People monkeying with things...

**Bluesman** · 11-19-2010, 09:28 AM

Just pisses me off. The other day I took my class in the shop. Had a couple of students needing to cut something for a project so they head off to the torch. A second later I hear one yell, "Oh *(*&(, !!! Turn it off!" and then they hollered at me to come over. I went over there and some moron (probably from the construction technology class that doesn't have their own shop so they use ours) had cranked the acetylene up WIDE OPEN!!! Luckily, I had taught my youngins that when they open those valves to always look at the gauges and make sure the acetylene is between 7-10 psi and the oxygen is roughly 40 and that if it is any different to shut it down and call for me or the other teacher to check it...

My fellow teacher and myself are beginning to like the construction class because they seem to always make us and our students look good. They always screw up anything they touch or attempt. My ag kids say that the difference between our class the const. class is that we make this look good.

**ISKI** · 11-19-2010, 04:17 PM

Good bet that they can't tell analog time either, and clock wise / counter clock wise would not be in their vocabulary. The design/operation of these valves is instinctive, even my mom could tell you which direction to shut the valve.

tomsign · 11-19-2010, 06:22 PM

Bluesman,
Glad you teach your student well, peole touching thing that have no right piss me off also.
A+ for the teacher

**Bluesman** · 11-20-2010, 10:29 PM

I was just glad the boys remembered when I told em, just like Mr. Green told me once, "If that acetylene pressure gets to 12 you are likely about to hear angel's wings flapping... If it gets 15, everybody big enough to die is gonna start hearing em..." I don't know if it is quite that dangerous or not, but it sure scared the hell out of me when he told me that so I make sure I repeat it to all my boys.

I did have a friend of the family that had his shop explode. He was working on a boat I believe. They claim his oxy-acetylene torch exploded. Shop burned to the ground and they never found a body. Sad deal for his family to swallow. I try to keep all that in mind when I'm playing with my man toys.

**SICFabrications** · 11-21-2010, 03:20 PM

here's the deal with acetylene.... it is a liquid gas that is dissolved in acetone. it has to "generate" the acetylene. if you force the bottle to draw more than it can generate (which is roughly 1/10th of the bottles contents) then you WILL suck straight acetone into the diaphragms of the regulator, which in turn eats the seals out and then will leak acetylene all over and everywhere... leaking acetylene right next to a lit torch = boom