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Wouldnt that be Isopropyl, Robbie?

Hi, strange to ask to 12 000Km where to find 95% and 99% alcohol while the french suppliers sell it...

Laverdure par exemple, entre autres et pour ne citer que le plus connu.

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here in portugal (but i don´t know if the legislation is the same throughout EU) it is strictly forbidden to buy (or sell) 95 (in fact any) alcohol without it being denatured if you don´t have a special permit issued by the ministry of economy (via customs). it also has to be approved by the national medicine and pharmacy authority. these permits take time and money to get, specially if you´re not used to that kind of bureaucracies.
So the alcohol you see available everywhere, from the local shop to the pharmacy or even hospitals is the denatured kind. OTOH alcohol is denatured (or at least was when i was working as a chemist) with clorohexidine, which is not harmful in the quantities present - but tastes really (really!) sour and bitter, so you can´t make beverages out of it. Sometimes they also added a colorant, but to my knowledge they didn´t use methanol. that´s hardcore stuff...
When i was planing my "early retirement" i was (strangely!) clever enough to poach, i mean, kindly request some gallons of pure, 96 degrees ethanol for "pharmaceutical use" - which i guess will last me a lifetime. i don´t know if it´s legal to send you a small bottle, but i could try.
yup, that´s right.

cheers,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I've been using methyl hydrate, which is Canada's silly name for pure methyl alcohol, since the first time I began to french polish, which goes back to the early 90's. No issues, so side effects, and my vision hasn't changed(in fact it's improved, but I digress) in the 20 or so years of using, often to clean my hands with.

I suspect that if you had a reaction while french polishing with a denatured alky, it was actually the denaturing substance itself that caused it. I bought a gallon of denatured alky while in the US one time(we can't buy it here, and nobody's even heard of denatured alky), and boy howdy, that stuff stank! And I swear, the methyl hydrate produces a better finish.... At about $10/gallon. Any hardware store, gas station/truck stop will have it. Truckers have to use it to keep their (air)brake lines from freezing, and it's also a gas-line antifreeze.

Grumpy

If you want to get denatured alcohol in Canada, just go to your Zehrs grocery store and get some of their "Exact" brand Rubbing Alcohol Compound. It is 95% ethanol with a denaturant added. If it doesn't say "Compound", then it is Isopropyl Alcohol which is NFG for our purposes. Doesn't smell bad and disolves shellac almost as good as Everclear.
I still use methyl hydrate for cleaning up brushes, and guns after using shellac.

Bob

thanks again all for the replies. Franck, many thanks for the link to Laverdure. I didn't think you could buy it here as my local Pharmacie told me they couldn't sell it and that new legislation had been passed forbidding the sale of alcool absolu. Hopefully I'll get some from Laverdure The alcool à bruler from my local Bricoman has a really strong odour which hasn't done me any good whatsoever! Je vous remercie encore une fois

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imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world

De rien
In fact you could build a nice french varnish with alcool à brûler, it is not the best for it but it works. It stinks, yes, for sure.

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