# Using everclear to make shellac - 2 questions...



## Quickstep (Apr 10, 2012)

I’ve read accounts where people swear by using Everclear 190 to mix shellac. The problem for me is that after the liquor tax is added, it’s REALLY expensive. So, here are the two questions:

Is it really that much better than Behlen’s Behkol or DNA?

Does anyone know where you can buy Everclear for cheaper than at a liquor store?


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

You can use DNA but make sure you get the real stuff and not the synthetic. 

David


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

Dentured alcohol will work just fine. No reason to use Everclear.


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## Pondy (Oct 17, 2018)

Nothing wrong with denatured, just make sure you have good ventilation. The Everclear will be safer in an enclosed space.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

Using everclear will technically make the finish food-safe, if you were wanting to shellac some MnMs or something. No reason you cant use DNA though, unless you were needing something to put on your corn flakes


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## Pondy (Oct 17, 2018)

epicfail48 said:


> Using everclear will technically make the finish food-safe, if you were wanting to shellac some MnMs or something. No reason you cant use DNA though, unless you were needing something to put on your corn flakes


All denaturing agents would evaporate. I don't see how DNA makes it not food-safe.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

Pondy said:


> All denaturing agents would evaporate. I don't see how DNA makes it not food-safe.


Potential contamination from whatever else is in there's I'd imagine. You might be fine, but if you have to say might, generally isn't the best idea to call it food safe. You could drink the shellac/ever clear mix, not so much with the shellac/dna mix. Least, not more than once


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## Catpower (Jan 11, 2016)

DNA is methanol, your government would rather kill you then miss out on a few tax bucks LOL


After the methanol evaporates there wouldn't be any residue, and if there was it would be so little it would be harmless


On the other hand Everclear is only 95% ethanol, 5% water might not help the finish that much


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## Pondy (Oct 17, 2018)

epicfail48 said:


> Potential contamination from whatever else is in there's I'd imagine. You might be fine, but if you have to say might, generally isn't the best idea to call it food safe. You could drink the shellac/ever clear mix, not so much with the shellac/dna mix. Least, not more than once



Anything can be contaminated, so then we need to just say we can't use anything because of some potential contamination. If you are speaking specifically about the solvents, they all evaporate. Just like you shouldn't fear drowning in a dried riverbed, you shouldn't fear using a fully cured finish. Nobody is drinking anything, so that isn't a valid argument. Finally, you do drink those solvents all the time. Methanol is a natural product in many of the foods and drinks we consume. The body easily degrades and flushes them from our bodies, so you need not worry about any acute or chronic overdoses.
Cheers!


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

Pondy said:


> Anything can be contaminated, so then we need to just say we can't use anything because of some potential contamination. If you are speaking specifically about the solvents, they all evaporate. Just like you shouldn't fear drowning in a dried riverbed, you shouldn't fear using a fully cured finish. Nobody is drinking anything, so that isn't a valid argument. Finally, you do drink those solvents all the time. Methanol is a natural product in many of the foods and drinks we consume. The body easily degrades and flushes them from our bodies, so you need not worry about any acute or chronic overdoses.
> Cheers!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity

If methanol is in many of the products we eat and drink every day, were all dead right now. Methanol is highly toxic and can kill with less than 10ml ingested. 

Nowhere did i say i was specifically worried about the solvents, i quite specifically said i was worried about whatever else was in there. Yes, alcohols flash off without leaving residues behind, but how many other things do you think could be swimming around in there? Other chemicals, residues from the manufacturing process, heavy metals leached from the containers, theres a million different things that could possibly in there that you really, *really* dont want in your body.

You dont have to worry about drowning in a dry river, but radiation poisoning or heavy metal toxicity from rolling around in it? Food safety labels exist for a reason. Yeah, the cured finish _might_ be food safe, it also _might not_ be food safe, and if its a situation where you want it to be food safe, that might not wont do.

Cheers


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## GuitarPhotographer (Jun 26, 2015)

Catpower said:


> DNA is methanol, your government would rather kill you then miss out on a few tax bucks LOL
> 
> 
> After the methanol evaporates there wouldn't be any residue, and if there was it would be so little it would be harmless
> ...



No it's not methanol. It is ethanol (grain alcohol) to which 'denaturing agents' have been added.


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


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

GuitarPhotographer said:


> No it's not methanol. It is ethanol (grain alcohol) to which 'denaturing agents' have been added.
> 
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol


One of which is commonly methanol. Youll notice that the first sentence in the article is "Denatured alcohol, also called methylated spirit". Methylated means "mix or impregnate with methanol". The last sentence of the first paragraph even makes a point of mentioning that methanol is added to make it poisonous


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## GuitarPhotographer (Jun 26, 2015)

OK, if we're gonna get specific, here's a copy and paste from the Wikipedia article that specifies the formulation, from a 2005 UK regulation:


Completely denatured alcohol must be made in accordance with the following formulation: with every 90 parts by volume of alcohol mix 9.5 parts by volume of wood naphtha or a substitute and 0.5 parts by volume of crude pyridine, and to the resulting mixture add mineral naphtha (petroleum oil) in the proportion of 3.75 litres to every 1000 litres of the mixture and synthetic organic dyestuff (methyl violet) in the proportion of 1.5 grams to every 1000 litres of the mixture.


Notice that no mention is made of methanol.


My point wasn't that DNA did not contain methanol but that it was not methanol.


Let's end this discussion, with both of us being correct


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## Catpower (Jan 11, 2016)

GuitarPhotographer said:


> No it's not methanol. It is ethanol (grain alcohol) to which 'denaturing agents' have been added.
> 
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol





I guess the people who make it are wrong, because on the label it says Warning:Contains methanol, and can not be made non poisonous in so many words


They used to call methanol "Wood Alcohol" it is derived from the cellulose in the mix.


Don't ask me how I know this but if you are making corn squeezins, the first few ounces out of the still is methanol, and if you don't separate it the least it will do is give you a severe hangover, and possibly blindness or death


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

GuitarPhotographer said:


> OK, if we're gonna get specific, here's a copy and paste from the Wikipedia article that specifies the formulation, from a 2005 UK regulation:
> 
> 
> Completely denatured alcohol must be made in accordance with the following formulation: with every 90 parts by volume of alcohol mix 9.5 parts by volume of wood naphtha or a substitute and 0.5 parts by volume of crude pyridine, and to the resulting mixture add mineral naphtha (petroleum oil) in the proportion of 3.75 litres to every 1000 litres of the mixture and synthetic organic dyestuff (methyl violet) in the proportion of 1.5 grams to every 1000 litres of the mixture.
> ...


I'd agree to that, were it not for the massive amounts of condescension and the fact that you're spreading amazing untrue information. 

http://www.kleanstrip.com/product/denatured-alcohol

That's the product link for kleanstrip brand denatured alcohol. Check the contents, 40-60% methanol. 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjANegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2dlz_mSMXDtOmr7dTK1TwD

That's a link to the OSHA MDS for denatured alcohol. Again, methanol makes an appearence with at least 15% by volume

Did you perchance bother to find out what wood naptha is? Turns out, it's an uncommon name for a different chemical; methanol. Now, you can drink it, pretend it's food safe, whatever you want, by my original point remains; industrial solvents that are not originally certified as food safe cannot, will not ever be food safe and should not be used in a finish if one is concerned about the possibility of food contact. Methanol aside, there's the possibility of God knows what also being in the denatured alcohol, stuff that may not flash off like heavy metal deposits, potentially hazardous chemicals remaining on a surface have a spectacular way of making things not food safe. 

Bottom line, denatured alcohol contains methanol, and if you want a food-safe finish, use something you know is food safe.


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## hawkeye10 (Feb 18, 2015)

I have led a sheltered life. So what is Everclear??? :|


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

Everclear is straight, distilled ethanol. Because of the tight hydrogen bonding, it comes across in the distillation
process as 95% alcohol and 5% water. It is damn difficult to create 100% ethanol. We did it in the lab.. Not cheap.
Very difficult if you happen to work in a lab in the tropics with dripping humidity all the time.



Since the gov't tax people want to tax all the alcohol that you could drink, you can get around the tax thing
by "denaturing" the ethanol. = you add some crap to it which makes it poisonous to drink.
One way to do that is to add various per-centages of methanol.
One way to do that is to add various per-centages of Jet B aviation fuel. (Fisher Scientific does this).
Nothing to stop you from drinking shoe polish, hair-spray and so on. Some folks can't resist.



For wood-working applications denatured (with whatever) ethanol is a good solvent for dyes and stains.
I presume that the residents of this parish are not so confounded stupid as to slurp their stains.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

hawkeye10 said:


> I have led a sheltered life. So what is Everclear??? :|


Booze, as mentioned. Straight grain alcohol. Its like vodkas older brother whos been to prison a few times. Useful in situations where you want to hate yourself for drinking something, cleaning wounds, stripping paint and mixing food-safe shellac


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## Pondy (Oct 17, 2018)

epicfail48 said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity
> 
> If methanol is in many of the products we eat and drink every day, were all dead right now. Methanol is highly toxic and can kill with less than 10ml ingested.
> 
> ...



Reality check: methanol _is _in foods and drinks you consume everyday. It's funny how someone who says at one point that the denaturing solvents flash off, so it doesn't matter, but then spends all his time arguing about methanol. Methanol is a naturally occurring substance that is produced in plants, bacteria, fungi, and animals. Therefore, it is present in the food and drinks we consume, and we are still alive, so you are fully incorrect. For example, the average bottle of red wine has 250 mg of methanol (Hodson et al., 2017). Methanol is naturally consumed and naturally degraded and cleared from the human body, you'll eat and excrete some today, so enjoy! What matters is the quantity, and as everyone should know by now is that it evaporates in your finishes, so the methanol you are exposed to is coming from the things you eat and not what you put them on. Okay, now we can shut up about methanol, I sure hope so anyway.
So your only argument is concerning heavy metals. We can agree that DNA isn't food safe, but the reason for that is because they add solvents to it. Those solvents evaporate, so we no longer have DNA present in the finish. However, what we cannot agree on is the presence of heavy metals. You haven't given a lick of evidence that there is any heavy metal present in DNA. I see nothing special about any of the processes, such as syngas (how we produce methanol), used to produce methanol or other solvents used that would lead to any heavy metals worth a worry. And again, a fundamental point you are neglecting entirely is exposure levels. As seen with methanol, a certain exposure level is perfectly tolerable in humans. Moreover, when we are exposed to orders of magnitudes more of it in other forms, then it's just a bunch of hand waving to blame the smallest contributors. I mean, dam, how much finish are you eating a year?! Maybe you should calm down with how hard you are scraping that last bit of milk out of all the wooden bowls you eat your cereal out of. The largest contributors of heavy metal poisoning are things like water contamination, food contamination, air pollution, and medicine contamination. Where are all the outbreaks of heavy metal poisoning from wood finishes? :vs_laugh:Where are the bodies? Show me the scientific consensus or research! There is none, zero, zilch, and this is all a big fairy tale perpetuated by product companies, people lied to and confused, wackos, and people trying to swindle money out of customers by telling them how dangerous other food containers are.


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## bholland (Sep 10, 2018)

People durring prohibition did use to "nature" denatured alcohol. They supposedly removed the minerals, alcohols, and contaminations to make it safe for consumption. Often, solvents will leave behind compounds. My guess is that those compounds are quite toxic or at least not safe for human consumption. Will it create a food-safe shellac? I don't know. I haven't worked with shellac. I do know that someone does make it probably with sugar water. 

Two points:
1. I doubt they actually did this successfully and no one cared if they went blind
2. denatured alcohol is quite toxic (on purpose) so don't drink it. 

Denatured alcohol also can contain very dangerous compounds that result in the distilling process. When you distill a mash, you heat it to a specific point. As the mash heats up and cools off, alcohol will still come off but that stuff is very dangerous for human consumption. It is how people got solvents though. Basically, they got their pure mash 190 to 195 proof whiskey and their cleaning solvents in 1 day. Typically, a distiller will save the first few and last few quarts for this purpose.


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

One snag in taking denatured alcohol apart ( methanol+ ethanol) is that the two of them have very similar boiling points.
So, a lot of non-boiling evaporation happens both above and below the nominal boiling points of the pure substances.
Some of this is confounded with the last few % of water that's stuck in there, very tight.


One of the gases released when wood is heated without air is methanol = "wood" alcohol, which is easily recovered by condensation.
Yeasts make all sorts of things, not just ethanol as in wines, mashes, beers and breads.

Now the industrial processes are far faster. Same CH3OH.



It's a whole lot easier to read the labels and buy what you need.
Quite a surprise to see all the different solvents in 1 liter cans in Cloverdale Paints. No 95, sorry.


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