Shop fire safety

I always try to keep my 5 gal trash can emptied daily or at least when there a accumulation of paper towels, wipe rags, steel shavings, etc.. I even keep cloth shop rags in a area kind of spread up, not in a pile which could create a spontaneous combustion. I don't keep a lot of combustional containers laying around. I try to keep them stored in a metal cabinet even though it's not fireproof.
 
Boiled linseed oil is / could be rocket fuel, if mixed rite,
 
Grinding anything with wood around, not good , learnt my lesson :eek:
 
surprising he didn't know that. Any finish with driers can heat up and spontaneously combust.
My finishing area has a small steel trash can w/locking cover for finishing rags. I still spread them out when throwing them out, so they don't heat up, I don't ball them up.
My metal shop has a metal trash can for hot metal and oily rags (no cover).
My central woodworking vac and my dust collector both have metal cans for the same reason.
I don't mess around with this, since I have so many chemicals in my basement. Each room in the shop and garage have fire extinguishers.
 
I had a small fire in my waste basket. It contained oily steel and aluminum from cleaning after using my lathe. I had the basket where sparks from the cutt off wheel go in it and started a fire. I was cutting off a 10mm piece of titanium. I saw the smoke and got it out while still small.
The waste basket is not in a different place and empty! Don
 
I had a old small chainsaw I had picked up a my buddies scrap yard . For some reason I decided to make a coolant pump for my old power hack saw. So I commenced to mill off anything that I didn't need. When done cleared the mill off and had half of a 5 gallon bucket of chips.
A few days later I needed to weld something and the bucket was setting close to my welding. I hadn't realized that the chainsaw was magnesium . Talk about a hot fire fast. Luckily it was a metal bucket and I scooped it up with a large shovel and out the door into the snow it went.
Lesson learned ,know what you're machining on and treat the waste appropriately
Thanks scruffy ron
 
Surprising about linseed oil! I wonder how many oil soaked rags he had accumulated in the trash can. It looks like he was using blue paper shop towels.

I have a welding/grinding area in one corner of my shop adjacent to an overhead door. When I set this up years ago I installed cement backer board on the 2x4 framing in the welding corner, as a wall covering. I figured cement doesn't burn very well, so it might be good fire suppression material to withstand sparks from acetylene tour resulting from my cutting, grinding operations and the occasional welding job. There is NO flamable material within the 15' spark radius of the grinding corner. Also use a surplus mine ventilation fan to exhaust fumes and live sparks out the open shop door. Any rags used with solvent get hung out to dry, either outside, or over the edge of the a trash can, before disposal.

Basic precautionary stuff. But never hurts to talk about it to help prevent something from going wrong in the future.

Glenn
 
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