A handy addition to your workbench is a nice clean-burning alcohol lamp. While a good gallon of denatured alcohol is fairly pricey at $16, it does put out a very clean burning flame with no odor, and a gallon lasts a long time. Other alternatives are cheaper kerosene which burns really nasty and smells bad, and isopropyl or rubbing alcohol, high proof it 90% or so, but it also puts out a strange smell and I don’t like breathing its vapors. So I prefer ethanol, because it burns so cleanly, and also this is something that one can make at home – – A sugar wash with 13 pounds of sugar and some yeast will produce in theory a gallon of good high-quality ethanol. That should run about seven bucks. Of course to use it as fuel you have to distill it, and there are plans on this blog for making a simple solar still to do that. Of course you need a federal permit to distill alcohol for fuel, but I imagine that in times of disaster or long emergencies there would not be much problem doing that.
Back to the lamp. Mine’s glass so I can see the fuel level, it’s fairly lightweight and very portable and quite easy to light. One disadvantage is that it is hard to see the blue flame in bright light, but you can always wave your hand over it to see if it’s on or not. Ha
It’s handy for many things and so far I use it for burning incense, and melting glue sticks without having to plug-in a stupid AC device, softening & shrinking plastics, quick heating the tip of a soldering iron, and here is a little piece on using it to replace the cover of a lithium ion battery.
I have recently gotten into lithium ion batteries, and while they are a lot of fun and a great learning experience they are dangerous. Top left photo shows the battery which has had its insulating ring degraded. The problem is that at the top of the battery the anode and cathode are very close together. If you accidentally shorted them together the battery will suddenly discharge. There’s a danger of it getting hot and even catching on fire. First I stripped off the old plastic outer cover and removed the old bad insulating ring. Next I put on a new cover and a new ring and fired up the alcohol lamp. After a little bit of practice you learn just where the sweet spot is in the flame and by waving the battery over it quickly you can shrink the outer wrapping. Works great.
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