Cleaning alcohol

Can white spirit be used to clean tiles where alcohol is specified. It is to fit Command hanging hooks which specify clean with alcohol .

Reply to
curious
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Either degreases. White spirit is more toxic.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

I would have thought white spirit would leave a residue ?

Reply to
Jethro_uk

Meths.

Reply to
Mr Pounder Esquire

Meths is crap for pretty much anything.

IPA is reasonably decent as a weak solvent and readily available.

Carbon TetraChloride was the bollocks but you won't get that anymore ('cos it gives you cancer**)

** When I die, it's going to be a toss up between the Coal Tar, CCl4, funky food colours and the asbestos!
Reply to
Tim Watts

Other way around - white spirit leaves no residue or smell once it's evaporated, but being much less volatile, that takes much longer, and it stinks more until it's evaporated. Your alcohol will have additives to make it toxic and to colour it, and these leave residues. (Pure ethanol wouldn't, but you can't buy that without paying lots of duty.)

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

This is why I like IPA...

Reply to
Tim Watts

Not very much, though, even from purple "meths". The toxic bit is methanol which is even more volatile than ethanol, the dye is pyridine but only at a tiny level

Agreed

The trouble with white spirit is that contains hydrocarbon molecules of various lengths, and the longer are less volatile. Unless you apply a little heat it won't evaporate quite as quickly as meths or IPA.

Oh, but white spirit is not significantly toxic.

Reply to
newshound

no, but the pong hangs around

Use gin or vodka...:-)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I would have thought that meths would have been fine for this job.

I carry meths in the van for cleaning old sockets and switches.

Reply to
ARW

When I was a haematology techician in the 70's we had 2 litre 'winchester' bottles of pure ethanol in the lab for diagnostic purposes, presumably tax-free because I remember it was absurdly cheap for 2 litres of 100% alcohol.

Medical students were always trying to get pally with the female technicians (not many female medical students in those days) to try and get something to make their party drinks go with a bang.

One day Customs and excise paid us a visit and insisted that we kept a register of the exact amounts removed for diagnostic purposes and to *return* the excess back to the container.

Chief technician got quite agitated explaining why we would and could not do this. Eventually it was escalated up to higher levels to make them shove off.

Even normal hot weather (no aircon in those days) made it evaporate pretty quickly, apart from the no-no of contaminating the bulk bottle.

Reply to
Andrew

Indeed. Or just get some iso propyl alcohol which is what is used to clean your skin before a blood test. Also used for screen wipes.

Reply to
Andrew

I use meths first, if that's not food enough, acetone.

Reply to
Graham.

But those residues are trivial and don't interfere with the adhesive on the hooks so that is why alcohol is stated.

(Pure ethanol wouldn't, but you can't buy

Reply to
dkol

You can always freeze vodka. That gets you pretty close.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

And for some reason quite a bit cheaper at ebuyer

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Reply to
RJH

They probably mean IPA. I seem to recall its pretty cheap from CPC or used to be, its the stuff we used to use to clean tape recorder parts. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

They also forensically analyse how much grain distilleries buy to calculate the duty ...

Reply to
Jethro_uk

So where do you get your duty free vodka?

Reply to
newshound

Isopropanol from RS Components or a similar supplier?

Reply to
Adam Funk

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