Your friendly oil rag reminder!

[transatlantic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0CPhmplHek

 

[wallace]

Thanks for posting that, I knew it but its nice to be reminded

 

[Vann]

Wow. That guy is just soooo lucky he didn't burn down his workshop :!:

I guess that's one way to avoid taking out the rubbish...

Cheers, Vann.

 

[Chris152]

I didn't know this! I bought my first bottle of linseed oil yesterday, proceeded to use it without reading the label and chucked the rag in a pile in the garage which forms part of my house. Thank you for sharing.

 

[tomatwark]

Danish Oil will do the same thing.

All oil rags in my workshop have to be spread out or hung up to dry, if I catch anyone not doing this it is a verbal warning.

Also I always point this out to my customers when we have installed oiled furniture or tops.

 

[merlin]

Thanks for that - he was very lucky.

The same but different, years ago I was using a belt sander and put all the dust from the bag into a skip, about half an hour later the skip started to smoulder, ever since I tend to spread the dust out so it cools down.

Merlin

 

[Woody2Shoes]

A worthwhile reminder. I think warnings on containers should be much more explicit.

I nearly set our plastic dustbin on fire with some rags I'd been using to apply patination oil (which seems to be mostly linseed oil) to some lead flashings - luckily I saw the smoke and put it out in time. There was nothing on the container to suggest that fire could be a probllem.

W2S

 

[MikeK]

One lesson learned is to heed the warning on the container. One lesson apparently not captured or learned is to install smoke detectors or extend the fire alarm system into a functional workshop. My neighbor and I have smoke detectors installed in our adjoining garages, and they are loud and annoying enough to be heard from inside our houses.

 

[Chris152]

I didn't realise sawdust could be that volatile either.

Off to empty my dust/ chippings collector and fit a fire alarm now.

I wonder if anyone could write up a brief overview of fire and other hazards in the workshop for beginners like me, as a separate post - I just did a search for 'fire hazards' and lots of hits for particular tools/ scenarios, but maybe a summary of general workshop management? Could even be a sticky in General Woodworking?

I'm even thinking now maybe I need to build a workshop in the garden, just to get it all out the way of the house...

 

[tomatwark]

The rule we apply to a fire in the workshop, is find the nearest exit and leave the building.

Fighting fires is what the Fire Service is paid for.

I think if I had a hobby shop in my garage linked to the house, I would be looking at mains smoke/heat detectors linked to the house ones.

 

[transatlantic]

Yes - it's a shame that we have to have ridiculous obvious warnings like 'This hot drink maybe hot' splattered on the front of things, yet the not so obvious things like spontaneous combustion printed in small text on the back.

 

[Paul200]

Very timely - I'll be installing a smoke alarm in my new workshop! A few years ago I had been danish oiling a jewellery box and, having not used the oil before, was looking up methods etc online at work when I discovered the spontaneous combustion thing. I phoned my wife and told her to go into my workshop, pick up the screwed up bundle on the bench, put it into a tin and place it in the middle of the lawn. She thought I was crazy until I sent her a link to the article I'd been reading!

 

[John15]

I spread out my oily rags on an empty bit of bench for the surplus to dry but unsure if they can still catch fire while drying.

John

 

[Rorschach]

I spread out my oily rags on an empty bit of bench for the surplus to dry but unsure if they can still catch fire while drying.

John

Spread out they are not likely to generate enough heat to combust. The problem as I see it comes from tightly bunched rags in a closed space with insulation and kindling around them.

 

[John15]

Thanks for that info Rorschach

John

 

[woodenstx]

I tend to chuck the oily rags onto the BBQ and light them off anyway :lol:

 

[memzey]

Does anyone know if chainsaw oil is likely to spontaneously combust like BLO? I was grinding a plane iron last night and used some for a quench (it's what I had to hand) but was a bit worried about it setting fire to the rag I used to wipe it off so I hung it up outside the shed.

 

[Rorschach]

Its not a polymerising oil, so no.

 

[Claymore]

Another thing to watch is superglue..... last week I was using a new 50g bottle of industrial superglue and accidentally knocked the bottle over and without thinking mopped it up with a rag and yep smoke started pouring from the the rag so chucked it outside.
There are many hazards in workshops so threads like this are a good thing

Brian

 

[Rorschach]

That isn't smoke from superglue, it's vaporised glue from the curing, it does this all the time but you can only see it when it is curing really fast. While theoretically it could cause a fire It would take an awful lot of superglue to generate enough heat for a fire. The good thing is that the cure happens fast when you are mopping it up, so you would be around, the danger of linseed oil is it is unpredictable.