Official Luthiers Forum!

I've found a web source for Everclear 190 proof grain alcohol. There are several states they cannot ship to.

Anyways, a place to look that isn't a long drive!

http://randalls.stores.yahoo.net/index.html

Just put Everclear in the search field.

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

Dang. Washington's one of them. I gotta move.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Heck Pat, you're close enough to the border. Don't you have any friends in Idaho that you can have it shipped to and then go for a visit? We have friends coming to visit in a month or so that I might have to ask them to sneak a bottle or two across for me.

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Aoibeann

Hey, pssst. Lillian,

Heck, I s'pose I could drive.

Hope the FBI's not listening.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

   I promise not to tell them. Besides, I think they are, ah, busy at the moment.

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Aoibeann

Two thoughts.

I used to buy this in the liqour store. You have to pay liqour tax, but considering shipping, etc. the cost isn't so bad.

Has anyone tried using alchohol from the hardware store and adding 5% water?

I hear there's a 1 bottle delivery coming to Ann Arbor next Wednesday from Indiana...let me know if I need to buy more.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

[QUOTE=Hesh1956] Pat you could move to Vancouver and kill two birds with one stone(d)...... [/QUOTE]

Hah! Great idea, Hesh!

Speaking of grain alcohol, have you hit the bottle yet (FP for your L-00, that is)?

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I've shared this idea before, but I'll repeat it here: Make friends with your local herbalist. They buy grain alcohol in large quantities (from Aaper Alcohol or a similar source) to make tinctures. I buy a gallon from a guy here in Ithaca for considerably less than I'd pay for Everclear (which I can't buy in NY anyway).

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Living at the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains, Virginia has state run liquor stores that regulate the sale of everything other than beer or wine...but

I am only 1.3 miles to West Virginia where as Jeff Foxworthy would say (US southern comedian), "Many of the homes are mobile and the cars in the front yard are not" .

I literally had someone at the gas (petrol) station I live near say, "if you have a glass jug, I have a buddie that can pour you off some for $8 a gallon" !!! When I explained that I needed it pure, he said, "oh this stuff is pure...you can go blind if you drink it straight"!!!

The advantage of using a pure grain alcohol like Everclear is that it is non-toxic and safe for consumption unlike the denatured alcohol that you would get from a hardware store.

In general the idea is that a denatured alcohol is pure alcohol with chemicals added to prevent the absorption of water from the atmosphere. Grain alcohol is typically 95 percent alcohol whereas denatured alcohol is much purer. Adding water to alcohol when it comes to french polishing is not a good idea as you are tryin got get as pure a mixture as possible, with the only tradeoff being whether you want to work with the more toxic denatured alcohol or the more friendly (but less pure) grain alcohol.

The denaturing agent is to make the alcohol unsuitable to drink, so you cannot avoid the liquor tax by purchasing your booze in the hardware store. However, some of these denaturing agents are toxic to the user, so maybe it is not a good idea to use it. 95% alcohol is already 5% water. Mixing 5% water with 100% alcohol would only get you back to that point. The 5% water is probably important. A mixture of 5% water and 95% ethanol evaporates in exactly that ratio. Applying it to wood will not draw water out of the wood. If you apply 100% ethanol to wood, it will suck the wood dry, which is temporary and may not hurt things. So, even if you get 100% pure ethanol (no additives), it probably is not the best to use in the pure form for FP.

I think the issue is that it's difficult, if not impossible to keep ethanol at 100%. It's so hygroscopic that as soon as it's exposed to moisture in the air it sucks it into solution. 5% may be it's initial equilibrium point.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

JJ is exactly correct about alcohols being hygroscopic.

Alcohol is the "drying agent" used in popular winter gasoline additives used to "remove" water from your gas tank. It attracts water and keeps it in solution in your fuel, which eventually is "burned" in your engine.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Toxicity is but a small part of the equation. So little solvent gets used in FP that toxicity is not a big deal. Granted, it is nice to smell just ethyl alcohol as you are polishing. The main reason to use pure ethyl alcohol is the trash the manufacturers add to ethyl alcohol to make it poisonous do not have the same evaporation rates as ethyl alcohol. So much of FP'ing is dependent on a quick flash of the solvent.
A quick check to Sunnyside Corporation's website listed these diluents in their denatured alcohol:
ethyl acetate
solvent naptha
methyl isobutyl ketone
methyl alcohol
The naptha is especially interesting as it does not dissolve shellac.
Kudos to Sunnyside for listing the ingredients. Most denatured alcohol is of unknown composition. In fact, I have heard it said that the makeup of some manufacturers' denatured alcohol varies from batch to batch, depending on what are the cheapest diluents on the market at the time of formulation.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

[QUOTE=Hesh1956] Good find Jim. I thought that we would have to drive to Indiana to get this.[/QUOTE]
Gas up your car (or JJ's), Hesh, 'cause Everclear can't be shipped into Michigan.

Carlton is absolutely correct. I did not try to order last night but just did and at checkout this is the news:

Orders for wine or spirits require an adult signature on delivery. We cannot ship alcoholic beverages to: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Unfortunately way more than four states.

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

I'm sure there are at least a couple local herbalists in Ann Arbor, Hesh. Look on the little bottles of tinctures at the co-op, or just ask the staff who makes them, and give 'em a call. All those tinctures are made with 190 proof grain alcohol, and they've probably got a stash of many gallons.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/