Fires

[irnsrgn]

Well here goes my story, unbelievable, YES, did it really happen, Yes, and I have a witness.

Belive it or not what I caught on fire was a MOUSE, yes a mouse one of those furry little rodents that come in for the winter and stay till the food supply runs out.

I have a fold down cutting table made of flat iron on edge at the end of my welding table in the back room. I was using a gouging torch to gouge out a rather large crack in a piece that I was repairing and the very large amount of sparks were kind of concentrating on a pile of parts and pieces I had stacked against the back wall.

I happened to notice movement out of the edge of my cutting goggles and immediately lifted them up to see what it was. What it was, was a rather large (I found out later) Female mouse running from under the pile trailing a small stream of smoke from burning fur.

I almost died laughing from the sight and also pitied the poor mouse. I also learned that a small amount of burning mouse fur leaves a rather offensive odor behind. This poor smoking mouse disappeared under my Lincoln DC welder. This welder has the same generator as a gas powered Pipeliner Welder, but has a 15 horse 3 Phase electric motor for a power source.

End of story, well I thought so at the time. This happened on a friday afternoon, and we didn't work on Saturday or Sunday.

The Saga continues, The Mouses Revenge.

Monday morning about 9 AM, Dewayne my helper assistant had prepared a piece for welding and drug the cables over to the welding bench, set the welder, and pressed the ON switch. There was lots of yelling and a very large Dewayne was moving at Warp Speed right at me.

Not wanting to be trampled, I moved to one side to let him pass. Looking in the direction he came from and wondering what would scare him so, I saw that the air was a cloud of light brown and was settling to the floor in a layer on the floor. I immediately determined it was coming from the welder, so I hastily pushed the OFF button and retreated to let the air clear.

After the air had cleared sufficiently to see what was the cause, I made my way to the welder again wondering what would cause such a mess. To my horror there was all kinds of stuff sticking out of the slots at the end of the welder where the cooling fan for the motor is.

It appeared to be cloth, paper and some kind of straw or such. I quickly determined that it did not come from the internal parts of the welder, thank god.

Well the large mess on the floor was the first to be swept up, then I started pulling the stuff sticking out of the slots off. It didn't smell to good either. Next came a wire brush to get what was left. And you have to remember this machine is in a corner with limited access, what a job.

Next came a shop vac and an air hose. Finally I thought I had it all, so I turned the machine on again. OOPS another cloud in the air and a thumping noise. After the second mess was cleaned up I stuck a welding rod thru one of the slots and slowly turned the fan, and thats when I saw the mice, yes plural, one large mouse and quite a few offspring. Did you know baby mice are pink, hairless and have their eyes shut like other small animals when born.

Now the big question, How am I going to get them outa there so I don't have mouse innards all over the place. Its in a place where I can't move it out without at least most of a days work. So the sidecutters came to the rescue. I snipped one end of 3 or so of the metal between the slots, bent them out and reached in with a welding rod with a hook bent on the end and managed to remove the bodies. Bent the metal back and started the machine again, only a small cloud of stuff this time. I let it all get blown out before shutting it down again and cleaning the third mess up.

I think the mouse just wanted revenge for burning its hair off, and yes the mother did have badly singed hair over about 75% of her body when I finally got her out.

Funny, Yes, unbelivable, probably, a work of fiction, Definately NOT.

irnsrgn

[Stephan Pawloski]

lit a cat on fire once, apparently those real soft fluffy ones should wear DOT tags marked "Explosive"

[anvillain]

As much as it pains me to say it,you guys had some very interesting fires, but I'm afraid you are merely amateurs :lol:

First I have to give my dear old Dad credit for HIS fire ( no doubt it had a lot to do with my talent, which surfaced later.) Back in '53 we lived near an abandoned RR bed that not too long before had coal fired steam trains travelling on it. Well, fire was a tool which was very useful for cleaning fencerows, weeds and such. This was in the fall, dry stuff He knew could burn fast, but He had no experience with coal dust. Pretty soon it seemed to me the whole world was on fire, but actually it was only about a half mile of dust and cinders accumulated, it burned deep into the roadbed and when it rained it seemed like it just made it burn better. Now I know that it did, similiar to sprinkling water in the forge to clean up the fire. After about a month it went out.

Now mine: When I was much younger and working in a welding shop someone had brought an empty barrel in to have the end cut out. My boss DID tell me not to use the torch on it and I could understand why.
Sometime later that same barrel had been neglected but was supporting a boat trailer that I was welding on. I had just stopped welding and was walking to the restroom when I was enveloped in one Heckuva a boom and cloud of black dust. I looked back to see that boat trailer levitated eight feet off the floor on the cloud of dust. Apparently a spark had found its way to the fumes of some dreadful concoction inside the barrel. No doubt it was My Guardian Angel that spared me by inspiring me to take a break.

PS: just last week I was burning some brush piles, it was very dry, it became very windy, fire trucks were summoned,water was sprayed,leaves were furiously raked, and it was under control after two hours, there were a dozen volunteer firemen that were NOT amused and my wife went to the truck which was some distance away so that no one would think she knew me. About two acres of the neighbors woods were purged of loose flammable material and one deer stand was slightly rearranged. I'm not proud of it and my wife DID tell me so.

Humbly submitted by Anvillain (but fire IS a great tool!!)

[Mills]

My first fire in a forge was rather memorable. I had had been lurking for about a year when I decided that I had enough info to actually make the effort worthwhile. So I rigged up a forge out of the bottom of an old drum. I bought a small shop vac that was on sale. It was all I could afford, I hoped it would be enough. I stoked the new forge with 10 lbs of the Kingsford edge and let it coal for a bit. Now when I flipped the switch for the shop vac I learned a lot about forges and forging very quickly:
1) outside is better than inside for experimentation
2) Yes a shop vac, even tho small, is sufficient to power a forge
3) the concept of a choke plate suddenly focused sharply in my mind
4) Flames grow larger as you add air and can get as high as the garage door that is over the forge
5) Briquettes sound like Rice Krispies but feel like biting flies
6) they also make a LOT of ash, kinda like a volcano

Lessee, that is about one second per lesson as I figger it.

Annealing a piece of steel is pretty straightfoward, get an amount of vermiculite and let hot steel lay in there for a while. Since we had a couple of bags at work that were to be disposed of I glommed on to the opportunity. I let a coworker have the bigger bag and I took the smaller one, that the label was illegible on. After carefully forging some coil spring and rather than opening the bag completely, I merely shoved the stock through the paper and went back to forging. Over the next several hours I kept smelling something vaguely familiar. When I saw the smoke rising out of the bag, "I thought vermiculite was inflammable" went through my mind.
I tore open the bag shook it out on concrete and poured dippers of water on to it. That is when the odor hit me that I had been smelling all evening, Chrome Ligno Sulfate, a drilling mud additive. Sure makes things slick and slimy when it gets wet. Clean up took about an hour as I went through all the burning crud and put it out. Threw away the remaining dry stuff in the bag, slopped the wet goo on top of it and felt awfully good about my thouroughness.
0200 hrs and I am answering the phone, my frantic neighbor is telling me that the house is on fire! I blaze out into the nippy fall weather to get my hose and put out the blaze in the large plastic trash can on wheels. The hose was inside the garage so I turned around to get it.
I can safely recommend to you fine gentleman that when you replace the knob on a door it should NOT be one that will remain locked even though it turns easily in your hands.
After arousing the Domestic Goddess by my incessant knocking on the front door I go into the garage again, get the hose, go out side to put out what remained of the fire. Fortunately it is a brick house and nothing caught. While using the water hose my feet got muddy and cold so I went to get more clothing and, you recall the door knob I warned you about? Finally got everything done and back in bed by 0330.

[mike-hr]

Strange chain of events today led to an adrenalin packed morning. A guy saw the headache/carry stuff rack on my pickup, and wanted one like it for his rig, '76 Ford F250. The bed was dinged up a bit, so I decided to fit the angle iron bed rails on the rig, so i would be sure they fit. Once I got the relief cuts made in the shop, we pushed the angle irons into place, and shimmed and clamped them into plane. I spent about 15 minutes shielding the cab, windows, and bed sides from errant welding sparks using masking tape, cardboard, and welding leathers held on with magnets. On the second tack weld, I heard a slight 'pheww', and stopped to investigate. The behind the seat gas tank was burp-burp-burping flames from the filler cap. Apparently the morning sun had came out from behind the clouds, and warmed the interior of the cab enough to where the full tank had decided to vent off some fumes, underneath my up-to-then ingeniously placed leather shields. I deployed the fire extinguisher, and was about to tell the customer to back away, when I spied his hat brim peeking out from behind an out building, 20 yards away...After everything settled down, we both had a giggle. I told him that in a week or so, this would somehow seem funny. Luckily, gas fires are somewhat honest, and don't behave like in action movies.... ops:

[Daryl]

While demonstrating at a Historical site, a fellow smith was helping me as striker. A group of pre-school kids were in watching the goings on and asking questions while we hammered away. Then they ALL fell silent while my partner and I stood there. Then one of the teachers said calmly, "As you can see, the blacksmith shop was very dangerous. They always had to be careful with thier fire." Then they were all hustled out of the shop. :shock: We looked up, and part of the roof next to the chimnet had already burned through. Luckily, we had the fire out in a couple minutes.
God has a sense of humour, too. It was scorching heat for weeks before and up that point. After a hole was burned through, it promptly rained before we could repair the damage... a steady stream to right where you stand at the bellows. :roll:

[acoop101]

Bumping the random things you've caught on fire thread.
I was teaching Mig welding to some freshmen and one of the students had one not so new pants. The spatter from the duel shield welding caught the cotton fibers on fire. That was the first and only time I've had some one hurt them selves in my class.

[Dr Dean]

Jr your mouse story brings to mind one told at our shop. Apparently a couple of individuals that no longer work there thought it was a good idea to light up a mouse with wd-40. Other than it not being a swift kill the other reason it's a bad idea is that mice generally know how to hide even when on fire. The mouse ran into the wall, steel siding on the inside. Obviously they had to go after the mouse so tin started coming off the wall. About this time the owner came through the shop, all he said was I don't want to know and kept walking. The story ends with the singed mouse being captured and no damage other than time wasted for thier stupidity.

[philip in china]

A couple of times when I have lost my lighter I have welded over a stack of paper and used the resultant fire to light the forge.

Here the traditional way to light the fuel blocks is to take a fresh one to a neighbour who has a fire lit and exchange it for one of his which is already alight. So possibly one fire in China could be retraced to a prehistoric lightning strike. (Maybe not).

[dablacksmith]

ive had mice setup house in my propane forge ... they like ko wool for theyre nests I remember a time when I was lighting the forge as the mouse was running out...i burned my clothes various times .. usually in demos..also did sumthin stupid .. thaught i could burn out a ant hill poured gas on it and lit it... and caught the telephone pole on fire ... and to add insult to injury the ants were still alive...