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Why You Should Never Fill A Balloon With Acetylene

I knew a mechanic who would run his acetylene hoses out a ways and fill a balloon with the acetylene gas. He had some wires he used to set a spark to the gas from a distance away. Boy did that make a LOUD bang!

Christopher
 
The site that came from is owned by the brother of my next-door neighbor. Steve has been on Dateline and other TV shows, he is an expert in static issues. The TV shows dealt with static causing fires at gas pumps. Real nice guy, I enjoy talking to him..
 
when we were in high school, at the vocational school(class was welding,) a friend filled a med glove from the first aid with acy. and gently floated it into the booth another friend was welding in, it didnt hurt no one, but lookin back at the dumb chit we did in high school i guess were lucky to be alive
 
I'm guessing it was a mixture of oxygen and acetylene to cause an explosion like that. You can get a big bang with a styrofoam cup full of oxygen and acetylene. Dave
 
Yes, on a tubeless wheelbarrow tire- luckily it was clamped in the shop vise. Takes only the minimum of a poof! Maybe WD-40 is weak enough to do that now, in a safer manner.
 
This guy says that while the explosion may have happened , the truck in the pictures wasn't the truck in the explosion because of the way the cab is dented and pushed in or out. I don't know about that as I'm not an expert on explosions and their damage , but with what you guys know about acetylene and explosions, can you figure it out as to wheather or not it's true or not ? I'll let you guys argue it out. To me personally, I say that it could be true as I've seen a lot stranger things happen.


Whizkid

P.S. The reason that I found and posted this story is because while I was looking for a part to my welder, that I posted about on Tool Talk the other day at our local welding supply store , they had a paper posted about it.
Site That Disputes The Truck In The Pictures
 
The guy on the site that says it's a hoax wants to pick at a few minor inconsistencies, yet it's pretty obvious that an explosion happened inside the cab. Whether or not it was actually acetylene is besides the point.

It seems their mistake was stockpiling balloons inside the truck. I'm guessing enough acetylene leaked out of the balloons to create an explosive mixture in the cab. At that point, it would be just a matter of time before a static discharge set it off.
 
Aceteylene, believe it or not doesn't need anything such as an electrical charge to set it off. It becomes self explosive in it's free state at 29.4psi. That's why a tank of it is so heavy because it's held in suspension by acatone which is held in a number of combinations of materials such as portland cement, bolsa wood, corn pith, and insulferous earth to name a few.
That's one of the reasons it's so important to shut off torches at the tank when not in use in shops.
 
Several years ago my neighbor and a few of his buddys took a large plastic garbage bag and filled it with acetylene then had an electric cord (the live end) with steel wool around the plus and minus leads in the bag. Then taped up the bag with duct tape then he put the bag out into his driveway.....then plug the cord in.

I want to tell you that is the loudest explosion I have ever heard, not including dynamite sticks.
 
135 below is correct when he said that balloon had some oxygen in it also. I have been to oxygen acetylene safety classes put on by Smith. In that safety demo. the instructor will fill one baloon with pure oxygen and tie the end off. He would then fill another balloon with pure acetylene and tie the end off. Next he would light the torch and adjust to a netural flame. Next step is to snuff out the flame, then he would fill the third balloon with a 50-50 mixture of oxygen and acetylene. That balloon was tied off and put to one side, way off to one side. These balloons may have been 6 inches in diameter when inflated. He would then ask the class what would happen when he put a flame to each balloon. The pure oxygen balloon was first and it would go pop, the same as if someone had blown it up by blowing into it. The acetylene balloon would go boom. The 50-50 balloon he would ask that all the windows in the room be opened, (The room was on an outside wall) and everyone cover their ears. He would then place the balloon on his metal table, about four feet square. He would get under the table and wave his lit torch at the balloon until he hit it, that would result in a KA-BOOM.

He told us a story about being on the iron range putting on the same demo in a big auditorum for the mine workers. When he was filling the 50-50 balloon one of the people in authority did not think the balloon was big enough to be heard because the auditorium was so huge. He kept telling the safety instructor to make the balloon larger until the instructor refused to go any bigger. All the miners wore hard hats and wore ear protection, with the windows open the balloon was set off and most of the floursent lights in the overhead came tinkling down.

I was told the oxygen acetylene safety demo put on by Smith is now on video. Don't know if someone got hurt or if most class rooms don't have windows. It was 35 years ago I saw the demo and people today are more safety minded.

A friend from works neighbor filled a 30 gallon garbage bag with a 50-50 mixture. He set it off with a bottle rocket, that left a big crater in the ground.
 
In the safety demo I posted below the instructor would take a small mass of steel wool and hold it in his hand and put a match to to it. The steel wool would sparkle a little, then the match would burn his fingers. He would then put the steel wool in a quart mason jar, turn the jar upside down with a little bit of his jar hanging over the edge of his table. He would then take his torch and open the oxygen valve and fill the mason jar with pure oxygen. Next step was to take a match and light the steel wool and push the mason jar so it was all the way on the table. You could watch the steel wool burn up to nothing.

The instructor also told horrow stories of accidents while using oxygen, acetylene. Most of them can't happen now with the useage of back flow preventers and spark arrestors.
 
Oh yea, torch fun . Get bucket of soapy water, run acet & oxy in in , lots of bubbles. Set it near someone welding ,lol Dad had a big piece of heavy pipe . 3-4 in or so , plate welded on the end , small hole in bottom . He'd cut 6 inch piece of fence post , charge pipe with acet & Oxy. Light off at hole ! Quite the cannon @ Neighbor did it with smaller pipe and golf ball. Golf ball went through side of his garage .
 
If the cab windows were closed acetylene leakage could still make a bang. With the damage done to that truck the balloons would have had to have had some oxygen in them.

The instructor stood right next to the pure acetylene balloon when it was set off.


Do the balloon thing like I described and see for yourself. I have seen it done live at least three times, nothing has changed.
 
(quoted from post at 02:15:42 03/21/10) This guy says that while the explosion may have happened , the truck in the pictures wasn't the truck in the explosion because of the way the cab is dented and pushed in or out. I don't know about that as I'm not an expert on explosions and their damage , but with what you guys know about acetylene and explosions, can you figure it out as to wheather or not it's true or not ? I'll let you guys argue it out. To me personally, I say that it could be true as I've seen a lot stranger things happen.


Whizkid

P.S. The reason that I found and posted this story is because while I was looking for a part to my welder, that I posted about on Tool Talk the other day at our local welding supply store , they had a paper posted about it.
Site That Disputes The Truck In The Pictures
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t is good that Frank Earl isn't a bomb forensics expert, because he would be a bad one. His so-called inconsistencies in the direction metal is stretched & bent are just plain incorrect & his talk about the velocity front comparisons between ANFO & Ox/acetylene are also backwards. ANFO is used in rock quarry mining BECAUSE the explosive/velocity front is SLOW and this is desirable so as to break & crack the rock, not spread/launch rock all over the country side.
I claim the truck looks correct for explosion claimed.
 
About 20 years ago there was a donkey of a mechanic. That filled an industrial oily rag firesafe garbage pail with oxy-acetylene.
Problem was this took place inside one of the Class III gas turbine backup power supply buildings at Bruce Nuclear.
The knuckle draggers set the mixture off......... BBBBOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM.
Lucky they didn't kill themselves. The flat steel lid from the garbage pail cut through the power cables and disabled the generator.
The report can still be found online.
 
last halloween some punks across town were setting off firecrackers. I took a 2 liter plastic pop bottle and drilled a hole in the cap and the bottom. Got torch running oxy/acet adjusted right, cut flame out ran oxy acet in bottle till full, quickly threw duct tape over the holes. took bottle outside on ground threw burning rag on it and ran.....massive loud explosion and heard the kids across the road yelling. seconds later cops come flying by like wtf happened?
 
A few years back some teens in town decided that the balloon bomb would be fun. They put them in farmers mail boxes with a string tied to them, they lit the string and it would smolder up to the balloon and set it off destroying the mailbox, after they were long gone. Well one night they had some balloons loaded up in the car and were driving around, one of the boys had a cigarett going and somehow it or a spark off of it touched a balloon inside the car..it blew out the back window, three kids had bad burns to their faces and any exposed skin area, one lost an ear drum and was in the hospital several days. The subsequent police investigation led to them paying for several new mail boxes in the area..not a smart or safe game.
 
I knew an elderly gentleman in a nearby small town that used to fill a balloon with oxy/accetylene and another with helium. He would then tie a jet-x fuse around the base of the oxy/accetylene balloon and tie the 2 together. After dark he would light the fuse and release them. Several UFO sightings were reported at times when he would do this. He was also about 1/2 mile from an air force base/municipal airport. The FAA investigated, but never caught him.
 
It's got a lot worse since ex-US Navy nuclear experts take taken over as management and advisors at the Bruce and in OPG.
It's one thing to be sneaking around the bottom of a Soviet harbour with a single PLWR. With a skeleton crew of transient minimum trained staff. With service performed by contractors in dry dock.
Compared to having four or eight civilian PHWR on the same site. With permanent intensively cross trained staff.
I used hold a confined space monitor ticket. Confined space gas tester. Radiation green man (top rate).Control tech with electrical, instrument and control ratings. Work protection holder of record. And full qualified firefighter captain, high angle rescue, hazmat, advanced 1st aid etc.
Most recently when some brain wave manager at the Bruce Site said to scared contract staff.. "You are supposed to follow orders instead of thinking". They dosed approx 200 people with internal Alpha radiation.
Ten years ago in those circumstances. A manager would have been told by the full time workers to go and “F” himself. And the manager would have been in trouble for trying to bypass rad safety regulations.
 
Our ag teacher used to show us that act. along will not "blow"up then he would add a tiny tiny bit of oxigen, then tie a long string to the ballon and drag it across the forge and KA--BOOM. would rattle all the windows in the ag shop. Our chemistry teacher would to the same basic thing with grain elevator dust. This was back in the late 1960's pobaly would get throwed in jail now.
 
That is one of the things that makes acetylene dangerous. It has about the wides range of explosive limits of any fuel we come in contact with, 2.5% to 82% acetylene in air will explode, where as natural gas and propane fall in the 2 to 15% range. Acetylene in liquid form can be set off at 100% by impact similar to nitro-glycerin.
 
Ag teachers used to do a lot of things didn't they? We blew a pond back in the woods behind the school using the same technique used in Oklahoma City. Blew logs above the trees and rattled windows in town 2 miles away. Gotta hand it to him,he mixed the stuff himself and didn't let anybody else in on the exact recipe. Probably something he learned in Special Forces in Korea.
 
almost went to work for Ontario Hydro after a short stint in american navy, glad i shipped out am further ahead, still wish i had a job ashore, but their former nukes are running Bruce!! oh boy talk about ... okay the ontario hydro traing program was way better than the american navy's version, theirs was assinnine & more about intimidation of people.
 
almost went to work for Ontario Hydro after a short stint in american navy, glad i shipped out am further ahead, still wish i had a job ashore, but their former nukes are running Bruce!! oh boy talk about ... okay the ontario hydro traing program was way better than the american navy's version, theirs was assinnine & more about intimidation of people.
 
I'd have to agree with you, JMOR. No expertise in these things whatsoever, but all the things the fellow points to as inconsistent, mostly parts bent inwards, are actually quite consistent with them being pulled inward by the puckering of the roof before the welds gave out. Just looking at the passenger side roof frame being bowed upward from the force of the explosion, as long as it stayed intact and attached to the A-pillar and the rear corner of the cab, the mere fact of it bowing upward would pull the two corners inward. Same applies to each spot he highlights.
 
When you get a violent explosion like that, unless you have a high speed camera, how can someone look at a picture and tell what happened? How does he know that the metal wouldn't have blown up and then be forced back down because it was still attached? It's not like vehicles are made with 1/2 inch plate. Dave
 
(quoted from post at 12:16:11 03/21/10) I'd have to agree with you, JMOR. No expertise in these things whatsoever, but all the things the fellow points to as inconsistent, mostly parts bent inwards, are actually quite consistent with them being pulled inward by the puckering of the roof before the welds gave out. Just looking at the passenger side roof frame being bowed upward from the force of the explosion, as long as it stayed intact and attached to the A-pillar and the rear corner of the cab, the mere fact of it bowing upward would pull the two corners inward. Same applies to each spot he highlights.
Click to expand...
ou are seeing the same things that I see that led me to say that he isn't a forensic expert.
 
Around here back in my younger days most kids and young people had what they called a potato gun . It was made with PVC and a ignitor from a Bar -B-Q grill . You just stuck a potato in one end , screwed the cap off of the other end and sprayed hair spray into the opening , replaced cap , aimed and pressed the ignitor. Here is a website that has plans to make a gun. Go to youtube and search for potato gun or spud gun for more information or to see one in action. I didn't watch the videos ,but I saw some on there.

Whizkid
Spud Gun Plans
 
Some people are so smart that they are stupid!!! In my mind Frank Earl fits this catagory. He goes on and on trying to prove his superior intellegence. I can visualize his 300 page brief on the dynamics of a hangman's noose, complete with crash dummey stats. I got sick of all his BS and didn"t see if he said what caused the distruction. Frank: post back in 25 words or less the cause of this distruction!!!!
 
Father-in-law was a welder. He filled a 1/2 gallon container with acetylene and oxygen and put it in his neighbor's 55 gallon trash container. The next time his neighbor burned his trash it went off and the trash shot burning trash 50 ft in the air. No one was hurt and Father-in-law didn't have to put up with his neighbor stinking up the air ever again.
 
(quoted from post at 15:03:18 03/21/10) Father-in-law was a welder. He filled a 1/2 gallon container with acetylene and oxygen and put it in his neighbor's 55 gallon trash container. The next time his neighbor burned his trash it went off and the trash shot burning trash 50 ft in the air. No one was hurt and Father-in-law didn't have to put up with his neighbor stinking up the air ever again.
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0 gallon trash bag full will put a refrigerator (big parts) above the tree tops & scatter the rest. Better be darn careful with such shenanigans! I could kill you
 
It was cr_p like that that kept me from learning to make a good bead in high school shop class. All of my weld beads had a "nervous" look.

They/we used firecrackers, casually and strategicly dropped while the arc was burning.

Paul
 
In about 1962, when I was a kid, I remember an acetelyne generator that blew up in one of our local blacksmith shops. I was on a bike about two blocks away, and I believe the ground must have shook. It blew both doors completely off the building, blew the windows out, ruffled the tin on the roof, and pitched the old blacksmith out in the front driveway. He survived, but had red skin burns everywhere that was uncovered. Burned his hair off where it wasn't covered by his cap, and eyebrows off where they weren't covered by his goggles. He used those little goggles that were seperate and had a small piece of chain over the nose, kinda like a lamp pull chain. His face looked like a clowns face - white around his eyes, and red everywhere else. There was no fire after the explosion - the fire truck came, but they just walked around looking at the damage. The smithy never opened back up for business.

I took welding classes at our local junior college, and the acetelyne instructor said, "If you're ever offered a job in a shop that still uses one of those acetelyne generators, RUN don't walk, away from that place."

We had another welding shop in our town that also used an acetelyne generator, and never had any mishaps that I heard of. I remember that it had a vent line that went outside the back of the shop. Don't know if the blown up shop had a vent.

Paul
 
My metal shop teacher did that same demonstration when my uncle was in school, but the year my uncle was in shop, it rained the day he planned to do the demo so he did it inside. The shop had no windows, so he had the class stand in the wash room and watch through its window into the shop. When the ringing in their ears died down they heard the office on the intercom asking if they were OK. They were afraid to come investigate til they got an answer over the intercom.
 
You bunch of pussys. Ever put a full oxygen bottle in a steel tube, set it at a 35 degree angle and knock the valve off with a hammer? It takes off like a missle. We usually dont find them because they go so far. Now that is a wild ride.
 
(quoted from post at 23:32:16 03/21/10) You bunch of pussys. Ever put a full oxygen bottle in a steel tube, set it at a 35 degree angle and knock the valve off with a hammer? It takes off like a missle. We usually dont find them because they go so far. Now that is a wild ride.
Click to expand...
do not believe you.
 
There are dozens of O2 bottles missing thier valves a mile or two out in Lake Huron. Just west of the old Bruce heavy water plant.
The guys in construction during the 1960's and 1970's were rather bold.
 
They don't have to say wtf anymore.. that is as good as a confession..
one more solved.. you are not anonymous.expect a visit.
 
2200lbs. of pressure or more coming out a small hole will propel an oxygen cylinder through almost 2 block walls. It was on mythbusters. The cylinders are pressed out of a solid piece of steel and have to be hydrotested every 5 or 10 years. Why do you think that is? I've heard of cylinders being found 2 miles away after they fell over and had the valve knocked off. Always have the safety cap on when moving full cylinders and chain them when in use. They can be like missles. Dave
 
From what I see, something hard was propelled into the roof, from inside the back seat. Might have been a tank. I doubt it was acetylene/oxygen mixture, cause when I did that one, when I was younger, and dumber, little bits of acetylene soot were propelled all over everything in the shop, and I see none in that truck's interior.
 
You didn't have your mix right. Light a torch on pure acetylene, see soot. Light a torch & set mix for proper welding or cutting flame, no soot. Mixed correctly there is no explosion smoke.
 
Everybody has "heard of".

"The cylinders are pressed out of a solid piece of steel and have to be hydrotested every 5 or 10 years. Why do you think that is?"

That's easy....so they won't shatter when busting thru cinder block walls!
 
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