I have a Coleman pressure lantern, dual fuel, and was baffled as to why the fuel only seems available in such small containers over here - especially as fuel like Aspen 4T is available in 5 litre drums. So I sent this question to Coleman's: "Why is it that, in Britain, you ONLY sell Coleman Liquid Fuel in 1 litre bottles, whereas in America you sell it in much bigger containers, which brings down the cost per pint considerably? Talking to other people who go camping, fishing and so on, this point comes up as the biggest single cause of them not wanting to buy your liquid fuel stoves and lanterns - which in other respects are very highly regarded. And yes, I know you can run these products on unleaded petrol - but British unleaded petrol contains all sorts of nasties, such as the highly carcinogenic benzene." In reply, one of Coleman's staff sent me this simple explanation; one of the myriad of EU rules and regulations prohibits Coleman's from doing so. I might have guessed. It brings to mind a case I heard of a few years back. A British company makes and sells a product called 'Stockholm Tar', and has been doing so for donkey's years. The stuff was given its name by the Royal and Merchant Navies, centuries ago, because it was imported from Stockholm in vast quantities to water-proof ropes and seal deck seams on sailing ships. In fact, it has been in use for thousands of years, if not tens of thousands of years, and has never been accused of having any toxic constituents nor harmful effect to health. Despite the 'Tar' part of the name, it is in fact wood resin, obtained by heating resinous wood (such as spruce) until the resin flows out (and there's a LOT of spruce trees in Sweden). It's not only been used as a wood preserver, but also for making an aseptic and waterproof dressing for use on livestock - where it's particularly useful for treating foot problems, such as foot-rot in sheep, and abscesses in horse's hooves. So you can imagine the surprise felt by the boss of the firm making Stockholm Tar when he got a circular from the EU, stating that from such and such a date, Stockholm Tar was prohibited from use as a wood preserver (along with some real nasties, like creosote). The boss duly phoned up, eventually got through to the right bod, and asked "Why the ban?" EU bod explained that his bosses had decided to prohibit the use of toxic and carcinogenic wood preservers made from crude oil. Stockholm Tar boss pointed out that Stockholm Tar was not made from crude oil, was not toxic and was not carcinogenic - so why was it treated as if it was as dangerous as creosote? "Oh, yes", said EU bod, "we know that, now - but the person drawing up the list saw the name 'Stockholm Tar', assumed that it was made from crude oil, and unfortunately he didn't bother to check." ST boss then asked the obvious question - i.e., if you now know that it is safe, why can't you take it off the prohibited list? He was shaken to be told that that wasn't possible. The relevant directive had been drawn up and signed by the higher echelons, and there was NO mechanism for amending it, or removing Stockholm Tar from the prohibited list of wood preservers. So we are now in the crazy situation where you can legally buy Stockholm Tar, you can use it on livestock, or on yourself, as an aseptic waterproof wound dressing - but if you dare to paint it on your garden fence, you are in flagrant breach of EU law! "To err is human . . . ", but if you want something TOTALLY, UTTERLY screwed up, leave it to the EU.
How will Brexit affect this? Tell the EU to pound sand and go back to using your Stockholm Tar for whatever you wish? (No pot stirring intended, just honest request for info.)
Hmm - I appreciate your interest, Marc, but other members may not be keen on me getting too deeply into politics, so I'll PM you.
Brexit shouldn't affect Stockholm, what with it being in Sweden. But I don't claim deep knowledge. I will add that I never thought of PMing folks to decide whether to respond to a question.
@Gunner Do they sell pure Heptane in UK (as industrial solvent)? That works instead of gasoline/petrol, Aspen 4T & Coleman fuel and it doesn't contain any nasty additives.
I think you're getting confused, here; the EU's ban has nothing to do with Stockholm, in Sweden - it's a ban on the use of wood pitch which is commonly called 'Stockholm Tar' in Britain, even if it's made in Britain. I didn't PM Marc to "decide whether to respond to his question" - I responded to his question in a PM, because I felt that many members might justifiably feel that an in-depth post on politics was not appropriate for this forum.
Yes - but the carriage charges on it are very heavy (probably has to be despatched by courier), and it comes out about twice the price of Coleman fuel! But thank you for the suggestion.
Maybe it has something to do with Stockholm... Swedes might know better but I think that during wooden ships era lots of pine tar was sold through the Stockholm to Europe. Here in Finland they also made pine tar for UK & European ship builders. Maybe some of it went also though the Stockholm since we were under Swedish colony at that time.
Is there any local industrial tools & goods store where you could get Heptane together with other stuff that they order from their supplier? Here I buy 20 ltr's drum of Heptane from local industrial goods supplier. Order might take few weeks since I wait that they get other stuff into same order (they don't need to make special order only for me).
No, the EU's ban on the stuff has got nothing to do with Sweden; it's a total ban on the use of the product as a wood preserver, regardless of which country it was made in.
I've found one possible place which does it in a range of sizes, though they seem to be geared up to dealing with laboratories and industrial users, so whether they'd sell it to a private individual or not I don't know (and their website doesn't quote any prices). On E-bay, you can buy it in three sizes; 1/2 litre, 1 litre (both more expensive than Coleman, even buying them in multiples) and 25 litres, which is way over the top for what I use!
To previous posters and @Gunner probably lengthy off line post. EU regulations of the sort described and which come across as complete.nonsense are one of the reasons the UK voted in such numbers to leave the Union. Sadly the EU saw the UK as a restraining influence on there own beaurocrats and we've now left them to the idiots. We never did ourselves any favours by implementing(interpreting) directives completely against the spirit they were written in. All Daily Mail teaders saw was the Ffench ignoring directives and we had local government prosecuting a bloke selling roasted chestnuts at Christmas selling them by the pound. The rules on seperate toilets, aimed at rural Italy or wherever was taken to heart here and many fine tile mens urinals were rjpped out to be replaced by SS individual urinals. Victims of our own stupidity if you ask me.
Mine too, and I'm a Yank. So is Stockholm Tar made in the UK? I assume Brexit may then have an impact... Most everything is appropriate to this forum, as long as it is in good faith, non-criminal, and is unaccompanied by rancor, discourtesy, or personal attacks.
I don't know if Stockholm Tar is made in Britain or not, Ed - as the amount of our forested land is so small as compared to what they have in Scandinavia, I suspect that most of it (if not all) is still imported. Some years back, the Forestry Commission was planting wall to wall spruce trees on every one of its acres, and encouraging other landowners to follow suit. It turned out to be not a very good idea. Spruce trees are great colonisers of the most unpromising land - they'll put roots down into a bit of carpet fluff if there's nothing better on offer, and they do a good job of stabilising very light, sandy soils in windswept areas. But their selling value is not that high, and they make the soil more acid. In contrast, if you grow hardwoods, such as oak, birch, poplar, lime and beech, the timber from those fetches a much higher price, and though those species are quite slow-growing, some land-owners have reverted to the old practise of coppicing, with sweet chestnut, for example. You let it grow for 7 or 8 years, cut the sapling, and use it for fence posts (sweet chestnut is highly rot-resistant without chemical preservatives, so makes very safe fencing for livestock). But the stump of the sapling doesn't die, it sends up a number of shoots; 7 or 8 years later, you don't just have one pole to cut, you have maybe 5 or 6 - and when you cut them, the same process happens again. And such evergreens as larch and cedar will fetch much higher prices as prime timber than you could get by cooking them to extract the wood pitch - so I suspect that we will continue to import Stockholm Tar from Scandinavia.
Lot of Douglas fir grown in England, too. The Doug fir is the top forest tree here, and arguably the best lumber tree of all. Driving in the north of England years ago, I saw a young forest that I could tell from a great distance had to be Doug fir. It was. I've since learned that it is widely planted there. We have several species of spruce in the Pacific NW. The king of all is the Sitka spruce, an enormous tree that only grows within a few miles of salt water.
I assume that you can then import Stockholm Tar and use it it Britain for whatever you'd like, regardless of restrictions in the country of origin. Right? ....Arch
Yes, I've seen Douglas Fir used as roof support beams in a very large community centre. IIRC, each beam was made up of two timbers about 12" x 6", placed back to back, and pinned together with galvanised bolts. Now you've mentioned that, it's reminded me that - before being pinned together - each timber was scorched with a blow torch, and then had Stockholm Tar painted on whilst it was still hot. The bloke who was doing the job explained that scorching, in itself, was a good protection against rot, as the little bugs and beasties which attack timber can only eat timber, not charcoal, so can't get through it to the unscorched timber underneath the layer of carbon. He said, by applying the Stockholm Tar whilst the timber was still very hot, the Tar was warmed so it soaked into the grain more easily; and that penetration was helped by the fact that when you scorched the wood, the air inside the grain expanded out, and as the wood cooled down, that caused the air still left inside the grain to drop in pressure, so the partial vacuum pulled the Tar right into the grain. I asked him how long he expected the beams to last, and he said that, judging from historical examples of timber treated in this way, they should be good for a couple of thousand years!
