METH/WATER for hard hammers

[Susan Kline]

At 04:18 PM 02/12/2000 -0800, you wrote:
>If you can drink whats left over you would be tempted to use too much
>water. You could use 100 proof vodka, but that is already 50% water so
>that's already too much.  I favor methanol since there is a huge tax on
>ethanol.  Besides the way to cut down on drinking is to put something
>distasteful in your booze like say too much water.
>
>Cheers
>Carl Meyer Santa Claara Ca.

Dear Carl,

I've been harping on this topic for a long time, and am terribly pleased
to see any cracks in the monolith of piano technicians' (to me, fairly
mindless) devotion to METHANOL. If a kid manages to find some methanol
in your shop or house and takes a swig, it can, literally, kill him.
That's why they usually dye it a tasteful shade of lavender, but with
soft drinks so highly colored, that is not much protection. By the time
a kid realizes it has a nasty taste, it might be too late. Plus, whenever
you use it inside, you have to breathe it; if you use it at a customer's,
they have to breathe it, and some of them are pretty ill or old already;
and if it gets on your hands, it is absorbed through the skin. This is
not good stuff to have around. Liver damage, eye damage.

The other options are all far better, IMHO. If the tax bothers you, or if
you find yourself guzzling the piano supplies, get _denatured alcohol
solvent_ at the local hardware. This isn't taxed as potable ethanol,
and it is denatured, but it is only 4% methanol. The can doesn't reveal
how much water is in it, but I think not much.

Personally, I feel no urge at all to nip into bulk grain alcohol that has
been sitting around in a plastic bottle waiting for me to treat hammers
with it. About like being so sugar-hungry that one eats last year's
dusty jelly beans ....

Regards,

Susan Kline

-----------------------------------------


>Leslie W Bartlett wrote:
> >
> > It is always so encouraging to be a part of an organization that promotes
> > the "waste not, want not" philosophy. So piano work can be nourishing as
> > well as rewarding. What a concept!
> > lesb
> >
> > >you can drink what's left over.