Thread: Fire from grinding?

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Waaaay back when Christ was a corporal and I was studying to be an industrial shop teacher........... I was welding in the booth while wearing corduroy pants. Nothing like roasting nuts by an open fire for that Christmas feeling.

steel wool is an excellent fire starter. Take some with you hiking, along with a 9 volt battery, and you'll never have trouble starting a fire. ( just lay the wool across the battery, and poof ) Yeah, most of my pants have weld spatter holes in them, and my left foot has a dark spot which hasn't quite healed yet, where a spark bounced down into my boots. ( not much to do but grin and bear it, and keep welding ) Put many a rag to fire, somehow it never seems to happen if I clean the area up before grinding / welding. In fact, I have one pair of pants with a sizable hole from just grinding. Some advice for ya: if ya feel the heat from the sparks, your pants are probably getting burned. Take it for what it's worth. last fire I set was a paper towel under the welding bench. I sure didn't leave it there dammit. Never anything severe though. The real flamable stuff is kept at a distance, and my work area is always reasonably clean. Clutter is your enemy!

Yes I Have caught my shirt on fire while grinding.

I am pretty paranoid about that and quit welding and otherwise throwing sparks about an hour and a half before shutting the shop down. That is about the length of time it takes for most shops to catch fire after work. Plus I have a welding apron and blanket for good measure as well as an extinguisher by each exit.

Well I have set myself on fire while welding.... It was my underpants

. . . which causes me to ask . . . why were you welding in your underpants?

Yup, spent a while in the hospital. Don't wear plastic clothes of any kind while doing anything hot. When they catch on fire they melt right into the skin. It all has to be picked ,dug and scraped out before healing begins. Keep the shop clean. Use screens to keep the sparks localized. Have a bucket of water handy. Don't throw it on the welder, throw it on the fire. Don't leave a can of starting fluid on the welding bench. Have an ABC extinguisher for every 20 foot of wall, distributed accordingly. Don't leave pans of oil, gas(don't even allow it in the shop any longer than absolutely necessary)or other flammable liquids setting around. Put your oily and greasy rags in a closed metal container. A pile of dirty rags can catch on fire all by themselves. Don't need a spark to start them. Do all these things and eventually you will still start the shop or yourself on fire but it won't be near as bad.

My NAPA guy got me a really nice welding blanket. Works really great when welding on interiors, doors, or throw it over the top of the engine when welding or grinding under the hood. also works great for protecting glass when welding. I think it's made by 3M??? Anyway, really handy thing to have around the shop.

One scenario you should be aware of, is the bench grinder residue. We quite often work with aluminum and steel, the grindings from both, mixed up and left in a little pile, can be extremely volatile. It has the basic makings of thermite. Thermite welding is used to weld large beams and railroad rails. The smaller amount you would have around a bench grinder would be enough to cause very severe burns. So a hot shoefly in your boot, (the ones that cause you to do the hokey pokey around the shop until they cool down a bit) would seem like a walk in the park compared to one of these flare ups. They are bright white and super hot. Guaranteed to leave an impression on you, or in you!

Oh yeah, I've done the crotch of my pants too.

I have my shop in my home 3 car garage, not too big, I have one ABC extenguisher. I keep the used rags in a closed metal can, my trash can is metal, heck, I think half my shop surfaces are metal. anyways, I try to always use the grinder out at the edge of the shop or in the driveway if I can.

Nylon is another bad thing to wear, again, the "plastic" clothing thing. I have a frame that has some vinyl on it, I want to get some fire-proof cloth to stretch over it and use as a screen, anybody know where to get that.

Red

Hell, Ive done the crotch thing with a cigar ash.......result?.....the same...OUCH

Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

. . . which causes me to ask . . . why were you welding in your underpants?

Funny you should ask. when I worked a Ford's Claycomo assembly plant back in the dark ages, I had to run a welder. They supplied us overalls which were about 4 sizes too big for you and never quite were able to button them up all the way. Every pair of underwear and socks I owned were full of burn holes. Not fun..... I used to get new safety glasses (prescription) about 4 times a year because they were full of slag and splatter too.

I just had to put this one in here. One day my son and I were out in the garage and my daughter called and said to start the grill she was bring the steaks home. Well it was the old fashioned one with real charcoal so we looked around for the charcoal lighter.... none. So then we got a little diesel from my can in the truck and poured it on the pile. Now for a match. Neither my son nor I smoke so no pocket lighters. None laying around the hose. Next we tried various means to light a fire. Grinding into a small pan with acetone. nothing. small pan with gas ...nothing. ha the propane torch....where is the scratcher. broken. Big shower of sparks for the propane torch ....nothing. Tig welder...out of gas. Idea.... go into the laundry room where the gas water heater is and poke a long sliver of wood into the flame. A quick run to the small pan of gas and poof a flame. The pan was sitting next to the pile of charcoal so we just tipped it over and lit off the diesel and had the grill going......it only took and hour.

Any other day we would have used 2-3 fire extinguishers putting out the things we tried.

Come on sniper,you dont save that stuff? Its always good to have aluminum powder around when your bored.

Funny thing, i was at my buddies shop a little while ago, and he had been using some titanium on the lath, well he had this huge pile of shavings on the floor, well i tell him to move it before he burns himself up, he looks at me like im insane, aparently he did not know it burns real well, so he had to prove it to himself. He takes a small pile and lights it, whoosh, up it goes, he looked like a kid in a candy store.

Haven't started any fires with the grinder yet, have set my pants on fire with a stick welder though. But hey,there's always tomorrow!

Yep! Ya' got's to watch out for "residue"! I had taken the wheels and shields off of the pedestal grinder, and replaced them with some buffing wheels to do some polishing. I was in a hurry to get something fixed, and needed to do a bit of grinding, so I just put the wheels and shields back on the grinder, and fired her up - litterally; caught the buffing residue on fire. Fortunately, I had put a piece of sheet metal on the wall, and all of the compound spinoff was on it, rather than on the drywall, but things got a bit dicey for a while, there. I have also set my whiskers and hair on fire a few times, while welding; after the first time, I always try to keep a bucket of water and some rags handy.