hay all

am in prosess of building first plane & it says to use rubbing alcohol to wipe away excess appoxy is there an alternitave..??.. such as metho etc ?

It's the BEST for thinning or cleaning up epoxy uses becuae it is ~100% alcohol...isopropyl alcohol isn't.

Uh, I thought it was/is the opposite....... And I don't believe that either is "100%" alcohol...

However, one type has lot's of H2O in it....That's why I'm confused..... I thought "Rubbing Alcohol" has much water in it, true?

Oh, I just realized (Gene) that you said Denatured Alcohol....

Well, it's not 100% either, but rather has lots of other bad stuff in it, including Acetone to make it undrinkable, and toxic.....

True, it's certainly better to use than Rubbing which has much water in it......

?????????????????????????????????now i'm really confused???????????????????

Rubbing alcohol has a bunch of water in it-for some reason I am thinking 30 percent. The alcohol is isopropol. I use this all the time to clean up epoxy and it works fine. It is a little easier on the hands.

As an alternative, I would suggest that you try methyl alcohol, or methanol. It is also called "wood alcohol" because it can be produced by chemical reaction with wood. I use this sometimes, but if it gets on my hands, it really dries things out. There are times you will want to use methanol instead of rubbing alcohol. I am not sure why you would need to use denatured ethyl alcohol.

You can purchase methyl alcohol at any paint store.

I hope this helps.

Terry

thanx for your help guys, i understand a bit better now.

I use rubbing alcohol all the time [50% to 90%],it works great,easy to purchase and doesn't cost an arm and leg.

I like good ol' rubbing alcohol for general clean up of sticky messes, not talking thinning or anything here. I had always just got the same old isopropyl stuff for years.

Last time I went to the store and grabbed a couple of bottles. Got it home and MAN it had a strange smell..

Looked the the lable and it was "Ethyl Rubbing Alcohol" and I hate the smell.

I never knew rubbing alcohol to be anything other than isopropyl, but I'll be looking at the lable next time!!

I just go to the local hardware store and buy a gallon of denatured alcohol. It works great for cleaning up uncured epoxy. So does lacquer thinner, acetone, MEK and various other solvents.

You know what works very nicely for cleaning up fingers and small amounts of excess epoxy.... the little alcohol wipes you can buy in the drugstore. They come sealed in a pouch, and you get 50-100 in a box. I keep a box on my bench and just rip open a pouch and have a small alcohol soaked wipe to wipe fingers or excess epoxy up. Of course they are small and wont work well for gross amounts, but very convenient for small amounts.

Just a thought ( I also keep a can of alcohol with some paper towels handy for large epoxy clean ups but the small wipes work for 98%of the time)

mobil_racer,

Rubbing alcohol, which is isopropyl alcohol, is probably the safest, for you and the environment, product that you will buy for your planes. It always has some water in it, because pure alcohol rapidly draws any water that is available to it. You can buy it at the drug store, from 70% to 99% water free. The small amount of water is nothing to worry about, and is certainly no reason to expose yourself to the toxic substances used to 'denature' alcohol. If they recommend it, and you find that it works, I would recommend that you take the opportunity to use one of the few relatively non-toxic solvents in common use. I use rubbing alcohol anytime that it works, and only resort to more risky solvents when necessary. Thus, I have only had to purchase one can of acetone so far, and I still have 3/4 of it.

Just my 2 cents.

banktoturn

Yeah, I have some MEK. Talk about running you out of the house!! I was griping about the smell of the Ethyl alcohol, but it can't touch MEK for pure aromatic overload (and yes, guys..I have the MSDS sheets, I know about MEK). And it's not like I run around the house with a can of MEK..I just tried some one time...that was plenty!

Funny, I ran out of alcohol the other night and used some Smirnoff Vodka. Worked like a charm

Kevin

Are we still talking about airplanes??

- George

Chuck - Yep, MEK is nasty stuff. For everyone who doesn't know about it, MEK = Methyl Ethyl Ketone. Ketones are thought or known to be carcinogens.

Hahahah, I guess it would work like a charm THAT way too