David Nebenzahl spake thus:

Richard J Kinch spake thus:

David Nebenzahl writes:

charcoal lighter (naphtha)

Charcoal starter is kerosene.

Naphtha is much lighter. Coleman fuel. Definitely not for charcoal.

Nope, you're wrong: I also stock kerosene (have 2 portable heaters that
use it), and that's a completely different "product". Easily
recognizable by smell alone.

Both charcoal starter and lighter fluid (e.g., Ronsonol) are naphtha,
which is a lighter fraction than kerosene (paraffin for our UK friends).

You're thinking of "white gas" for Coleman fuel. I'd definitely stay
away from that stuff!

Amending my post: boy, this is one confusing area, especially if you try
to get information on the web. A lot of this information seems to be
plain wrong.

So apparently, ordinary charcoal lighter *is* a mixture of naphtha and
kerosene. However, the charcoal lighter I use (mainly to clean stuff)
seems almost identical to pure naphtha, and evaporates at about the same
rate. Kerosene evaporates much more slowly, and leaves an oily residue
behind.

But it isn't the same thing as white gas, of that I'm sure, even though
there are plenty of sites out there that say that white gas = naphtha.
For one thing, white gas has a *much* more pungent odor than naphtha,
and evaporates much more quickly. I did find one site that seems to have
a good definition of white gas:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=776626. It is similar to
gasoline.

Lighter fluid ("Ronsonol") *is* naphtha, so far as I've been able to
determine.


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