Survival UK Forums

A handyman was killed when an empty oil drum exploded as he attempted to make a home made barbecue.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-new...-31498665/

Please read this guys and girls.
It seems so easy to convert oil drums and old gas containers to little stoves.
This is what happens though if you make a mistake.

This is quite common and I feel something preppers might consider doing, going to sticky this for that reason.

its a good idea to soak any sort of container that usuallly or has contained flammable fuel with water for a week or so!...not only will it get rid of contaminants but it will get make it so its less like to explode or catch fire on you

(30 July 2012, 06:33)Hrusai Wrote: [ -> ]its a good idea to soak any sort of container that usuallly or has contained flammable fuel with water for a week or so!...not only will it get rid of contaminants but it will get make it so its less like to explode or catch fire on you

A little word of caution Hrusai.
Some flammables ignore plain water.
If you want to use a drum for a BBQ, workshops I've worked at wash them out with industrial detergent / degreasant and hot water from a steam cleanser before cutting.
Even then it can get "interesting" if the contents were 'sticky' like fiberglass resins.
Gas cylinders are the same. Just filling them with water isn't enough as bubbles of gas sometimes "cling" to the sides. Steam cleaners rule once again.

In Mid East I've seen a simple solution:

Fill drum with sand, then cut with angle grinder.

I suppose the sand stops air getting in in sufficient volume to create an explosive mixture.

I won't be trying this at home anytime soon though!

On another forum the guy unscrewed the valve bit and left it alone for a week, then filled it with water and emptied refilled it again straight away, left it full of water for a few days and IIRC he did as much of the cutting and drilling as poss with a cordless tool whilst the bottle was still full of water.

I doubt he did all that. It wasn't explosives he was working on yet it exploded. It doesn't make sense. I suspect he may have left it open or washed it and emptied it but if it was full of water it wouldn't have exploded.

Who would cut into a drum full of water with electric tools anyway? He emptied it, the gas filled yp while he was cutting and boom. Unlucky.

this is why i leave this to guys who know what their doing!

A guy in the SBMCC used to fill the bottles with water for a few days then emptied and filled it with dry sand ??

I have done quite a few and the technique is well discussed amongst those that do it to weld new things up such as wood burners, BBQs and the like. Here is how:

1. Ensure the bottle is empty. Once it is 'empty', press the nipple in the valve for a couple of seconds. More gas may come out. Do this until no more is coming out. Obviously, do not vent it all on one go. Do it outside, give it no more than a few seconds blast and give it plenty of time for the gas to disperse. Know the gas you are working with, some linger, some sink, some float. Venting an LPG bottle in a bund is a bad idea as it is heavier than air and will linger.

2. Remove the valve. Sometimes they can be a pain to remove. I go at it with a Stilson. If I get no joy, a large brass drift and a blacksmith hammer. You can sit astride the bottle to hold it in place. I know people who strap them to fence posts. You do not want to end up like this:



3. Flip it upside down and walk away from it for a few days so any remaining gas can drain out. You can skip this step if you really want to, but I prefer to.

4. Fill with water and then cut open. When I say fill, I mean to the top. Then put the bottle on its side and begin to cut. Water and electricity are not friends, so take it easy. As the bottle is on its side and you are cutting it from above, water should be draining out of the valve hole, both taking water away from you and pulling air into the bottle rather than gas residue coming out of the hole you are cutting.

If you have drained the gas from the bottle and filled it with water then drained it, the bottle will not have enough flammable hydrocarbons in to make the bottle go up like a bomb - the worst you are going to get is a small flare off.

This only goes for gas bottles that have contained LPG propane / butane, not oil drums or drums containing other chemicals. When I have cut oil drums in the past, I have made sure they have plenty holes in them and cut through the thin steel first to open it up so if anything did catch fire, it would not explode.

I would not use any drums that had contained other chems.