>>>From: Les Myer <lmyer@qtm.net>
>>>Aha! Something that makes sense! In the UK, spirits must mean alcohol
and
>>>thus methylated spirits must mean methanol. This would burn much better
>>>than ethanol. However, why methanol would need to be denatured is beyond
me
>>>- ya really don't want to drink it,
Methylated spirits (UK now) is ethanol, with some methanol added to make it
unfit
for drinking, and so not taxed as such. Given that drinking an ethanol /
methanol
mix isn't good for you, it also almost always has some purple dye stuff added
that's
meant to make it taste horrible, so you don't actually fancy drinking it
anyways.
Of course, it is seriously cheap, and some folks have been known to drink it,
with
the expected result.
So, if I'm getting the picture now,
"denatured (US)" == "methylated (UK)" == "made unfit for drinking
(anywhere)"
Anyways, it burns just fine, in a burner designed for it, of course.
You can get it to burn just as it comes too, if you pour some on the garage
floor
and chuck a match onto it, it burns fairly slowly, non explosively, and makes a
nice
blue flame. Apparently it used to be a favourite kids trick to burn small pools
of it in one hand, and then drop the whole lot before it burnt down to skin
level.
Never tried myself.
It's also used over here in those little model steam engines, in burners for
heating
up those stone things you use for cooking at the table (don't know what you
call
those in the US, in France it's a "pierrade"), and (with a wick) in little
spirit
lamps you can get to give to people for Christmas and stuff.
Andy
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