BLO spontaneous combustion

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kevrob

kevrob

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So the CA/BLO thread got me thinking about this again. I have a good friend who used to refinish antiques. He warned me about spontaneous combustion issues with BLO. When he worked with large amount of BLO finishing in the past, they would pile up BLO soaked rags and wait for them to combust. I have also read this can be an issue online.

Of course, he told me that in front of my wife, who now thinks my pen hobby will burn down the house. My thinking is that the small amount of BLO we work with while finishing a pen is not really much of an issue. Has anyone had a problem with this and/or do you all take special precautions to assure you properly dry the BLO soaked rags before disposing of them or do you just toss them in the trash as I tend to do?
 
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YES it ABSOLUTELY is real and a real danger. I have seen it first hand on 2 different occasions and it is not just BLO, it is anything with a drying oil in it such as oil based stains, etc.

I am a custom builder and my painter burned down an almost finished home a number of years ago because of spontaneous combustion of stain rags. Fortunately, it was not one of the homes I was building but it burned it completely to the foundation. Complete loss.

On a personal level, I was working with some BLO in my shop a couple of years ago. I had laid out my BLO rags flat on the concrete floor to dry and left. My helper came in and saw the "trash" on the floor and decided to put it in the trash can where I certainly intended it to go! We left for a job site and when I got back, I opened the overhead door to drive in to the end of the shop and the entire place was filled with smoke. I ran in (I know, should not run INTO a burning building) and found the plastic trashcan where he threw the rags completely melted in a pool of liquid plastic, still burning. The leg of my workbench was actually burning as well. I grabbed an extinguisher and put it all out and cleared out the smoke. Fortunately, no permanent damage and the smoke smell went away quickly. Thankfully I had a short day that day and got home early. Had we been out a couple of hours longer, my workbench would have gone up in flames along with other part of my shop most likely.

DO NOT MESS WITH OILY RAGS! If you use them, lay them out flat on the floor and let them dry. Then you can throw them away. As long as they are laying flat, they can not generate enough heat to combust.
 
I don't use enough blo to worry about that, but I do use Watco Danish oil quite a bit. That stuff has so much accelerator in it it will go off pretty consistently. I don't bother drying them and throwing them away, ect. I just tear off a square of old tea towel (I get them when they get too thin to dry dishes with) and apply the finish, and when I'm done, hang it on the end of a spare welding rod, scrap of wood or anything else over about a foot long and light it off. Disappears into almost nothing with a whoosh, no worries about it happening later. Plus the kids get a kick out of it if they happen to be hanging around.
 
Thats what i do, i never throw any oil,stain,paint,polish,solvents, into trash. I lay them out on the concrete floor till they are completly dry. Then i take them out of shop and put them in bag and place them in a very shady part of the yard out of the way and put a rock on top of them so they don`t blow away. My trash comes twice a week so there is never a lot, maybe one plastic grocery bag. I learned that in the army, one of those wood barracks at Fort Knox burned to the ground because of rags saturated with wax they used to spit shine those wood floors back in 1965.
 
Be careful with the handling and disposal of the rags used to apply linseed oil. The oil itself is not a problem, however the solvents used to thin the linseed oil are highly flammable and combustible. Allow rags to thoroughly dry on a non-flammable surface (such as a concrete block), or washed, or soaked with water before placing in the garbage. Solvents can generate heat through an exothermic reaction with the air (oxidation), and this reaction accelerates as the rags get hotter, and this has been known to start unintended fires.
 
Why are you people even keeping them in the shop or basement. They belong outside. I hang mine on a fence till dry and them throw them away. I guess for some I should mention it is a chainlink metal fence with no plastic strips:smile: Boy you never know.:smile:
 
Wow! I am glad I asked. I thought it wasn't an issue since I use so little at a time, but I guess not...thanks for the feedback and stories!
 
All the little strips I use with BLO I toss into a small metal bucket that sits in the middle of the shop floor. Any previous rags that are dry come out before any new stuff goes in and if there is a lot going in I add water too!
 
Crickett said:
When I was using the BLO/CA method I ALWAYS put my paper towels in a bucket of water, better to be safe than sorry.
Click to expand...

Ditto, I have a bucket of water, and ALL cloth that has had CA/BLO/WATCO or any thing else goes in the bucket. Nothing to worry about!!
 
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