How best to dilute gasoline to use in a kitchen sink?

How about Oops original?

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A hair dryer works on some labels.

Or dry cleaning solvent:

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See the specs for MSDS.

They include a lot of the solvents that were determined to work.

Gasoline in the house is about as stupid as operating a generator in the house. I hope you don't have natural gas appliances? I suspect you don't, otherwise we probably would not be having this discussion.

Reply to
Ron D.
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Glad you realize that. Now think about this.

Once you dilute the gasoline, it will still release fumes, carry the exact same risk, and smell just as bad.

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Dan Espen
Reply to
Dan Espen

Ethanol is easily available in any decent hardware store as denatured alcohol. It has a tiny amount of methanol in it to avoid taxes because most people won't drink it.

Reply to
etpm

You are HOPELESS. No fool like an old fool.

Reply to
clare

IF you could "dilute" gasoline 10 "1/10th" strength it would take 10 times as long to do the job, or only do 1/10 the job.

You are beating a VERY dead horse.

Reply to
clare

No. That's not correct. More appropriately that's almost certainly not correct. (but there is a very slight chance that it could be correct).

It all depends on the minimum effective dose (and on solubility of goop in gas).

As an out-of-context example, of what I am telling you: a. I can put out a lit match with a gallon of water. b. Or, I can put out that match with a quart of water. c. Or I can put out that match with a spoon of water.

If the minimum effective dose is a spoon, then the gallon of water is overkill.

Let's take the LD50 for poisons as another example: a. Let's say you can kill a rat with 1 ounce of warfarin. b. If you use a pound of warfarin, you'll kill the rat. c. But if you dilute that pound in half, you'll still kill the rat. d. In fact, you can dilute that pound 1:16 and still kill that rat.

Same with using Acetone as nail polish remover. You can dilute 100% acetone by a LOT where it still works fine.

The question we don't know the answer to is what the minimum effective concentration of the solvents in gasoline that dissolve the goop.

I'm sure 1:10 is fine, but I don't know that for sure since I don't know how to dilute the gasoline yet to test it out.

Reply to
Robert Bannon

Maybe. Maybe not.

If I piss in your cup of water, it will stink like urine and look like urine and taste like urine (don't ask - I don't know).

Now, if I dilute that piss 10:1 or 100:1, I'd wager none of the deleterious effects will occur.

That's why they say the solution to pollution is dilution. All chemicals work that way.

Why is gasoline any different than all other chemicals?

Reply to
Robert Bannon

In chemistry, when you mix two compounds, you either get a reaction or a mixture (no chemical reaction).

If you get a reaction, the odds are, you no longer have gasoline and it will no longer work as before,

If you don't get a reaction, the gasoline is still there, creating fumes, and it's still flammable.

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Dan Espen
Reply to
Dan Espen

Get it through your thick skull. IT CANNOT BE DONE.

This is the last you will here from me on this thread.

Reply to
clare

You mentioned 1 to 10 a while back and I forgot to ask 1 of what to 10 of what?

If it's 1 of gasoline to 10 of whatever, and this works, why not use the whatever full strength? Because you're choosing the whatever based on price - it costs at least less than gasoline - why not use it?

Others have mentioned the danger and I don't think it's severe if you are using a baby food jar of it, sealed.

If you are doing once a week, do the prep work inside - soak in water, scrape most of it off, using a single edge blade for most of the gunk, and then finish outside. If the weather isn't good, store several weeks worth until it is.

--
chalres
Reply to
Charles Bishop

Yep. I think that I recognize him and the obnoxious African grey parrot. Lives in BC. See photo at:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

No fool like ald fool thats so easily trolled

Reply to
ChairMan

I won't thank you for questioning my answers.

Also about safety.

Use the commercial label removing goo. At that rate, a small bottle will last years.

Since I don't know what chemicals you have at home, that information is useless. However, more interesting would be the type of labels that you're dealing with. You seem to be having far too much trouble for it to be one of the more common types of labels.

I have some permanent labels that have some solvent mixed in with the glue. When attached to plastic or paint, they will literally solvent weld themselves to the plastic or paint, as well as to the plastic backing in the label. When I scrape those off with a razor, I usually find some damage to the underlying paint or plastic.

It won't work very well. Pretend you put a 1 molecule layer of solvent against a glued surface. Each solvent molecule will break one hydrogen bond on one molecule of glue. No problem here. However, you're diluting the solvent 1:10 with perhaps water, which has no effect. So, only one in 11 molecules of glue is disassociated. Of course, other solvent molecules can displace the water, but that take agitation, which is not possible with a thinly glued surface. More simply, the diluted mixture will work 1/10th as well as full strength.

Gasoline is a VOC (volatile organic compound). The stench is produced by simple evaporation. Gasoline volatility is measured as the Reid (absolute) Vapor Pressure is somewhere between 8 and 10 psi. It varies with season, type of gasoline, temperature, and whims of the Environmental Protection Agency.

When you mix gasoline with something that has a much lower vapor pressure, such as water which is 0.95 psi at 100F, the vapor pressure remains that of the most volatile component, but with a reduced evaporation rate due a reduction in surface exposure. A bucket of

10:1 gasoline water mix, will have 10 times as many water molecules as gasoline molecules exposed on the surface of the bucket. Therefore, assuming perfect mixing, a really bad assumption as gasoline floats on water, the rate of gasoline evaporation will be 1/11th the rate of a bucket full of 100% gasoline. The room in which you store the bucket of gasoline will have the same amount of smelly gasoline molecules in both cases at equilibrium, but the 10:1 mix might take about 10 times as long to smell up the room.

Use the commercial label remover and be done with the chemistry lessons.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Don't use gasoline. It still contains enough benzene to mess you up in the long term.

Use biodiesel. It works, and is non-toxic, and cheap. I am talking about trans-esterified cooking oil. There are a lot of websites about how to make it, from KOH, methanol and filthy frier oil, but you can also buy it, usually about the same price as regular diesel. If made (and washed) properly, there is no methanol left in it at the end of the process.

If you doubt its abilities to clean off gunk, here is one example: After a few months it stripped the paint off the inside of my jerry can (and I then had to filter all of the lumps and flakes out so I could use the fuel). It also took the greasy layer off my bathtub better than any household cleaner that I tried. I used it to remove many labels. You can then wash it off easily with ordinary detergent and hot water. It won't melt plastics in the short term (though it might soften epoxy and will swell rubber if you leave it on for weeks). It also smells nice (if you like fried food).

Reply to
Chris Jones

It would last forever, since I don't eat that shit.

If you knew how utterly stupid that your trolling is, you would quit.

I use a cotton ball that has a few drops of the solvent on it. I rub it on the label to apply it, then I let it sit for a few minutes. Quite often, the label peels off with no residue. If there is residue, I simply wipe it away with the same cotton ball.

I can even use it to remove price tags from paperback books, without staining the paper. I have removed thousands of inventory labels from SMD component reels, while leaving the OEM labels that they had covered, intact.

It is also good to remove ink from most plastics, without any damage.

--
Never piss off an Engineer! 

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

What are most household chemicals? They're just *diluted* versions of chemicals. Right?

For example, what's household bleach? It's just diluted bleach.

What is nail polish remover? It's just pretty smelling diluted acetone or ethyl acetate.

What is rubbing alcohol? It's just vastly diluted isopropyl alcohol.

Why not just use the concentrate? Concentrated pool bleach is what I use in my washing machine. Concentrated muriatic acid is what I use in my toilet bowl. Pure acetone is what my kids use for removing nail polish.

So, currently, I use the "concentrated" goo remover outside, which works fine as gasoline melts virtually all food jar label goop, and what gasoline doesn't melt, the acetone generally does.

While I use most of my chemicals in the concentrated form, gasoline stinks and is flammable so I want to simply dilute the gasoline so that it (a) doesn't stink as much and so that it (b) isn't as flammable.

If that were easy to do, I never would have asked. BTW, I'm sure it's doable - simply because I can dilute with petroleum distiallates. I just don't happen to have cans of petroleum distillates lying around.

I suspect the gasoline works almost as well at 1/10th its original concentration, as gasoline is just petroleum distillates anyway, which is what most "spirits" are.

Reply to
Robert Bannon

Mineral oil works for me for many types of goop - adhesive.

Reply to
Wayne Chirnside

Sure. As the OP is a candidate for a Darwin Award either from self-immolati on or the breathing of toxic fumes leading to cancer or similar, and as "re al men" are scarce on the ground, we were all concerned.

I have found that very hot water first, then a bit of vegetable oil rubbed in with the back of a knife gets about any label off of about any glass jar with only a bit of effort. I cannot even fathom why anyone would use gaso line inside or out for this purpose. Shrink-wrap plastic labels are a bit o f a challenge, but in these cases, a single-edge razor or carpet knife does a fine job of removing the label, leaving only a small amount of adhesive. Then the hot water and vegetable oil for that.

But a benzene based solvent? YIKES!

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enzene

Reply to
pfjw

Sure, anything from about 2% to about 5% sodium hypochlorite. And why is it diluted? So that the user stands a chance of not being damaged by accident al misuse. As simple as micturating into a toilet with a bleach concentrate in it.

Yes, as either is explosive if misused, spilled, or concentrated in a close d room. 2.5% to 13%. & 3.3% to 9% respectively. And both have exceedingly l ow flash points.

70% is diluted. 91% less so, and 100% is readily available. But the vapor p ressure is far lower than acetone or ethanol, and so far less dangerous. St ill, explosive at 2.2%

You dress all in white or use solution-dyed man-made fabrics, then?

If it is called 'concentrated' and 'muriatic acid', it is not as much of a joke, but it is not glacial hydrochloric acid. THAT is the concentrate. And in any case you had best be on a municipal sewer system as you are making short work of your septic system using concentrated bleach and acids.

Ah, so you are looking for as much collateral damage as possible when you c ollect your Darwin Award? And you are teaching your kids all this as well?

ne

If you were to live alone and away from anyone else, why not? But as it is, you are concentrating a large number of dangerous chemicals in dangerous f orms in the same house as your family.

s

So is Acetone & Ethanol. Bleach is corrosive and can release chlorine, chlo ramine gas and react badly with any number of materials making very toxic b yproducts. Acetone and Ethanol are explosive, damage a great many plastics and finishes, and are very often abused in and of themselves.

Muriatic (*hydrochoric*) acid is one of the most active acids on the planet , and will react with many things in any concentration at all. It is also c olorless and odorless, burns skin very nearly instantly and much more. Mixe d with many common household chemicals it can release compounds that are ex ceedingly deadly. These include hydrogen sulphide, straight chlorine gas, e ven igniting (as in fire) steel wool. That burns VERY hot.

There are distillates and there are distillates. Gasoline is Benzene based. Most household chemicals are not. And if you do not understand the fundame ntal differences between the two, you well and truly are hopeless.

I hope that your family is at/past the 'leaving home' stage as you are, tru ly, a disaster in the making.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Reply to
pfjw

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As one example. There are thousands around gasoline.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Reply to
pfjw

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