol (not drinkable - makes you sick, blind, mad and dead in about that order)

- pyridine (stinks)

- purple dye (just to annoy french polishers)

It's not hard to get clear meths. It's increasingly hard to get unstenched meths, but you still can. If you're working with it all day in this summer's heat, you'll be glad you bothered.

It burns easily and the combination of vapour pressure and flash point mean that it's very safe to do so. Unlike petrol, it won't produce a fireball. Unlike paint thinners or paraffin, it won't stink if you use it to light a barbecue.

It's a fairly poor cleaning solvent, but handy. Acetone or isopropanol are usually better.

Most of mine gets used as a solvent for shellac in french polishing.

[BigWallop]

I remember watching two wino's in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh, being over the moon when they scraped together enough money to buy a pint of milk to mix with their small bottle of meths. Funnily enough both had perfect white teeth and a full head of thick hair and I don't know if it was all down to being pickled from the inside out, or if it was just because they were young and looked a lot older. (?) Anyway.

Meths can be used as a very good cleaning solution on many things and is great for getting particularly greasy marks off. I've also seen it used as a thinner for thick metal paints and coatings, and also as a primer for old paraffin fuelled blow lamps when a cloth was dipped in it and wrapped around the burner tube to preheat it. Burned for quite a while if memory serves right.

[The Natural Philosopher]

French polish thinners is one that springs immediately to mind.

Starting old Primus stoves and blowlamps is another.

Also general purpose cleaning, tho isopropyl alcohol is now more common.

[David]

What's that all about then?! Do explain - never heard of this one!

David

[nightjar]

Never tried it myself, but it is supposed to produce an inebriating drink, possibly one that was more palatable than meths. I came across it when helping out with a mass survey of the homeless in Glasgow. Hundreds of people were enrolled to visit derelict buildings across the city and the damaged gas pipe was one of the signs of habitation that we were told to look out for and record. Nobody actually expected us to find any homeless (we didn't) so their numbers had to be extrapolated from signs like that or the more obvious tatty mattress in an empty house. The Social Worker who briefed us said they were looking forward to the introduction of natural gas, which would end the practice, so I assume something in the coal gas was critical to the process.

Colin Bignell

[Simon Gardner]

Indeed. I used the last of my present bottle to brew up a cup of coffee in my Trangia yesterday at the coast.

Can be a bugger to light in the middle of Winter, though.

It's impossible to buy it in the US, by the way.

[Matt]

"nightjar .uk.com>"

The Social Worker who

Carbon monoxide?

Matt

[Matt]

This thread has led to quite a few memories for me of my school science lessons.

Our chemistry teacher told us of an incident involving a pupil of his when he was a young teacher. The lad was lighting a bonfire at home but the bonfire wouldn't go well. So the kid went and got a can of parrafin, but it wasn't parrafin it was meths. The flame shot up the jet of meths and ignited the can in a fireball. He said he went to visit the child in hospital but there wasn't much point. He was so badly burned he didn't last long. He said the most striking impression was the bluebottles swarming over the netting around the bed.

I remember little actual physics or chemistry from those lessons.

Matt