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I took the plunge and bought a resin printer. I was wondering if I could use full strength home-brew vodka at 90 % instead of using isopropyl alcohol before anything is added to clean prints with?

I cannot seem to find anywhere or anyone that has tried this.

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    $\begingroup$ You can cheaply and easily turn 70% IPA into 99.99% IPA by adding table salt to the bottle and shaking it up, then inverting the bottle, unscrewing the cap slightly, and squeezing out the brine layer on the bottom until pure IPA comes out. Or baste/siphon the top layer. Only works with IPA. Science FTW. $\endgroup$
    – dandavis
    Commented Sep 18, 2020 at 8:10
  • $\begingroup$ @dandavis nice thing! You happen to have a resin printer and can do an experiment? Use that on contaminated IPA and see if it cleans up the IPA! $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    Commented Sep 18, 2020 at 10:48
  • $\begingroup$ @Trish i don't have a resin printer... $\endgroup$
    – dandavis
    Commented Sep 21, 2020 at 19:15
  • $\begingroup$ @dandavis Too bad, too bad, but if I ever get one, I'll try it... $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    Commented Sep 21, 2020 at 19:21

3 Answers 3

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Isopropyl-Alcohol - Propan-2-ol - and Ethyl alcohol - Ethan-1-ol - are different chemically. As a secondary alcohol, Propan-2-ol has quite different solubility of different materials than ethyl-alcohol.

Now, let's look at home made alcoholic destillate. That stuff is, if done in one refraction and without tossing the first low temperature part, some percentages Metanol, Ethyl alcohol and maybe some water. That has not the same solvent properties as Propan-2-ol.

While it might work, nobody will sign a guarantee that it doesn't negatively impact your print.

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Some manufacturers do recommend ethanol and not isopropanol. The problem would be getting relatively pure ethanol through distillation. When distilling you will get different fractions which may be full of methanol or water. You will probably need to do multiple runs. You could just buy some 95% ethanol and distill it once it gets dirty or leave it in the sun to cure the resin and filter it out.

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  • $\begingroup$ There are also some potential legal issues with distilling alcohol -- in the USA, it's Federally permitted only for use as motor fuel (gasoline additive or replacement). Beyond that, there are safety issues -- ethanol is flammable, and ignites more easily than isopropanol; it burns with a nearly invisible flame. $\endgroup$
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Commented Jul 26, 2021 at 18:04
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Answer taken from Apesa's highly upvoted, and now deleted, comments (1 and 2). If Apesa posts their own answer, then this wiki answer can be deleted.

Note: Please don't post answers in comments - that is not how SE works.

Isopropyl Alcohol is the more common choice for cleaning surfaces because it evaporates more rapidly than ethanol and also because it does not leave any traces of oils upon evaporation.

To add one more caveat. Homemade alcohol no matter the proof / % will have many fusile alcohols that will deposit themselves on your semi cured resin. 90% alcohol dosen't equate to clean solvent.

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