Alcohol ie Surface Cleaners

[Ferdinand]

From @Onoff on another thread

 

Quote

 first cleaning the surface with isopropyl alcohol

 

Can anyone give a rundown on the various types of alcohol, what the are, and where one obtains them?

 

I have seen ‘rubbing alcohol’, but at the moment for cleaning / degreasing surfaces I use fruit preserving alcohol since I have had a bottle of it in the cupboard since dad bought it on a whim in Luxembourg some years ago ie 199x . Seems to work. 

 

I also normally have pure natural artist’s turps in, and acetone.

 

Edited August 2, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

The only alcohol I use for cleaning is isopropanol, a.k.a isopropyl alcohol.  Relatively cheap if bought in 5 litre bottles and relatively safe if used carefully.  Ebay often gets the best prices.  Expect to pay around £15 to £18 for 5 litres.

 

I believe that "rubbing alcohol" is essentially isopropyl alcohol.

[SteamyTea]

I was, when young and foolish, stripping wallpaper off the walls, while drinking vodka with a mate that was helping me.

The challenge was to see who was the last one standing.

We had to go out that night to meet other friends, we peaked a bit early I think.

I won the challenge, but rumour has it, I am still banded from Weymouth seafront unless fully clothed.

So I suggest best to avoid all alcohol, or Weymouth, and WPC Wright. Not that she will remember my face, she never looked at it once, saucy mare.

[ProDave]

Don't take this as a recommendation.

 

I needed to make 1 good cooker hood out of 2. One had a tatty nackered case but a working fan, and someone had given me an empty new case.  So I needed to swap the workking fan into the new case.  But it was caked in grease.

 

I tried all the kitchen and oven cleaners we had in the cupboard. Nothing touched the grease.  Then I looked in the garage.  White spirit just disolved the grease with ease and it wiped off (a bit like in the adverts for those kitchen cleaners that had not touched it)

 

So I am not recommending white spirit as an oven cleaner, but it does work.

[Conor]

Normal alcohol, or ethanol, isn't that great a solvent over water, infact they are very similar in terms of being a solvent. Isopropyl and isopropanol are totally different chemicals... And you really don't want to drink them! They are commonly found in nail varnish remover and are good at destroying various types of petroleum based products.White spirits is a petroleum based solvent and is good for oil based jobs, like grease and oil based paints. Acetone is another aggresive petroleum based solvent. Methylated spirits is just ethanol with a denaturing agent- methanol, and usually a dye. 

[Jeremy Harris]

Nail varnish remover is a non-polar solvent, usually either acetone or MEK, whereas IPA is polar.  It's a matter of knowing what it is you're trying to dissolve, really.  IPA is pretty good at general degreasing and cleaning, but won't dissolve some heavier oils and greases that well.  This can be an advantage, as, whilst something like acetone or MEK will very effectively remove oils and greases, it also tends to remove these from your skin very well, so isn't that nice to handle.  IPA isn't as aggressive a solvent, so will usually clean and degrease most things fairly well, without being too harmful to skin (still best to wear gloves, though).  IPA also has the advantage that it tends not to attack most plastics.

 

I've been 3D printing today, and IPA seems to be ideal for cleaning up uncured UV curing resin.  Not sure what the resin is based on, but it cleans up with IPA in much the same way as uncured epoxy resin does.  Uncured polyester resin isn't touched by IPA, but dissolves pretty easily in a wide range of non-polar solvents, like acetone, MEK or toluene.  It's a pity that you can't easily buy toluene now (you need a licence), as that was far and away my favourite degreasing solvent.   I still have a couple of litres of it, saved from the time when it was easier to buy, for use as a "solvent of last resort".

[Conor]

33 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

  IPA is pretty good at general degreasing and cleaning, but won't dissolve some heavier oils and greases that well.  

 

Some IPAs I've drunk recently taste like they'd dissolve anything...

[SteamyTea]

6 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Not sure what the resin is based on

Think it is acrylic, we used to use tonnes of the stuff.  Smells nice, but makes you dizzy.

[Onoff]

Quite impressed with the No Nonsense degreaser from Screwfix. Used to clean the flat roof pre repair painting and on the Golf engine bay too.

 

If desperate for a quick degrease I'll use foam gun cleaner. Acetone I think it is.

[Ferdinand]

On 02/08/2019 at 16:30, JSHarris said:

  It's a pity that you can't easily buy toluene now (you need a licence)

 

This is presumably to stop dodgy retired scientists from making TNT (Tri-Nitro-Toluene), and blowing up their garden sheds like Roobarb from the Roobarb and Custard cartoon ?

 

(Can't find the blow-up one, but this is the shed)

 

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

My application this time was to clean a patch of window such that I could stick @lizzie's fly murdering sunflower sticker on it. Alcohol and sunflower seem to work.

 

I would not use White Spirit for that as it would leave what feels like a slightly greasy surface.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

IPA (isopropyl alcohol, isopropanol) is good for cleaning glass, the only marks left tend to be from stuff that's been washed out of the cleaning cloth/kitchen roll.

[PeterW]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

...stop dodgy retired scientists from making TNT (Tri-Nitro-Toluene)...

 

TNB (trinitrobenzene) is a lot easier and just as much fun .... ?

[Ferdinand]

I am sure there was an incident in James Herriot where Tristan chucked some ether into the cooking range to get it started.