[Cdt-l] Alcohol Stove fuel

[R Smith]

I've been using alcohol stoves for years with pretty much the same
experience as Charlie. The hardware store denatured alcohol is hit and miss
as far as quality, not only from brand to brand, but even batch to batch
within a brand. On the other hand, Yellow HEET has always performed well for
me -- never any soot. So, at re-supply towns, I always head for the NAPA
store or a gas station for some yellow HEET rather than to the Ace hardware
store for brush cleaner. Of course, for the lack of anything else available
in town, it's brush cleaner.

That being said, if you are mailing out your fuel, go ahead and buy a gallon
of S-L-X fuel, just test it out for quality before mailing it out. And, by
the way, I had the same bad experience as Charlie with the 'sunnyside' brand
-- it turned my Evernew pot to not-so-new looking.

Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: cdt-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:cdt-l-bounces at backcountry.net]
On Behalf Of Charlie Thorpe
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 2:52 PM
To: cdt-l at backcountry.net MailingList
Cc: Gail and Alistair Des Moulins
Subject: Re: [Cdt-l] Alcohol Stove fuel

Hello Alistair -

I have found denatured alcohol to be available under its own name in quart
and gallon sizes in just about all of the big-box building supply stores I
have visited (Lowes, Home Depot, etc.):

Lowes - http://preview.tinyurl.com/aagxdga

Home Depot - http://preview.tinyurl.com/bxwgy4b

Walmart - http://preview.tinyurl.com/bf6jsws

I have been using the S-L-X brand denatured alcohol for a lot of trail miles
and have never had any problems of any kind with it.  I buy the biggest can
that I will need for the entire hike and break it down into the little
plastic soft drink (or water) bottles sized to fit the number of days in
each resupply I set up.  Never had the big cans leak in the car, either.

I ran out of S-L-X, so I picked up a quart of "sunnyside denatured alcohol
solvent" in a small hardware store in Cuba, NM.  It burned in my Brasslite,
but it smoked so bad it turned my pot black (not all that bad a color to
absorb heat best <g>) and got soot all over me.  I was too cheap to throw
what I had left of it away when I got home, so I put it in the paint locker
for thinning shellac, etc.  

I now buy S-L-X in the last city that I come to before I hit the trail which
has a big-box hardware store.  Never had to buy HEET, but have been glad to
know about it in case I ever needed to.

Good luck!

- Charlie