from a forum i found
About 10 years ago, I was using what is called a "track burner".. This is an oxy/acetylene torch that is attached to a motor crawler to make extremely nice cuts. Anyhow, I was using the circle attachment on it while cutting a 36 inch circle from a 4ft x 4ft x3/4 thick steel plate.
The entire rig was set up on an empty steel 55 gallon drum.
Normally , the rig works with very little or no interference from a human once its going.. It takes about 15 minutes to cut a complete circle so I lit the torch, got it going, and left to get a can of pop.. (cutting with a torch tends to make you a little warm under the collar.)
I was only gone for about 5 minutes.. When I came back, the torch had gone out for some reason.. Not a big deal usually.. Ya just turn off the machine, relight the torch and start the machine again..
I re-light the unit, the next thing I remember is picking my self off the ground and the whole shop running toward me...
While I was gone, the flame had burned threw the top of the 55 gallon drum and the gases where accumulating inside it.. When I lit it, kaboom....
I had a nice gash on my arm, and the ceiling had a nice gash in it... The 400 pound plate launched itself 14 feet straight up.. The lucky part was that it didn't land on me when it came down...
After finishing that project, my very next project was a burn table built just for the purpose.
take two!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pre OSHA we had a guy get his finger cut off in a spinning wire strander. This is a machine that takes coils of wire and spins them, making cables. It spins so fast that parts of it turn invisible if the light is just right.
Anyway, after he healed up for a bit management took him out to the machine and told him to show them how it happened so they could guard the area to prevent future accidents. He said, "I just stuck my finger over here!!!!!", and he cut off another finger just like the first with everyone watching.
Mikeqc1
I had a close call a few years ago. I was at a clients machine shop, and I had to torch cut some 2" thick plate. He set it up for me on an open top 55 Gal. scrap drum full of yellow metal shavings / turnings. I didn't like cutting into the finely scattered oil coated shavings because of the fire danger. I told the owner, and the owner told me there was no cutting oil on those shavings. They were Beryllium shavings cut dry!
If I had lit that drum of poisonous Beryllium shavings off, the smoke contamination would have covered the whole city block! What a "dirty bomb" this would have made!
Beryllium is grey/silver in its pure metallic form. Seriously nasty stuff though. Could be more dangerous than cadmium.
If it was yellow, it would probably have been beryllium copper alloy (usually around 2% Be). I don't think that could be easily set afire, but a cutting torch could easily vaporize enough to get you to inhale an unacceptable dose.
Hello Mikeqc1, it's funny that you folks would have chosen this particular topic to discuss today. At our school shop today we had a rather interesting occurance. One of the students came in and said that he could smell acetylene. We had a short discussion about whether the smell may have come from one of his fellow students taking a bit long to light the torch or some other possibility as we made our way out from the office to the gas welding area. I had just rounded the corner to the gas welding area when there was an explosion comparable to a mild M80 firecracker. As I looked over to the station where he had been welding there was fire burning between the welding tip and the torch body. We got things shut off and calmed down the other students who had been welding right next to him in the booths on either side. Upon doing an inspection of the torch tip and body it appeared that he did not have the tip properly tightened and likely he had not shut the valves off before he got up. At this point, I can only surmise that the combination of not having the tip properly tightened allowed the mixture of gas to mix in the chamber area directly ahead of the tip instead of allowing the mixing to take place in the tip. Likely the next thing that occured was that a spark from one of the students next to his station managed to ignite the mixture that was leaking from the improperly tightened tip. The end result was a fairly substantial "boom", the welding tip ended up having the O-ring seals completely burned away, the mixing ribbon that Victor uses in the ends of their welding tips was gone, the mixing chamber was both sooted and burned fairly extensively, yet not melted.
We did have a stop-in-work and a discussion of precautions and procedures to avoid having this sort of thing reoccurr again in the future. Thanks to all of you for sharing your situations so that others might become aware of some of the unplanned and unrealized situations that can cause dangers to all of us as we do our work. Best regards, Allan
Several years back I saw nearly the same thing happen. It was winter and very cold in the shop. A lot of guys simply lit a torch and kept it going under a steel bench for a "wood stove" effect. (None of this was condoned by management but...)
One guy went further - our scrap barrels had large drain holes cut in the bottom and we frequently put a plate on top of a barrel as a small work table. The guy figured he could simple light the torch and lay it on the floor with the head inside the barrel. - nice and toasty. At the end of the day, he didn't want to disturb his set-up so he shut off the gas and oxygen at the manifolds.
Next morning, he turns on the gas, wanders over to the gang box, sells a few raffle tickets, drinks more coffee......... Then he reaches down to grab the torch, lights it, and puts the head down into what is now a "touch-hole".
The explosion blew the plate right past his head, arched over the bus ducts and landed in the middle of the floor in the other bay - narrowly missing a lead man and his crew. Either the plate or the blast blew off this guy's hard hat and knocked him on his butt. When he stood up, he had no eyebrows, half his beard was gone, and his hair was singed back, but no serious injury otherwise.
It took him quite a while not to jump at loud noises. Since he was well known for dishing out the grief (every place has at least one), we naturally help him out with that at every opportunity.
Take three...
a NEW kind of gas build up....phosgene gas!
From Brake Cleen spray Brake Cleaner used to clean metal with.
ANY cleaner with the dreaded 'Chlor" on the label will out gas phosgene gas...deadly stuff in VERY TINY AMOUNTS!
This guy nearly died using it.
Read up about it here:
http://www.brewracingframes.com/id75.htm
Thanks for the heads-up on brake cleaner - I used to use it to clean my hands all the time.
Twice in the past, I have seen contractor personnel (not welders) cut existing pipes on the jobsite by burning. In each situation, the worker killed the flame and left the torch nearby the partially cut pipe while reaching for the striker to relight the torch. Just enough time passed for the heated air in the pipe to cool, shrink, and draw in gas from the unlit torch into the pipe. The torch was lit, brought up to the pipe to continue burning, and BOOM! No serious injuries in either case.
Bob G.
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