Can’t resist the impulse buys

I drove across town to try to find a reloading shop that I was told had primers, but the trip was a miserable failure.   As I was trying to make my way back to a cross street that I knew, I just happened to look to the left and saw a speed shop going by rapidly.  I was pretty sure that this was a shop I’d heard fellow club members talking about as a source for fuel components.  So, I turned around and stopped in.

The shop was run by a couple of old timers, and I explained what I was looking for. Yes, they sell Nitromethane.  It is $50.00 a gallon.  Yes, they sell Methanol.  No, they do not sell it by the gallon.  Minimum purchase is five gallons.  It is $22.00 for five gallons.   No, they do not sell Benol.  Not anymore.  So, naturally I bought a gallon of Nitro and five of Methanol.

I have about a quart and a half of Sig Castor, so I can mix some fuel now, but I’ll buy a gallon of Klotz Benol at $55/gallon.  Running the numbers, I can make up a quart of 25% nitro for $6.50 and a quart of 35% nitro for $7.64 with 20% castor.  Compare this to $15.02 for SIG 25% and $18.61 for 35% SIG.   Of course, I’ll also make up fuel for my larger engines at lower nitro content, but I mainly did this for my 1/2A engines in higher nitro content than I can find locally, and in case I want to make some higher nitro for some reason.

Of course, after the stop at the speed shop, my wallet was pretty much empty, so I’ll have to live broke for a couple of weeks.  These impulse buys are killing me…

The Weak Mark