Respect Compressed Air

Allen wrenches and inserts with holes in them do the same thing. I knew a guy that ended up with 6 stitches from doing that.
 
He was the perp in this case. And the cause of an adjustment in the employee handbook.
 
Another caper with compressed air also took place where I worked at Kaiser Steel Co. in Napa Ca. was that one of my friends loaded up a air lead hose with ball bearings about 3/8" diameter, and when fully loaded had an associate charge the air hose; it was reportedly like a machine gun, and was directed against a corrugated steel wall panel in the pipe mill, made a hell of a racket. I was not a witness to this one.
Another funny thing was that one of the machinists that worked in the Fabrication shop on a huge Ingersoll floor mill had just taken a hike to the vending machine to get a Coke in a paper cup; he no sooner set it down on the machine, when a pigeon flew over and took a dump in it; needless to say, he was not happy, and got his slingshot out and got the crane operator to let him go up on this 30 ton bridge crane and run down and dispatch the offending birds; in the course of this, numerous steel balls (the ammunition) were expended and fell to the floor. I think this took place on an off shift when there was not much going on in the shop; the next swing shift, the maintainance supervisor noticed all the balls on the shop floor, and thought the crane was falling to pieces; of course he never found the cause ---
 
When I was stationed at Fairchild AFB (Spokane Washington). I was in charge of snow removal on the runways (big priority B52 base) We sometimes plowed snow at 60-70 mph with Oskosh rollover snow plows:grin: Anyhow there were times when the big fire extinguishers would get covered up in a berm and then the snow blowers would come along and hit them sometimes breaking the valve off---like a torpedo on snow. Damage to the blowers was usually pretty minimal.
I always thought they were out of their minds for putting a south Texas boy in charge of snow removal.:eek:
 
Compressed air, or the release of it, ended my 35 year carrier as a mechanic. When replacing tires for many years, I have released the air from the tire by poking a small hole in the sidewall of the tire. The LAST time I did it, the tire (probably over inflated) split open about 8". The rapidly escaping air blew the knife out of my hand and 3" into my left knee. After healing time, physical therapy and then surgery, I can no longer spend much time on my feet before my knee is in a good bit of pain. Now I am a service adviser, chained to a desk. Taking a lot of getting used to. Also started a gun shop to build a little more freedom for myself.

Dan H
 
As far as shop air being dangerous. Don't forget about the storage tanks themselves. Old rusty tanks are not to be trusted. And there is a water drain in the bottom of those tanks for a reason. To use them. I have both heard of and seen where an old tank would rupture a seam and dump all the air at once. Saw one that blew a chunk out of it that hit a guy in the leg and created a cut serious enough that he would have bled to death if he was alone. I can't tell you the number of old galvanized water tanks I have seen used as air pressure tanks that showed visible signs of rust coming through the galvanize. And those tanks working pressures were only rated at 60 to 90 PSI to begin with. That sort of thing may look like a good deal at an auction, but they typically are not.
 
Definitely a bad idea, Keith, using those tanks! Even proper air tanks, if bought used or of questionable quality should be *hydraulically* tested to at least 1-1/2 or 2 x the highest pressure in use, if possible until a relief valve (though many don't have them...) or rupture disc blows.

If you think about it, a 3HP compressor is putting (assuming about 25% efficiency, a WAG) about 500 Joules of energy *per second* into compressing the air, say it takes 2 minutes to fill the tank to pressure that's 60 KJ, if my schoolboy physics serves that's about 45000 ft-lb, or about 120 500 Joule/370 ft-lb .45 ACP rounds... Would you stand in front of that?

Dave H. (the other one)
 
Compressed air, or the release of it, ended my 35 year carrier as a mechanic. When replacing tires for many years, I have released the air from the tire by poking a small hole in the sidewall of the tire. The LAST time I did it, the tire (probably over inflated) split open about 8". The rapidly escaping air blew the knife out of my hand and 3" into my left knee. After healing time, physical therapy and then surgery, I can no longer spend much time on my feet before my knee is in a good bit of pain. Now I am a service adviser, chained to a desk. Taking a lot of getting used to. Also started a gun shop to build a little more freedom for myself.

Dan H

Dan, that's a bad one - and probably why it's a get-your-cards-and-get-out here in England (and probably most of Europe) and would get worker and company a prosecution and big fines if caught / an injury resulted. How long does it take to unscrew the valve core, 20 seconds?

Dave H. (the other one)
 
Well. as far as a catastrophic tank failure and sudden release of air through the hole lets do some math. A compressor will typically pump up to over 100 PSI. We are gonna go with this number because it's an easy number to work with doing the math. PSI is Pounds per SQUARE INCH. That means that for every square inch of area on the wall of a tank, it has 100 pounds of force applied to it when the gauge says 100 PSI. Here's why that is significant. If you were to open a 4 square inch hole in a tank at that pressure the force applied to the outside area, beyond the envelope of the tank would be 1600 pounds. Now, if your compressor is not bolted down and this happens in the bottom of the tank, it's gonna take off flying. Also, if that 4 by 4 piece of metal comes loose completely. It has a launched force of 1600 pounds. So who wants to catch that in the leg. Not to mention that flat squarish sheets of metal don't fly that way for very long. They tend to lay down because of wind resistance and fly edge to edge. SO now you have a .25 inch piece of metal flying across the shop that was launched with 1600 pounds of force. At yes, I understand drag and ballistics but again the numbers are interesting enough and if you were close enough it's not going to matter all that much. That .25 inch wide 4 inch long piece of tank is now moving at some high rate of speed. With a force of 1600 pounds per square inch. When that hits you, it's enough to tear through frail old you and make a hole for the red stuff to leak out.

This is another reason that shop air can be dangerous, is it can pick up small things and propel them with alot of energy. Which is the reason that OSHA has regulations about the maximum amount of shop air in PSI that can be used to clear dust and such on a job site.
 
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