Wow, I'm on fire today!

They settled but he said took some loss. There was some antique equiptment they said should have had some other type of insurance. I don't remember the exact details.
 
When I was a kid..maybe 16 I worked on weekends for a bait shop up in Annandale MN...The owner had a stroke and had to use a walker. He had a ford tractor with a blade and loader...pretty small, a newer version of a 8N. He had me grading the parking lot in the afternoon and it started to miss, so he said put it away in the garage (that was about 10 feet from the back of the house) and I'll call the dealer to come look at it tomorrow. His house was across the narrow lake road from the bait shop. We closed the shop up around 10 PM.

I helped he and his wife to the house and went back and locked the shop and was walking to my car and BABOOOMMM the unattached garage blew up, the garage door just missed me by a few feet. God I was lucky that night....well anyway I ran back to there house as they called the Sherriff...no 911 back then. I never saw him move so fast out of the house.. The volunteer fired dept came and pulled the tractor out of the garage but by then it was a total loss. The siding and shingles on the house were burn't but the house survived. The next day the fire chief and insurance investigator figured out what had happened. The well for the house was inside the garage and there was a pipe that ran to the house inside a small tunnel or it may have been a 6" pipe..I can't recall.. well anyway the tractors carburetor's float had stuck open and gas leaked all over the floor. That night when they went into the house and flushed the toilet the pump started, the motor sparked and BOOOOMMM.

I now make sure I turn off the gas line on my lawn mower when I put it in the garage.
 
Whenever I weld or do anything heat-related, the shop gets double-checked. Every night when I shut the lights off, I check everything, look at all the garbage cans for smoldering, etc... I also have a smoke detector and CO detector at all times in there.

That said, last week, I welded several sticks of 5/32 rod and was honkered nicely into my favorite position... Cruising right along making great progress smiling like a clam -when all the sudden my hand is feeling pretty hot. Darn glove was on fire... -pretty good too. They were welding gloves with leather hands/fingers but the wrist/forearm part was cloth. -All leather from now on.

Can't tell you how many times I've set my pinky glove finger on fire TIG welding...

Ray
 
Oh yeah, I've been using the tig fingers for a while. Believe it or not, it's usually the rod hand (not the torch hand) pinky finger that takes the brunt of the heat. Happens when I rest the feed-hand on the work. The pinky is right in the downdraft of the heat.

From resting/steadying on your work? Have you ever seen/tried the "Tig Finger" from Jody, the guy who does "WeldingTipsAndTricks" on YouTube?
Bought a couple of them off him - work great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N2nm6HJRhc
(no, I don't work for him! :D )
 
Several years ago I was building these elaborate deer stand stairs for a friend and they were made of 1-1/2" serrated deck grating. Very heavy and sturdy. As I was torch cutting a tread a friend said calmly you're on fire. I didn't pay him any attention as I assumed his calm demeanor meant just a little buckshot or something. About 10 seconds later the fire was completely up my pants leg to my knee. At that point things started getting warm and I was paying attention. I got the fire put out without injury and it was then I realized BDU rip stop pants are made from a synthetic material. They burn very well. No more non cotton clothing when welding or cutting. Lesson well learned.
 
We had a guy at work who we called Friar Truck - when he was an apprentice he completely destroyed a truck he was welding on.
 
Oh man, that's tough luck -and even tougher to live-down an event like that... Hope he's cool with being called that.


We had a guy at work who we called Friar Truck - when he was an apprentice he completely destroyed a truck he was welding on.
 
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