ethyl alcohol

Terry King (101522.2625@CompuServe.COM)
09 Sep 96 11:25:17 EDT

Judy said:

>Ignorant question: If I'm told to get ethyl alcohol for carbon printing &:go to
my local hardware store (which never heard of ethyl alcohol
>apparently), what do I ask for? Denatured alcohol? Or?

In early experiments in making collodion I was told that the high excise duty on
ethyl alcohol, the stuff in whisky, meant that one could not get it on the open
market. People suggested strong vodka instead ! But a chemist on this list got
me some, he was also involved in the experiment, it is labelled'absolute
alcohol' ( contains 1 or 2 % water ); it now stands on the darkroom shelf
labelled 'POISON'.

Now when 'alcohol' is called for, say in cleaning the aquatint from a plate,, I
use propanol instead. But I do not know if you can make collodion with it.

Terry King