What's the most dangerous tool in your workshop

I had a couple of close calls when welding on old cars when slight fuel vapour leak has caught fire but managed to get the ensuing fires out quickly without damage to vehicle or me.

The worst was using a gas fluxer whilst brazing. Had pulled car into garage, Lit the pilot light on the Oxy/acetylene economiser valve (using this you can hang the torch on a hook which shuts of oxygen and acetylene valves and puts out the torch, pick the torch back up, valves open, flick through pilot light an away you go again). I had used this thing loads building suspension for my FF1600 race car. As I was brazing a lot I had a gas fluxer connected inline with the acetylene, the acetylene bubbled through the flux and you just used the brazing rod like a welding rod no need to cover with powered flux.

I bent down and turned the fluxer on, (small knob on the top of fluxer). Next minute a massive boom, garage full of flames and fires everywhere including me on fire from head to foot. Glasses blown off face (had not put welding goggles on as was still setting up) .Oh sh.t thinks me, ran outside and rolled down lawn to put out my fires. Ran back into garage to see fires everywhere (under cans of cellulose thinners, cellulose paint etc.and all sorts, anything paper on fire, all plastic shrink wrapped, all paintwork bubbled as though a blow torch had been on it. Even the up and over garage door was bent out at thirty degrees and the garage roof had lifted 3" and dropped back down. Found fire extinguisher and started putting out fires. Old man came into garage (working in his garage) gave him fire extinguisher and then ran to bath and jumped into it, all taps and shower on. When cooled down suddenly remembered no flashbacks on cylinder so back into garage. Move my 10 tone press, turn bottles off, get them outside and vent them to the atmosphere. Then hijacked car coming down the road to take me to hospital. 1st/2nd degree burns to 30% body. My mates at local garage could not believe it as they said how ell I looked after my kit.

Even now 30 years later I can still picture being surrounded by flames. The burns had all healed within a month to six weeks.

Still got the fluxer but never used it since. The Fire Brigade were called by the hospital and they took it away for investigation. It appears the set screw holding the knob had sheared and the four pints of highly flammable flux and been sprayed out under the pressure of the acetylene. Hit the pilot light and the rest was history.

It was a standing joke when I went back to work on the Monday, after the mishap on the Friday before, all the jokes came out. How hot, how hot, ask Colin

So it was not the oxy/acetylene per se just the kit attached to kit.

Be careful.

Colin

Snap. In grabbing at a falling Digital Caliper this morning I punched the sharp end of a handle crank. Ouch! Expletive deleted. My pain was wasted - despite smacking into a concrete floor the £4.99 caliper still works perfectly.

Wow! That's spectacularly horrible. Glad you survived. I shall think of 'how hot, ask Colin"' next time I get the blowlamp out.

Dave

Dave,

One problem Is that I was wearing a nylon jacket, this was early December, and it melted on my hands and arms. My poor Labrador had been next to me in the garage when it all went bang and I found her cowering down the garden (unharmed) , next the 8ft fillet of wood from above the window which had blown out from behind the barge boards when the roof lifted up.

I brought flashback arrestors the following week.

Colin

Me!

Charged capacitors can be dangerous. I worked with a radio ham who wanted to have a go at spark transmission for a bit of fun. He charged a load of capacitors at 240Volts, then started to connect them in series. His wife shouted up stairs, "Coffee time". When he returned he forgot that the daisy chain was charged and got a belt of about 2k volts through his finger! He was detained in hospital as they had to cut through the finger to remove the plasma burnt copper so that gangrene wouldn't set in!
Modern battery chargers (Bosch for example) and some microwaves have charged capacitors inside them even when unplugged.
BobH

Bob has it just right - all the equipment in my workshop is quite safe just so long as it is left alone. The risk arises when anyone goes in there - engage brain before proceeding!

Norman

Acetylene is dangerous as above stories tell. Our plant had piped acetylene from a central distribution point, one Monday we came to work and we could not phone half the plant. Over the weekend a contractor installed an extension to the acetylene system and to do a pressure check they pumped compressed air into the system but forgot to put the plate in to isolate from the live part of the system, fires broke out everywhere and one destroyed the main phone cables to much of the plant. The phones were soon repaired but the acetylene plant was never used again.

A friend was a pipe fitter and had some welding to do in a particularly difficult place to get to so instructed his mate to stand by the bottles and turn them off in the event of a blowback, well blowback happened and the mate legs it so my friend had to extricate himself and turn off bottles himself, not happy with mate.

Mike

pillar drill when rushing and holding the work piece. Wood working it would be the radial arm saw closely followed by planer . Saw the result of a planer injury , three perfectly matched flat finger tips. Hospital job, most painful part apparently was "supervision by SWMBO for close on 6 months afterwards with constant reminders to " be careful now".

King Dick spanners?

.

It's not often I am stuck for words but that is beyond. ........... Beyond.!

Nick

Obviously tightening his nuts.

Neil

RRFLMAO I put this up on FB just days ago got it through a friend. Some of the replies are hilarious. To think Twead Heads is just 1hr away.

I pity the firemen having to handle it all LOL

Edited By Raymond Sanderson 2 on 11/05/2017 05:41:39

King Dick? Nope, Britool

I would have thought more than just his face was red !!

Surely cold water would have reduced his problem.....IE a cold shower

I fell off my chair laughing during an otherwise dull Radio 4 debate between a prospective lady vicar and a conservative Anglican Bishop. She asked him exactly which part of his ecclesiastic duties required the use of a penis...

What was that old saying, "Don't put Your fingers where You would not put Your willie."

'"

Vintagengineer.....

I don't wish to be Mr Picky, but we, as a group, are engineers. As such we need details not just a couple of newspaper lines. This matter should have had more research, as we engineers are wont to do.

What size was the spanner and was it a combination spanner...?

How long did it take the Water Wasters to cut the spanner off and how many cuts were made, after they had stopped laughing...?

How long was the tape measure used ....?

Was the spanner ruined, or was it still serviceable afterwards....?

Was the victim left with a hexagonal end on his 'Old Chap'

Why were no pics posted showing the moment the Pugh Pugh, Barney McGrew Cuthbert, Dibble, or Grubb produced the angle grinder...?

Truly sorry but my head is now full of questions.....

Should have gone to "supersavers' if he just wanted to remove the nuts.
BobH

My only wonder is what on earth was going through his mind when he did that. I just can't picture how you could "accidently" do that. Maybe he was just gauging his girth, lol?

Michael W

Edited By Michael-w on 11/05/2017 17:53:44