I bought a gallon of Crown last week. Online it was 7.64. Inside the store it was 11.88. I took a gallon to the service desk and showed the online price on my phone to them. I asked if I had to order it and wait a couple hours to pick it up or would they honor the online price. I only had one gallon and they changed the price to match the online one. Not sure if they would do that again or other stores.
I think in that case, you're going to have much bigger survival fish to fry. Like if you want to cook, or have light, you're going to need to know how to burn things that are easily obtained and easily burned. It's for instance a rocket stove learning curve, not a fuel distillation learning curve. Or even a plain old "make a good campfire" learning curve. Unless you're planning to "set up shop" in the apocalypse, charge people whatever passes for currency / barter, have your various Mad Max minions defending your refineable fuel supply... this is the stuff of science fiction books and movies. Not prepping. Did I miss an important case for white fuel? Like are you planning to drive somewhere? Wouldn't you rather do something else, like biofuel or syngas?
Well, yes, the OP wanted to make white gas from gasoline. They didn't say they wanted to do it in conditions where white gas would be difficult or impossible to obtain. Without asking the OP, I assumed they wanted to pursue some combo of saving money + learning distillation chemistry. Those aren't serious hardcore prepper motives.
Hmm, I missed that detail, "didn't find any source to purchase white gas locally". Usually I'd wonder, how locally is locally? Like having to travel 100 to 200 miles to get the stuff is inconvenient, and not something you'd want to do very often, but you can do it. My Mom can't get a certain kind of pottery clay locally, but I'm coming back and forth from Asheville NC often enough, that I've done some big runs of clay for her at times. North Carolina is a long state, so that's a 145 mile trip. But since I missed that 1st detail, I thought perhaps I should read more carefully for others. And I see the OP's location is Lebanon. That changes a lot. For one thing, it's not that big. "Not available locally" might mean "not available in Lebanon". Since I stuck my foot in this, I guess I'll see if any other remarks clarified an urgency for white gas.
Ok I'm all caught up now. I'm seeing how I found this thread to begin with: the Walmart pricing discussion. A pity that the effort of simple "Mary's bath" distillation, is not practical, for obtaining a clean fuel. You'll get a fuel, maybe even a usable fuel? But it's not gonna be clean. I guess the followup question is, why must the fuel be clean? Why can't it be gasoline? Is gasoline composition really different in Lebanon? Is there something really awful about it, compared to other places? Like is it still lead based or something? Not sure distillation would answer that problem anyways.... I own 2 Coleman dual fuel burner stoves. I've cooked on them with gasoline, not any kind of "nice" gasoline, just the usual ethanol laced stuff that's commonly available in the USA. I did it outdoors and used lidded pots. It was a bit stinky, but it definitely worked. It could be done again and again in the name of saving money, i.e. poverty. Which I qualified for at the time, and pretty much still do. I did do this outdoors. However, I don't remember any of my Coleman gear, or any combustible product whether white gas, gasoline, or propane, saying you can do it indoors. In fact, people living out of their vehicles, die all the time because they insist on staying in cold places, then using one of those convenient sources of heat in their vehicles. Easy to kill yourself either with carbon monoxide or oxygen starvation in a closed space. Now maybe gasoline burning stoves, like those Coleman stoves, are not readily available in Lebanon. But I'd think the effort of either procuring, making, or modifying such equipment, would be a better time investment, than distillation. Distillation, you'd have to do over and over and over again. With a certain risk of injury or death, every time you take it on. Making a stove that takes gasoline, you'd do it once. Done right, you probably don't blow anything up? You'd want to get it right though. Hard to imagine you going more wrong, than distillation gone bad though. Explosions, fumes... you like your eyes? Your lungs? When in Rome...? Maybe more geographically appropriate: when surrounded by Romans...? Maybe I'm not being helpful. But the broader problem would seem to be, how to cook, how to light lamps. Maybe some other use I'm not thinking of. So how do you do that in the real world, when you have to get it done? Otherwise, it's an interest in chemistry and distillation. Which is fine; but that is what it is. I didn't really do the gasoline long term. Actually I made the mistake of leaving the gasoline in my stove for many years in storage. But I fired it up 2 days ago and it still worked. Now yes I've read plenty now about the merits of white gas vs. that nasty straight pump gasoline I used. One fuel is clearly cleaner and better than the other. New white gas, also boils water faster than gasoline, for that matter. Found some data recently on that. One gums up your gear and the other doesn't. But... gear can be cleaned. If you had to clean a gun, and your life depended on having a gun, you'd clean it. Right? I fix my car myself, because I'm in poverty, living out of it, and my life does depend on it. Right. So yeah, difference between things you want to do, and are interested in doing, and those you gotta do. Gasoline's gotta get distilled? I'm guessing not. I could be wrong, because I don't know Lebanon.
Thanks for everyone, It appears that I have missed some of the thread conversations. Yes, I meant Lebanon when I said "locally." Gasoline, as it is now and, as far as I know, not only in Lebanon, contains additives that can clog stoves. I wanted to distill about 2 liters of gasoline to get a yearly supply of white gas for my "benzine" stoves so that they could run as cleanly as possible (no clogging in future because of additives). I had the equipment ready, and at the last minute I discovered a brake cleaner, which I tested and found to be effective. As a result, I've halted the trial because I'll have nothing to add to previous experiments done and found on YouTube. Regards, Migwar
I have now read scary things about the ongoing fuel crisis situation in Lebanon over the past few years. I'm a bit surprised that you'd distill gasoline for cooking, unless you were planning on making money selling it to others, and they all had white gas stoves for some reason. Which is not what you're saying. People in your country have been getting shot over a gallon of gasoline. People have blown up getting too close to contraband gas tanks when the army seized them. Also interesting about Iran wanting to make a donation of fuel, at least to run power plants. Donation to avoid US sanctions on sales of energy. I wonder if such things can make for a "feast or famine" environment in your country? If you can afford to worry about cleanliness and clogging, I surmise you're relatively well off. I'm also humbled to think that my own "poverty" in the USA, can include traveling hundreds of miles relatively cheaply, to get beyond problems of "local" procurement. And I'm not familiar with how much timber Lebanon has, but in the USA, the ability to burn something is not usually in doubt. Quite the opposite: we have vast forests burning all the time now, on their own. Brake cleaner was effective as a fuel? Or as a method of eliminating clogging?
Ok, but... my 1st perusings about brake cleaner suggest it's got really nasty stuff in it you don't want to be breathing. Like saw various articles about using it as a starter fluid, and that it's not a good idea to make a habit of.
Of course, this will be taken into account. In all cases, I use the stoves outside, and I believe that all types of fuel fumes should be avoided. Appreciate your notes
It would be interesting if you found out that brake cleaner, or some other stock, could have nasty stuff removed from it, by simple Mary's bath.
Interesting: you @Migwar do not want to use gasoline (available) for the additives but yu want to use breakcleaner. Which also contains other harmfull additives.
@Petroman … which I took to mean avoiding additives that clog burner generators, and not breathing in the airborne products of the non-clogging variety.
Distillation of gasoline is a new, and interesting, topic not discussed here much. Additives in fuel. Not new. Lots of discussion and information here. Old Topic.
@Migwar, can you obtain fuels that are engineered for small motor / lawn equipment? Video about what's in gasoline vs. an engineered fuel like Stihl's MotoMix. There's a lot, lot less stuff in the latter to worry about. One of the interesting recommendations for lawn equipment, when winterizing it, is not to drain it all out for the winter. Just leave it full of one of these engineered fuels instead. 'Cuz there's basically nothing in them that can go bad.
