With the ban of Denatured alcohol in California, what would you use as a substitute for the alcohol lamps fuel?

For light, an LED. For heat, a soldering iron or its equivalent.

I use it for bubble bursting and for brush cleaning.

A heat gun. Regular isopropyl alcohol might work but the flame may be hard to see. Also you could move out of the socialist democrat republic of California. Drive to Arizona or Nevada and pick some up at a hardware store, could also be considered.

Unbelievable (not really) that it has been banned. I use it for flame and a solvent instead of acetone. Isopropyl is not a great substitute. What it is good for is finding holes in leaking waders.....

That @#$%& to have access blocked to a product that you are used to using, but I'm not fond of the idea of using a "molatov cocktail" aka "alcohol lamp" for rod building - there have been serious issues... Some use mini torches or butane lighters for bubble busting, and I'd rather use 1 time use disposable brushes than have more exposure to solvents from cleaning brushes. Good luck.

Look for white gas for camping stoves.

Yeah, thanks but old habits and it is what works for me. The heat gun blows too much dust. I need to clean my work area...lol
Looks like white gas has been banned too. Back packers are all looking for alternative fuel too. I see 70% isopropyl has skyrocked in price locally if you can find it. I found some at a 99 cent store but the price is like $25 per gallon jug...so what happened to the 99 cents. I guess that 99+ means up to ???? That 50% isopropyl works good enough for clean ups and is still cheap.

Mel,
Buy Isopropyl alcohol in bulk.

Then build a moon shine still and distill the Isopropyl alcohol so that it is 95% sure denatured alcohol.

You will only have to spend about $20 bucks in fuel to distill a quart of denatured alcohol. Plus, the price of building the still.

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Or, have a friend who lives in an Alcohol friendly state buy 5 gallons and drop it off at your home when that person comes to visit the next time.

God luck

I realize changing thread epoxy brands can be daunting, kind of like changing from briefs to boxers. You know everything is going to be OK, but you’re still concerned.....

Andy Dear’s regular build Gen4 thread epoxy is already on the market, and recently I had a chance to test his Lite formula side-by-side with my current Lite formula epoxy. The bubble release of Gen4 Lite outperformed my epoxy dramatically. Enough so that I immediately used Gen4 Lite to finish a rod I’d recently wrapped. My days of chasing and popping tiny bubbles with my bodkin, or worse yet flaming the wraps, are over.

"The greatest barrier to discovery is not ignorance, it's the illusion of knowledge" - Daniel J. Boorstin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2020 06:26PM by Jeff Shafer.

Mel Shimizu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yeah, thanks but old habits and it is what works
> for me. The heat gun blows too much dust. I need
> to clean my work area...lol
> Looks like white gas has been banned too. Back
> packers are all looking for alternative fuel too.
> I see 70% isopropyl has skyrocked in price locally
> if you can find it. I found some at a 99 cent
> store but the price is like $25 per gallon
> jug...so what happened to the 99 cents. I guess
> that 99+ means up to ???? That 50% isopropyl
> works good enough for clean ups and is still
> cheap.

The price surge in isopropyl alcohol probably has to do with COVID-19 and people making their own hand sanitizer with it. I'm not recommending it, but is E-85 ethanol/gas available in CA?

Thanks everyone. Not going to build a still and not going to use E85 gas. I don't think that is is clean burning enough. My hardware told me Kerosene but that stuff burns black smoke. I think that I need to clean my workshop and start using the heat gun. Isopropyl is ok for clean ups.

A butane or propane torch works for me . Just need to keep the distance far enough away. You can also see the flame unlike alcohol. There are models that turn off and on by pressing and holding a button and releasing it when you are dome. That is of course if propane or butane is not banned there also .

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

Thks to everyones responses. They are all appreciated. I do have butane torches but the heat is too high for what I do. Thanks to one of our members who clued me to Amazon. I found DNA there and am having a gallon shipped to me from Florida. It was about 2.5 times more than what I was paying but this will last me a long time if I use the iso for cleaning instead of the dna.

I'd rethink the white gas suggestion.

Not even thinking about white gas. Anyways, that is not sold in CA either. I have a gal of denatured being shipped from Florida. Will be here in a week.

70% isopropyl alcohol work just fine because isopropyl alcohol is much cleaner then it used to be and it is cheaper too.

Glenn McMurrian

Another vote for isopropyl alcohol from me, both for clean up and use in an alcohol lamp.

I use a heat gun used for painting. Very easy to use and works perfect. Never have had any issue.