Being in this perticular state (CA).... Naptha seems a bit hard to get. Any retail substitutes for VM and P?

Any one use mineral spirits? Any good info on that?
My searching failed to reveal much details...

And what are the prose/cons vs heptane?

I plan on doing doing a STB tech. Not really sure witch one yet... And I do have a gas stove.

Hey Slathe.

Sorry I don't really know about heptane. If you can get zippo lighter fuel that should work. Make sure you test it to make sure it evaporates without leaving any residue though.

I have a gas cooker too Had a look about online though and it's easy to find cheap single electric hotplates if you're wanting to make a water bath for heating solvents

Well yeah... Thanks for the reply! And yeah, that's the reason I don't really want to NEED to do a hot water bath. ^.^
And the only places I've been able to find zippo brand is in the smoke shops, and not exactly w/ out extreme mark up. I swear it used to be in almost ever single grocery store a few years back.

Bump for any one with experience using mineral spirits... And stuffs.

I would recommend against using zippo fuel or camping fuel, both of them have had iffy results. Mineral spirits have other things in them, I got VM & P mineral spirits and when I checked the MSDS I was very disappointed. Long story short go to home depot, local hardware store, or walmart (in that order) and look in the paint section. In the sub section that has paint thinners you should see a blue tin that says "VM & P Nafta Napatha." Pretty much every Home Depot in the US of A will have it.

@E-Z Naptha banned in Cali

I also live in California, and I wonder if we could buy naphtha from Amazon or something. Maybe it's just banned from stores?

Mineral spirits don't work worth a damn.
They don't precip well and take forever to evaporate.
Heptane works very well but it's quite selective, so you'll be leaving some of your goods behind.
Heated pulls could remedy that, though I've never tried it.

That's messed up, why is it banned? Is it used in meth or something? Anyway I would either travel cross state if you're close or attempt to order it off amazon like you said.
http://www.amazon.com/Ro...id=1308803376&sr=8-1

@noman: Figured as much, but read some people having 'satisfactory' results... Well, they were happy at least, but no details.

Thanks for chiming in all.

It could very well pull quite well, but it sounds like one would need to salt the alks out with acid.

Naphtha is not banned in all of California. Maybe in So-Cal or some greenie city like San Francisco/Santa Cruz but definitely not the rest of California.

The pro's and con's of Naphtha to Heptane is basically price. Heptane is $14 for 1000ml, while Naphtha is $20 for 3750ml. Heptane is a more non-polar solvent, so it will be more selective than naphtha. However if you get something really ugly and yellow you can always recrystallize. If you do a De-fat before basification, I would say it really doesn't matter what solvent you use as far as pulling a lot of oils. If you can't find naphtha, heptane works just fine. Remember to get the heptane and or aqueous mhrb solution very warm/hot. It's the nature of heptane. It boils very easily though so take care.