As in car anti-freeze, is reputed to be very useful for stopping wet rot in wood - allowing it to be then successfully repaired. I need to kill the rot in a wooden window sill to enable it to be repaired, but I don't seem to have any in my garage. The sale of it seems to have been stopped in car accessory sops and the chemists refuse to sell it.
Are there any other likely sources, or has it been completely banned?
AF would take forever to dry, especially if it soaked into the wood. I'd think carefully before using it
There's a load of stuff online about polyethylene glycol being used to preserve The Mary Rose, but that is a solid, wax-like material that dissolves in water. You can get it from an artists supplier like A.P.Fitzpatrick, but I'm not sure how it would be of any use for this application.
So is cuprinol, why not use that???
There are better things: essentially all you need to do is dry the wood and then soak exposed surfaces with a penetrating and hard setting polymer or resin of some sort.
Because I was convinced by the reading of several articles on the Internet a few years ago, that EG was more effective in curing existing rot.
Here is one such article:-
In message , Harry Bloomfield writes
Can you still buy Austrian wine ?
I've a feeling it's no longer used because of the amount of aluminium in most modern engines.
But you might need a whisky chaser. :-)
"A woman who drank anti-freeze was prescribed whisky as an antidote after her potentially life-threatening mistake.
Glennis Middleton, from Forfar in Angus, was told that anti-freeze can cause kidney failure, blindness and even death.
Doctors at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee told her that alcohol was the antidote and gave her a choice of gin, vodka or whisky.
She chose whisky - known as the "water of life" - and was given two cupfuls to drink immediately."
The reason for this is that ethylene glycol is not directly toxic but it is metabolised by by an enzyme - alchohol dehydrogenase (AD) intoo a toxic metabloite. AD is also the enzyme that breaks down ethanol. As there is only a finite amount of AD available the metabolism of the ethylene glycol can be vastly reduced by the application of an excess of ethanol. This is also the mechanism of toxicity for methanol.
Cheers
Mark
It is still used. It degredes in use into something acidic, which causes the damage to engine components; hence the advice to change anti-freeze every 3 or 4 years. MEG is very toxic.
The stuff that was used in the wine was propylene glycol, which is also used as an artificial sweetener. It is used in heating & chilled water systems where there's a risk of freezing.
Does it work if taken as a prophylactic?
Owain
Nice thought.
But I got a mercifully brief image of a hospital nurse giving out condoms filled with (cheap) whisky... :-(
If you take enough. 8-0
(So there's still enough C2H5OH in your system when the Glycol hits).
Derek
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