On 2011-09-17, dadiOH wrote:
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.


A veces tienes suerte (sometimes you get lucky). Maybe because gasoline is
more volatile than diesel?

I would list these reasons:

1) It is more volatile and had enough time and heat to escape most
fumes.
2) 1/2 inch space above water, does not create enough room for a big
conflagration
3) Your neighbor probably embelished things a bit about how much he
purged the barrel
4) Solid oily gunk may have been left in the barrel, and it evaporated
due to heat and then exploded.

i