very silly question about meths

[Rich]

It's also a particularly useless fuel for camp stoves - obviously designed to make sure you've earned that lukewarm cup of tea after 20 minutes.

[David Micklem]

I think they call it Denatured Alcohol, and its certainly available some places. May be banned in some individual states? Not usually coloured purple in my experience though.

David

[David]

Actually, I was just thinking about this (and recalling my A-level chemistry N years ago...) wasn't coal gas methane (CH4)? And maybe methane is partially soluble in water (H20) to produce methanol (CH5OH), ie meths? Or did coal gas contain methanol vapour which condensed in the milk?

I'm sure someone will have the definitive answer!

[Steve Firth]

Yes, same here or was when I last worked with wet stuff on a bench. You have to watch out for the sugar content of the 95% stuff though. Much of it is simply the raw alcohol sold by Distillers (the company) which they use as the base for vodka, gin, etc obviously a little sugar in there doesn't bother them but it does leave nasty residues when using alcohol for drying sections.

I think what I was trying to say (but failing) was that in much of Europe you can buy the same quality of alcohol over the counter at reasonable prices, for home use. In the UK I've not found it possible to buy the same stuff unless it's sold as "Polish Spirit" which costs about £24 a bottle.

[Peter Ashby]

Yes, it does seem as though we are a little anal about such things over here. I would have thought that it was better to let people have alcohol they can then flavour themselves than have people distilling illictly in their attics and risking methanol poisoning. Instead here, the methanol is everywhere.

Peter

[Andy R]

More importantly, how did a presumably uneducated, penniless, homeless, alcoholic Glaswegian make this discovery. How many unpleasant gases did he have to bubble through how many different stolen drinks before he finally got to that Eureka moment?

Rgds

Andy R

[Bob Eager]

I remember finding it indispensable for starting a Primus, though.

[Harvey Van Sickle]

(Another known favourite was aftershave -- we used to see empty bottles of Aqua Velva in the park next to where I took my grad degree in Toronto. Is that ethanol-based as well, or something else entirely?)

The only time I've specifically needed meths for a diy project was for melting down old 78 records in it to produce black shellac for restoring some ebonised furniture.

[Peter Ashby]

I always used to use bits of broken up solid firestarter for that job.

Peter

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 15:19:41 GMT, Peter Ashby wrote

I'll bookmark that; at the time -- 15 or 20 years ago -- it seemed to be the simplest way to get a non-industrial-sized amount of the stuff.

[Steve Firth]

No, coal gas is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. I'm bemused by what, if any, intoxicant could be made by bubbling CO + H2 into milk. It may be that the effect was simply that of a mild dose of CO poisoning which may mimic the feeling of being drunk.

[Steve Firth]

Yes, aftershave contains a lot of alcohol as does perfume. I once got a 'phone call from Sheffield plod when I worked at M/Cr medical school asking if perfume was a known treatment for a bad back. The cops had stopped a man drunk driving and he claimed that he had been advised to drink a bottle of perfume a day to cure his arthritis.

I took my degree in Leicester and New Walk in Leicester was famous for "The Lacquer Lads". A bunch of local drunks who bought cans of hairspray and bottles of lemonade then sprayed the hairspray into the lemonade to make a refreshing summer[1] drink.

[1] or spring, autumn or winter.

[Peter Ashby]

An elegant solution indeed.

Peter

[Andy Hall]

Wouldn't these be more expensive than the authorised stuff?

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Peter Ashby]

It would certainly put them to sleep, so yes.

Peter

[Bob Eager]

I thought that was called 'solid meths' although I have no idea of its actual composition...

[Steve Firth]

The perfume certainly would be and I can't imagine what it may taste like. The hairspray used to be very, very cheap. Back then beer was around 35p/pint. Hairspray could be obtained in enormous cans about 1 litre in size and cost about the same. However hairspray contains 90%+ alcohol, beer around 4.5%.

I think the other attraction is that off-licenses refuse to sell alcohol to drunks but supermarkets sell hairspray to anyone.

[S Viemeister]

I bought some denatured alcohol in New Jersey a number of years ago, to clean the innards of a knitting machine. It was clear and colourless.

[Ed Sirett]

My Glaswegian labourer is keen to extol its benefits. I'm unsure what reaction takes place but the milk allegedly becomes intoxicating.

[Ed Sirett]

That seems likly to be the most active ingredient in Coal Gas (I can't see the Hydrogen or Nitrogen or stenching agents being that reactive).