Welding Tips and Tricks

Here's a weird story. My friend gave me this wagon wheel and another just like it. One day last summer, me and the wife are out on the back deck enjoying some cocktails. The friend who gave me these wheels came to my house, walked around to the deck where we were and said that one of the wheels was on fire in the front yard. We jumped up and went out to look and sure enough, this wheel was smoldering. I picked it up and brought it over by the garage and sprayed it down with the hose. After 10 minutes of WTF's and head shaking, we go back to drinking. About a half hour later, I smell something like burning rope so I go out front to see what's up and this wheel was smoldering again. I have security cameras so we check to see if we had some pranksters and the only thing you see on the tape is the wheel start smoking all by itself. I meant to share this awhile ago but I forgot and just found the pic again. Could something in the hub grease have broken down to a volatile component and spontaneously combusted? Absolutely true story. The other wheel was fine but I threw them both in the trash.

Just how hot does it get in Chicago anyway?

I believe they used rendered pig fat for grease on old wagon wheels. So that hub was probably saturated through with the light oils that remained.

Poland308 wrote:I believe they used rendered pig fat for grease on old wagon wheels. So that hub was probably saturated through with the light oils that remained.

It just weird that the 2 wheels came off the same wagon but only one started on fire. You would think that after decades of being in the elements, nothing would have remained to combust. Just plain weird.

mcostello wrote:Just how hot does it get in Chicago anyway?

You know...we actually thought that the weather was a contributor but it was mild that day and the wheels were in the shade in the wifes flower garden. I gets damned hot here but not hot enough to light wood on fire

http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-spontaneous- ... -698848769

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Poland308 wrote:http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-spontaneous- ... -698848769

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Well that changes everything I know. That is a good bit of info to know

Poland308 wrote:http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-spontaneous- ... -698848769

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Huh......... That doesen't really make a whole lot of sense to me.................................

Water is a perfect conductor, that's pretty well known, so a reaction takes place inside the wood where bacteria starts to eat the wood and reproduce and all that eating and humping creates enough friction to light it on fire, but only if it was wet?

So what, the water transfers the heat from the bacteria around, wouldn't the water evaporate prior to the ignition? How did that bacteria get there in the first place, from the water?

I might just be having a dense day today but that doesn't sound right.

Olivero wrote:

Poland308 wrote:http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-spontaneous- ... -698848769

Read this

Huh......... That doesen't really make a whole lot of sense to me.................................

Water is a perfect conductor, that's pretty well known, so a reaction takes place inside the wood where bacteria starts to eat the wood and reproduce and all that eating and humping creates enough friction to light it on fire, but only if it was wet?

So what, the water transfers the heat from the bacteria around, wouldn't the water evaporate prior to the ignition? How did that bacteria get there in the first place, from the water?

I might just be having a dense day today but that doesn't sound right.

It all makes more sense now than before. Those wheels sat in a shady spot in my front yard and absorbed water and never really dried out. The wheel that burned was alot more rotted than the other. I guess what we can take away from this is that bacteria need to use more KY so they quit lighting fires when they are doin the nasty

I have always known this happens but not the cause. I followed a fire truck to a barn fire call once where you could smell smoke but no visible fire. The whole neighbourhood showed up with forks and we tore off some boards and started pitching hay out. The firemen kept hoses trained on the mow and pockets of hot ashes would be exposed and explode into flame instantly once the air hit. We saved the barn and it was quite an education. When I was a kid and worked at a neighbours dairy farm I have come across small pockets of dead ashes inside the mow and never really thought too much about it. Lucky.

Compost heaps if taken care of properly achieve temperatures hot enough to kill bacteria and cook weed seeds to make them unable to germinate. Some of the local farms use compost setups to get rid of animal carcasses. A 300# pig can be totally gone,teeth and bones as well in just a few weeks. But these setups sometimes catch fire or smolder if not aerated regularly.
The coal pile at the power plant catches fire regularly during rainy spells. That's why they are out on the pile with the dozers moving it back and forth all the time.

Poland308 wrote:
The coal pile at the power plant catches fire regularly during rainy spells. That's why they are out on the pile with the dozers moving it back and forth all the time.

That's why ADM built that huge coal dome at their co-gen plant in Clinton, IA., and I think they still rake the pile. If you've ever seen it, you understand why the locals call it the "titty dome" BTW, that was our designated storm shelter during the build, as it's designed to survive an EF-5 tornado. It was also the rally point for evacuations.

Steve S

I've driven by but I haven't worked in that plant.

The theory now is the Titanic sank because a long lasting coal bunker fire that they couldn't extinquish weakened the outer hull plates which split when hitting the iceberg. Maybe spontaneous combustion was the culprit

homeboy wrote:The theory now is the Titanic sank because a long lasting coal bunker fire that they couldn't extinquish weakened the outer hull plates which split when hitting the iceberg. Maybe spontaneous combustion was the culprit

Or maybe they sank the ship to put out the fire?

Regardless. The ship could have easily avoided collision or even if not avoided the collision they could have reduced the impact by hitting head on and at the full speed with the course they were on. My father used to be a first mate on freighter vessels in Lake Michigan so he must know something about ships.

Maybe it got wheely wheely hot.

weldin mike 27 wrote:Maybe it got wheely wheely hot.

homeboy wrote:The theory now is the Titanic sank because a long lasting coal bunker fire that they couldn't extinquish weakened the outer hull plates which split when hitting the iceberg. Maybe spontaneous combustion was the culprit

The theory I heard is the crappy steel they used to plate the hull was brittle and became even more so by being in cold water but I can agree with the coal fire theory too.

Chinese steel.

electrode wrote:Chinese steel.

So British ship, Irish workers, Chinese steel-steel is thin and cheap, fire in the belly of the ship, hit an iceberg and boom sunken ship.

only one question...why Chinese steel. China was not a large steel manufacturer from 1910-1912 during the building of the ship and it would have been British steel, seeing that Britain was the largest manufacturer at the time of steel. So what can we learn? British steel is bad...maybe?

Farmwelding wrote:

electrode wrote:Chinese steel.

So British ship, Irish workers, Chinese steel-steel is thin and cheap, fire in the belly of the ship, hit an iceberg and boom sunken ship.

only one question...why Chinese steel. China was not a large steel manufacturer from 1910-1912 during the building of the ship and it would have been British steel, seeing that Britain was the largest manufacturer at the time of steel. So what can we learn? British steel is bad...maybe?

Metallurgy was not advanced enough to anticipate the problem of the steel weakening in the extremely cold water.

I couldn't imagine wooden ships and what they did in cold water. Those joints have to be strong as hell to resist the shrinkage in the cold and then expanding in the sun. These people are far better craftsman than I probably ever will be. Hand cut joints and figuring all the complex joinery without metal devices with just a pad and pen.

In the era of wooden ships a pen would have been a luxury item. Probably pencils or charred sticks.

My mom used to live near a place where they shredded up the offcuts from sawmills, and even entire logs, to make hardwood mulch for gardens. They used machines to push this shredded wood up into tall (20' high) piles, and they had automatic sprinklers to wet it down. Every time I drove past that place you could see the heat and steam coming up off the piles. You could also smell it.

I suspect that, just like with compost heaps, there were bacteria that were "digesting" the mulch, and the heat of their metabolism is what made the piles of mulch give off so much heat and steam. And I think the automatic sprinklers were important not just to give the bacteria the water they needed to live, but also to prevent the piles from catching on fire.