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Drip-fed heater, why not meths?


BlueStringPudding

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7 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

In the 'old days' (45-50 years ago) when I used to go caving (Pot-holing) I had a carbide head-lamp, once you put the water in the tank & opened the valve it was like standing next to an Eberspacher exhaust but it did give off a fairly good light and could be used to warm your hands.

I probably only paid 'a couple of pounds' from 'Blacks' (Scout & Camping shop) for it but they now seem to be fetching around £100 on ebay.

 

Lumps of Carbide in the bottom, water in the top, open the valve and let the water dribble down onto the Carbide which then produced Acetylene, flick the spark-wheel and away you went.

 

Picture 1 of 5

£ 100 on ebay. I must dig out my old caving gear. Could be worth a fortune.

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5 hours ago, WotEver said:

That simply means they’ve made it taste horrid. It shouldn’t positively affect its burning temperature. 

Not quite, until about ten years ago Methanol was incorporated in Methalayted Spirit, but it is apparently poisonous and can cause blindness etc, so was removed from the formula.

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29 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

Not quite, until about ten years ago Methanol was incorporated in Methalayted Spirit, but it is apparently poisonous and can cause blindness etc, so was removed from the formula.

“The European Union agreed in February 2013 to the mutual procedures for the complete denaturing of alcohol:[10]

Per hectolitre (100 L) of absolute ethanol: 3 litres of isopropyl alcohol, 3 litres of methyl ethyl ketone and 1 gram denatonium benzoate.”

From Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol

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7 minutes ago, WotEver said:

“The European Union agreed in February 2013 to the mutual procedures for the complete denaturing of alcohol:[10]

Per hectolitre (100 L) of absolute ethanol: 3 litres of isopropyl alcohol, 3 litres of methyl ethyl ketone and 1 gram denatonium benzoate.”

From Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol

Ooh, MEK aka Blanket Cleaner, used to use that on the offset litho machine at school!

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On 03/10/2020 at 12:46, Alan de Enfield said:

In the 'old days' (45-50 years ago) when I used to go caving (Pot-holing) I had a carbide head-lamp, once you put the water in the tank & opened the valve it was like standing next to an Eberspacher exhaust but it did give off a fairly good light and could be used to warm your hands.

I probably only paid 'a couple of pounds' from 'Blacks' (Scout & Camping shop) for it but they now seem to be fetching around £100 on ebay.

 

Lumps of Carbide in the bottom, water in the top, open the valve and let the water dribble down onto the Carbide which then produced Acetylene, flick the spark-wheel and away you went.

 

Picture 1 of 5

 

Very handy for burning the your hands while climbing a caving ladder I seem to recall.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, jake_crew said:

I don't miss the stink of disposed-of carbide in caves.

 

But it does have a nice warm colour.

It was always a shame that cavers would dump there spent carbide in the cave and not take it away with them.

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One big advantage of carbide lamps was that you only had to take a small tin of carbide with you to last for hours. If you ran out of water you had only to pee in them to refill them, hence their nicknames of "Stinkies". Their main disadvantage (apart from the criss-cross scars on the back of your hands after climbing a ladder) was that if you went through a "duck" you came up in the dark.

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