Question about shellac solvent

[Silvan]

Sell? That would be illegal. They GIVE the stuff away. ;)

[Silvan]

Not anymore, I don't think. Could just be local, but I'm fairly sure it has been banned statewide. After too many dumbass college students accidentally committed suicide.

None for me, thanks. I get pretty well hammered from three piss water American beers. I think if I ever had a shot of Everclear, I'd go straight for the coma.

[Silvan]

Urk! What does MEK do to shellac? Nothing good, I would imagine.

That's vile stuff, but it sure is great for bonding styrene.

[Silvan]

And the people who took the 5th ounce ended up in the mortuary. Good ol' corn squeezin's.

[Charlie Self]

rcook5 notes:

Yes, well when you do that, you're paying the Feds the current $44 or whatever per gallon in booze tax.

Charlie Self "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Sir Winston Churchill

[George]

[J. Clarke]

I'm curious--anybody have any experiences to relate with Behlen's "Behkol", which they sell as purpose-made for dissolving shellac flakes and which appears to be ethanol denatured with isobutanol instead of methanol. They charge a good deal more for it than one pays for regular denatured alcohol.

[fredfighter]

Unless it was spectrophotometric grade, which would be very expensive, the other 5% might have included benzene.

For that matter, there are denatured alcohols sold for rubbing alcohol and shellac thinner that are 95% ethanol.

[fredfighter]

ISTR that the brand with "SLX" on the label was denatured with methanol

only. I avoid anything with ketones because they are quite toxic as well as more noisome. At one time sulphuric acid was used as a denaturant. I remember an episode of "Untouchables" with Robert Stack as Eliot Ness in which the villian was a chemist who had found a way to 'renature' denatured alcohol. Assuming there was _some_ historical basis for that episode this may have been a referance to using sulphuric acid as a denaturant.

All alcohols are toxic. Ethanol is just the least toxic, well maybe some of the fancy alcohols used in mouthwash might be less toxic than ethanol but I doubt it. Isopropynol is plenty toxic, you just do not absorb enough through occaisional exposure to unbroken skin to be a concern. I _think_ methanol is better absorbed through the skin, but is less toxic when ethanol is also present, oddly enough.

In fact I'm pretty sure that all organic solvents and almost all organic liquids, excepting some oils, are toxic. Certainly all the common ones are *quite* toxic.

alcohol,

Quite often the ethyl alcohol (aka ethanol, aka grain alcohol) sold for rubbing alcohol is denatured with methanol just like the denatured alcohol sold for shellac thinner. The other stuff on the label may well have been added to enhance it's effect when used for, well, rubbing, or whatever you're supposed to do with it.

[Phil Hansen]

Filter the meths through a hollowed out half loaf of bread. Colour gone, pyride gone. Drinkable. Ask any seasoned hobo. A bottle of meths is a lot cheaper than anything in the bottle store.

[Joe Gorman]

Well, it's still available here in SC, at least as of Tuesday. Bit of a drive farther than Richmond, but NC may still sell it. Joe

[fredfighter]

Then some get so drunk they follow up by eating the bread. Or so I heard.

[George]

Reagent grade stuff is pretty pure, believe me.

[Andy Dingley]

It has to be. There wouldn't be a chemistry undergrad left with enough sight to read the exam paper overwise.

[fredfighter]

expensive,

When I was in college spectrophotometric grade was pretty pure and therefor quite expensive. Reagent grade was contaminated with benzene which was a non-issue because the benzene did not interfere with typical organic chemistry class uses--which did not include getting drunk.

That is what our professor told us. Maybe they just didn't want us stealing the stuff. Or maybe your professors were social Darwinists...

[George E. Cawthon]

That is so much BS! Drinkable, but not less toxic.

[George E. Cawthon]

Gees! The other 5 percent is WATER. You only get benzene (a trace) in the 100 percent because 100 percent is (or was) produced by distilling against benzene.

[George]

Benzene is used to dehydrate and get higher percentage than the azeotropic

95/5.

If you want aliphatic only, makes sense to avoid benzene.

As there were no females, save nuns, (ok to date 'em, as long as you don't get into the habit) at the school, we took our "jungle juice" on the road. If the stuff hadn't been available, we would have distilled it on our own.

[Eddie Munster]

[U-CDK_CHARLES\Charles]

Dad was in the Navy, just missing the first Vietnam escalation.

The buddies he keeps in contact with were another Helo pilot, and the ship's Dentist.

Guess which one had access to drinkable grain alchohol.