Be carefull working on your rides

[six-tee-nine]

Well I learned this weekend again that things can go wrong real fast.

A guy I knew from back in the days had an accident while working on his VW panelvan. His garage was destroyed completely with the van in it. Something caught fire while he was working on it. Due to the fact he had gas on his clothes he was taken to the hospital with burns.
I ave been told hes OK but have no further info at this point.

So be carefull at any time and make sure you keep a fire extinguisher close.....

[ws23rt]

Thanks for posting this. We need reminders.

Of all the things I do in my shop/basement garage--- grinding is the one that makes me the most nervous. Flame cutting (oxy ace.) is not a problem because I don't do it inside when I'm alone anymore.

The sparks from grinding can go far and an unwell kept working space will accumulate stuff that burns.  Oily rags (for example) are a perfect place for a smolder to begin and could go for hours before flame on.

A topic like this always brings up a story from my past.  My work took me to a boat builder. This guy had a very large wooden building and made custom boats of the 20'-30' size. The saw dust in that building was so thick that it fell off the rafters. (the angle of repose). It was two or three inches deep on the floor before he shoveled it aside to make a walking path. That building burned down a few years later.

The point of this story is we can get away with a dangerous situation for a long time but it's up to us to reduce the odds in our favor.

[Bob T]

Yeah, a timely reminder, safety is number one.
Hope the guy is on the mend soon. Can always replace a vehicle or a shed...
.
Had been pulling out some machines in a wood fibre board factory a while back, same thing with dust inches thick on the beams and trusses, one of the guys gas cutting an upper platform ignited some dust but couldn't see it behind him with a mask on. We saw the smoke from outside the building and raced in, fortunately we could get a fire hose up to it.

The second one was on a ship in the generator room, there was a guy gas cutting but the fire watch guy was watching the cutter and not the flame font or the wall. The font ignited paint on the wall and travelled up to the platform deck where we were working. There was a lot of oil impregnated insulation material in the void between the platform levels and it started to catch alight. Fire moves incredibly quickly going from a small lick less than an inch high to 10 inches straight away. Me and my mate saw it at the same time , grabbed the water bottles and tried to quell it. Shouted Fire and jumped back down and took the hose off the other guy who was still looking around to see where the fire was.
The crew came running in and assisted too. Could have gone bad though, lucky it didn't.

[ws23rt]

 

Another memory comes to me.

I was an apprentice welder/millwright. My job was to weld a motor mount on a conveyor.  The building was a particle board plant. The ceiling was 30' up and below were bins of wood particles for the board. I was welding on the motor mount near the ceiling and the wood dust was like snow on everything. My fire watch was on the floor with a garden hose.

This building was several hundred feet square and two stories high. The out side was corrugated metal and had these three foot long posts sticking out every six feet or so. Cable was stretched between the posts.

I asked about the posts and cables?----In the event that the building would explode the cables and posts would catch the corrugated metal siding and keep it from flying too far.

[ws23rt]

Back to the topic of safety in the home.

In the industrial environment these days issues like we just talked about are rare. We are force fed safety until it almost chokes us. But when at home--and when the safety cops are looking down our necks we tend to take more chances. It is our nature to be careful and think we can do this just fine and get away with it.

We just need to pause sometimes and look around us. What could we lose besides our cars, lives and or our family?

[303 Mopar]

The shop next to my friends burned a month ago.  Turns out there was faulty wiring in the headlights of a VW and they lost 4 cars in the fire.  My friends shop was covered in soot, including a beautiful '65 Chevy pickup.  It can happen anywhere at anytime, just be extra cautious.