On Sat, 17 Sep 2011 10:06:44 -0500, Ignoramus8416
wrote:

On 2011-09-17, dadiOH wrote:
Jon Danniken wrote:
dadiOH wrote:
willshak wrote:
Actually, propane scares the **** out of me.

It does the same to a lot of people and yet all those people think
nothing about riding around for hours on top of 10-20 gallons of
gasoline.

The gasoline itself isn't that dangerous, it's the air and fuel vapor
mixture in the tank that is the explosive part. They build bombs
using that concept, and they are the most powerful bombs made short
of a nuke.
Jon

Yeah, the vapor.

Along about 1966 I was living on my boat in Ala Wai Harbor in Honolulu.
Just across the channel was Ala Wai Marine...a marine store, drydock, fix
anything place. It was the fourth of July and the marina was closed but one
of the employees was busy doing something directly across from me. Maybe
60-70 yards away. All of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion (and
fire ball) and the guy was dead.

The owner of the marina was a friend of mine and I later talked to him about
the accident. Turned out the guy had been grinding on an old barrel that
had once contained diesel fuel. The barrel had been long empty and had been
filled with water and emptied numerous times - may have been filled with
water at the time, don't recall - but there were still enough vapors left to
explode from the sparks when he cut through with the grinder.


I recently brazed a gasoline tank with no problems. My solution was to
let it dry for a few weeks under the sun, and fill it with water
almost all the way, up to 1/2" away from the top. Nothing happened.


What kind of tank?
I tried soldering the leaking gas tank seam of a 1976 Chevy Caprice in
1981. Maybe a 20 gallon tank.
Emptied it, put it on the ground and did 3 full fill-agitate-rinse
cycles with detergent laced water, then filled again as much as I
could to solder the seam. Probably 80% full. I could barely detect a
very slight gas smell.

As soon as I put the torch on the seam it exploded flame a yard out
the big sender unit hole. It was quite a bang and knocked me on my
ass.
Lucky I didn't blow my head off.
Went to the boneyard and a got a perfectly good tank for 20 bucks.
Until I stapled my finger 25 years later, trying to solder that tank
was my record for stupidity.
Not knocking your success, but you'll never find me putting heat on a
fuel tank again.

--Vic