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Rubbing Alcohol and Other Solvents
By Jeffrey Borinsky

Rubbing alcohol has been mentioned in the MMD as a solvent for PVC-E
glues. Every US drugstore has this for about 1US$ per pint but for
those of us elsewhere the chemical involved is....

Isopropyl alcohol, Isopropanol, Propan-2-ol

These are all different chemical names for the same thing.

For UK readers:

You can buy it (Propan-2-ol) in the UK but you may have to go to a
specialist supplier. It is now commonly used as a cleaning fluid in
the electronics industry. (RS Components, Maplin etc. offer suitable
products.)

Possible substitutes are:

"Surgical spirit" is a nasty mixture of ethanol, methanol and (I think)
oil of wintergreen.

"Methylated spirit" is an even nastier mixture of ethanol, methanol,
blue dye and pyridine (ugh).

"Industrial methylated spirit" (IMS) is 90% ethanol, 5% methanol, 5%
water and pleasant to handle. It is not on public sale in the UK (you
need a special excise license to buy it) but you may be able to scrounge
some from a school, print works or lab.

BTW what is "modge-podge"? Does it travel well?

- - -

Jeffrey Borinsky
Oxford, UK


(Message sent Mon 2 Jun 1997, 08:42:17 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.)

Key Words in Subject:  Alcohol, Other, Rubbing, Solvents
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