"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message
...
Per Meat Plow:
Might have started out very small
and once the plastic burned enough it made more contaminants that caused
more arcing and so forth.

A vicious cycle... I like it.

But it begs a question that popped up as soon as I saw the
paddle: are some metals ok tb within a microwave oven?

I'm guessing the metal paddles are alu.


Where you run into trouble is when two pieces of metal are too close
together, especially if they have sharp corners. A potential develops
between them and it arcs. Isolated pieces of metal are generally ok, so long
as they're not too big.