According to Ron Jones :
David Peters wrote:
On Fri 03 Jun 2005 23:16:22, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Chris Lewis wrote:
I don't know what the Grunff is referring to when he says
"meths". if he means methanol, he's wrong.

Methylated spirits is etahnol with enough mathoanol to make it
undrinkable exceptr by bums.

And Pyridine to make it obvious it's not bacardi.

I don't believe there is any methanol in UK "methylated spirits".
See the link in my footnote to my original posting which says:

"in the case of mineralised methylated spirits, with every 90
parts by volume of spirits there shall be mixed 9.5 parts by
volume of wood naphtha and 0.5 parts by volume of crude pyridine,
and to the resulting mixture there shall be added mineral naphtha
(petroleum oil) in the proportion 7.5 litres to every 2,000 litres
of the mixture".

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1987/Uks...n_5.htm#mdiv14

IIRC wood naphtha = wood alcohol = methanol

Yeah. Methanol is one of the main ingredients of the gas given off when
you heat wood to high temperatures. Principle component that
causes the "flame" in burning wood. It used to be called wood alcohol,
because the primary source was charcoaling ovens - capture the gasses,
let it condense, and voila, wood alcohol.

[Naptha is an old fashioned name. Used because it approximates the
same thing as petrochemical naptha - which is pretty much a "heavy
gasoline". Wood alcohol produced by classic means isn't very pure.]

Books describe it as "destructive distillation of wood".

Nowadays, most of it is a petrochemical industry product, and much
purer.
--
Chris Lewis, Una confibula non set est
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.