Meths Stove

[email hidden] said...

Quoted message said:

Why did no one tell me how utterly disgusting the
smell of meths is? what can I use instead of meths?
And can I send my teenagers into a shop to buy it?"

Change your brand of meths Fran, you should get little smell from a Trangia
(I don't), you have to be 18 to buy meths in the UK (its alcohol) and you
can burn Vodka!

The problem with looking for alternative brands of meths is that when
it's needed there's generally only one shop in the area that sells it.

Vodka??

--
To reply see 'from' in headers; lose the domain, and insert dots and @
where common sense dictates.

Fran said:

The problem with looking for alternative brands of meths is that when
it's needed there's generally only one shop in the area that sells it.

Vodka??

It will work, because it's over 100% proof. I remember once someone
turned up at a bothy I was staying in with some "Welsh Whisky" which was
passed around and generally felt to be undrinkable, so just as a joke we
ran the Trangia on it. Problems are expense and since most spirits are
actually watered down after distillation you have a lot of water in the
fuel. That means less soot, but also harder to light and greater weight
of fuel compared to useful heat output. cask strength whisky will work
better, being up to about 60% abv, but that will still be less efficient
and /seriously/ expensive, and you'll probably want to drink it anyway!

If you know anyone who works in a lab then lab alcohol works very well
indeed, burns cleaner and isn't as smelly. Some schools still have old
stashes of duplicator fluid from the pre-cheap photocopier days, and if
so this burns very well indeed in a trangia, but it's quite rare to find
any these days. I've heard that "Panel wipe" from the auto trade is
reckoned to work well, though I've not used it myself.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Fran said:

[email hidden] said...

Quoted message said:

Why did no one tell me how utterly disgusting the
smell of meths is? what can I use instead of meths?
And can I send my teenagers into a shop to buy it?"

Change your brand of meths Fran, you should get little smell from a Trangia
(I don't), you have to be 18 to buy meths in the UK (its alcohol) and you
can burn Vodka!

The problem with looking for alternative brands of meths is that when
it's needed there's generally only one shop in the area that sells it.

Vodka??

What about isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol, rubbing alcohol) ? Not
quite as multipurpose as vodka or brandy, but a good deal cheaper and
fairly easily available from a chemist, maybe even to under-18s.

It's said to burn rather sooty, but that might not be a problem
if you prefer the smell. There are quite a lot of useful websites
to be found if you google for 'alcohol stove'.

-adrian

[email hidden] said...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The problem with looking for alternative brands of meths is that when
it's needed there's generally only one shop in the area that sells it.

Vodka??

What about isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol, rubbing alcohol) ? Not
quite as multipurpose as vodka or brandy, but a good deal cheaper and
fairly easily available from a chemist, maybe even to under-18s.

Thanks for that idea - I shall investigate. Maybe even tomorrow morning
while I'm having a lie-in :-)
--
To reply see 'from' in headers; lose the domain, and insert dots and @
where common sense dictates.

Fran said:

[email hidden] said...

Quoted message said:

What about isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol, rubbing alcohol) ? Not
quite as multipurpose as vodka or brandy, but a good deal cheaper and
fairly easily available from a chemist, maybe even to under-18s.

Thanks for that idea - I shall investigate. Maybe even tomorrow morning
while I'm having a lie-in :-)

Isopropyl alcohol is _very_ sooty when it burns. Rubbing alcohol - if
it's 'surgical spirit', is also very sooty and the pervasive smell of
camphor is not to everyone's taste!

Jim Ford