Cleaning solvent

Point, set and match.

Gunner

You're both wrong, they are 5 gal round metal cans and they are indeed full of Kerosene intended for use in portable heaters.

It's a pretty good unit. Harbor Freight 95563, 2.5L tank, 140 degree heater, digital timer. If you wait for the sales and coupons you can get it for $60-something which seems to be a pretty good deal. In testing it blows holes in AL foil in a second so it seem to have sufficient ultrasonic power. I've mentioned it here before and I recommend it.

Yes, see my other post. It's "regular" price is around $100, but with sales and coupons, $60-something is possible.

In the DSAT gas blender manual SG is one of the recommended pre-cleaners for O2 cleaning components, with some more exotic cleaners indicated for the final cleaning.

In the 50s, gasoline would cause a coleman stove to misbehave in a rather dangerous way - a LOT more volatile than the "white gas" aka naphtha the stove (and lamps etc.) required.

Lighter fluid did NOT smell like naphtha for the Coleman, but more like kerosene.

Coal oil as I recall, had less odor and burned with less soot and more light than kero.

Coleman fuel today, I find very useful as a solvent, but also use deodorized kero / lamp oil, alcohol, lacquer thinner, acetone, MEK and a couple of others, depending on how stubborn the "stuff" on abused clock movements has become.

I particularly HATE WD40 residue, which is quite waxy and needs perchloroethylene at times, to dissolve. Works for candle wax, too. and on the liver.... / mark

That may be, but that is a slovenly corruption of the spelling, which follows a natural mispronunciation. Kind of like people say

op-tha-mologist (incorrect but easy)

instead of

oph-thal-mologist (correct but clumsy)

And thus

nap-tha (incorrect but easier)

instead of

naf-tha (correct but not as easy)

See _The American Heritage® Book of English Usage_, 1996:

... with diphtheria, diphthong, and naphtha, the ph should properly be pronounced (f), not (p). Because so many people say (p-), as opposed to (f-), though, this variant has gradually become acceptable.

(I dedicate this post to the memory of the late Wm F Buckley.)

Good find, Ned. Thanks.

Correct. About 60% kerosene in one form or other. about 15% oil.

All I have seen were empty cans for sale at the local stores.

Here in the UK, tax-paid road diesel (DERV), even at our extortionate fuel tax rates, is cheaper than low-grade kerosene in gallon cans.

Home heating oil is cheap, and perfectly adequate - if you've access.

I use second-hand Jet-A1 from drained aircraft tanks. It's cleaner than stuff I've bought from garages, and they want rid of it as otherwise it's just chemical waste.

You don't pay for cans that way.

In the paint aisle? :)

No. Up front by the heaters

In other words, it's mostly *not* kerosene.

Guess you didn't read it any more carefully than Ned did... *Some* of the components in WD-40 are kerosene, to be sure. But WD-40 and kerosene are not the same thing, Richard Kinch's delusions to the contrary.

And you didn't read it any more carefully than Ned and Gunner did...

In Florida?

In Texas