So I almost blew myself up to today..

[Muffler Bearing]

I might be at a dangerous stage where I am feeling too comfortable around torches and welders. The other day I changed out the oxy and acetylene tanks, so today I was cutting and I try not to shoot sparks at the tank set up, but for a second I did, usually no big deal, but I decided to glance over at the tank and noticed a nice little flame spraying out from the regulator fitting where it screws to the acetylene tank! Seems that the new tank didn't seal fully!
So I dashed to close the valve and wondered how long a tank can burn like that before something really bad happens.
From now on I will periodically soap the valves and check for leaks. phew..

 

[bill onthehill]

Actually the acetylene is relatively safe to have a minor leak burning. I used to scrap a lot of stuff years ago and caught the hose on fire a lot of times from hot slag burning holes in it. I would not worry unless you also had O2 leaking at the same time. After about 8-10 splices I finally broke down and bought a new set of hoses.

 

[Muffler Bearing]

You're probably right, I've had fire out at the nozzle end before and never get to worried about it, I even worked with a nozzle that would get hotter the longer you held it. This was just the first time I've had fire at the tank. It just made me jump.

 

[95zIV]

Look at the positive side, If anything does go wrong you'll at least be the first one there.

 

[Iron Horse]

Oxy and Acetylene , that brings back memories . We used to fill a milk carton with a mix of both and then throw them in a fire , the ground would shake when they went off . Being the careless fool that i was at 18 , I decided a 20 litre/4 gallon oil drum would be cool . I think I am responsible for global warming , I think I may have knocked the planet off it's axis .

 

[Taylortractornu]

You were relativly safe because there wasnt a great fuel air mixture to explode. The tank is void of oxygen and it will on burn when it hits air. Iron Horse I used to be bad about that same thing. Dad told me years ago at an asphault plant the company he work for owned this guy named Freddy was board he mixed oxygen and acetylene and put it in a 30 gallon garbage can liner. and dropped it down the tower where the burner was on the plant. Dad said he was over in the other yard and it rattled the town of Burnsville. THe owner fired Freddy on the spot then hired him to come in the next day and clean up. He shook loose 2 922 loader buckets full of dirt dobber nests lol. In the winter out frot of the shop I have a fire all the time burning up leaves and pared packages and such. one day towards the evening I was having my self a cold one and a young deputy and his wanna be buddy was out there. They told me they could take me in for public drunk and take my beer and give me a hefty ticket for possession in a dry county. I laughed and told em they didnt want to do that. I was tinkering and got tired of listening how bad they were and so forth. I had an empty 2 lter plastic bottle I filled up with OA and while they were warming up with their backs to the fire I pitched the bottle in about the same time one said Im trained so nothing surprises me. They almost rolled my skid steer over running across the yard lol.

 

[bigblueox]

careful with the soap and water with the oxygen. petroleum based soap and o2 will react.

 

[CAT D9H]

Never the less a close call , I have had that happen to me and felt the same as you ,I always double check the fittings now

 

[OneWelder]

If you have good torch & line - turn on tank- let pressure build up - turn off tank - watch tank pressure gauge if it drops something is leaking

 

[Muffler Bearing]

Wow, that is a lot of info. I'll avoid the explosion experiments. Soapy water to check leaks is a bad idea? OK, won't do that, pressure loss, makes sense. Any way to get a fitting to seal in a tank when it's not?

 

[therealjohnboy]

So my uncle was working for a fella junking cars and had had a few run ins with him, so he decided he was gonna quit. Any way being a smart arse he figured he'd get some pay back for some of the aggravation this fella had delt him. so he didn't bust any windows in the car he was working on, placed a wad of steel wool in the cab with two core electrical cable attached to it, he ran the OA in through a window for about 10 mins then closed it up tight, then hid around the back of a container and waited till the yard was clear and touched off the cables on a 12v battery. He reckoned he couldn't hear properly for a week. The fella's Jag was about 30 feet away and it blew out all the windows he snatch the cable away and claimed it to be an accident. He got away with it to.

 

[DPete]

I cut into a cavity filled with grease while converting a pull scraper from cable to hydraulic. A little O2 and hot grease plus the fumes blew right in front of me, lucky the hot grease spattered my shoulder instead of my face, it blew clear up on the shop celing 30' or so. I was really lucky that time