[slipshod]

I know that a lot of us here own cutting torches.I also know that we can get real lax when it comes to handleing them.Besides the obvious danger of compressed gasses in a steel cylander,ther are other things to consider.
Oxygen vigorously excellerates combustion;
Let me relate to you an incident that happened to me as a teenager.My dad had me cutting scrap to haul in one summer.I had cut #1 heavy iron from a pile for about 3 days. Since we a large pile of junk to remove the torches were left at the pile with the regulators attatched. The forth day is was a little misty out and my oxygen cylander needed changed.No big deal, I got a full bottle and screwed on the regulator.My dad had owned the set of industrial regulators for years and I was good at using a torch.Not much thought was given to what I was doing(had changed tanks a thousand times).When I opened the valve on the bottle,the regulator exploded. It launched me, about 120 pounds soaking wet at the time, over a pickup truck.Burned my right forearm and the landing gave me a few lumps.After picking myself up off the ground I could see the regulator was self distructing before my eyes. I had the ability to shut the tank off,but before I got it turned off the tank had already been impinged by the the flame,approximately !/2 ".
It was later determined that the diafram in the regulator had failed,combined with the dampness.A real tragity was averted,but only by dumb luck. To this day I get edgy around torches during wet weather.I still have that regulator somewhere over on the homestead,going to have to look for it.

 

[Ingersoll444]

Thanks.

I never knew about the dampness. Knew not to have oil aroung, but not dampness

 

[slipshod]

dampness

Dampness+oxygen under pressure +the rubber parts in the regulator= friction ,creates fire.The brass that compized the body of the regulator actually smelted

 

[Chipmaker]

Sort of reminds me of when I was in the Army back in the late 60's, and was stationed in southeast asia. It was night time, and we were all goofing off in the motor pool drinking beer etc. We were having fun allowing acetylene to go in a paper cup and then ignite it and watch it go pop. Well someone drug out some rubbers (now they are called prophylactics to be politically correct) but any how we added acetylene to a rubber and inflated it and used a string to drag it across a Zippo cigarette lighteron the shop floor. It would go off with a pretty neat bang and flash. Well we then added acetylene and also a good dose of O2, and inflated that thing to the size of a water melon, and casually manuvered it to the burning Zippo lighter. It sounded like a bomb going off. It created so much concussion it knocked out the flourescent light tubes from the overhead lights, knocked us on our butts, and made one teriffic flash. Folks started to holler incoming, as folks in other areas were unaware of what we were doing, and thought we had incoming mortars or rockets. That was just from an overly inflated rubber . I would hate to see what an exploding tank would do.