I hadn't been in the metal cabinet that I store chemicals in for a while, but for about a week I've been smelling a faint whiff of something whenever I opened the garage doors. It turns out that there was a leak from a new gallon of Ospho that spread to new cans of Acetone, Denatured Alcohol and Boiled Linseed Oil and ate the bottoms of the cans. The Ospho melted the paint on the shelf it was on and ran down to the bottom shelf where it appears that it ate the rust on the bottom of the cabinet. It then spread to the garage floor. I don't have any idea of what caused the puncture in the Ospho jug, probably it went into the cabinet like that. Maybe I set it down next to something sharp while re-arranging the other items on the shelf. However it happened, I learned a valuable lesson today and all it cost me was the Acetone, Alcohol and Linseed oil and some cleanup time. It could have been much worse, I could have had to write off the '48 coupe, the '29 RPU, a load of parts and the garage.
That opening in the bottle looks like it might be just material containing the Ospho failed because of the lack of density in the bottom of the container? I have noticed a lot of plastic type containers being much thinner in density than once was the norm. When opening a single serve water bottle they will easily collapse in one's hand and water will gush out. Also, the water bottles will not stand upright very well.
I recently picked up a flammable storage cabinet. I've been storing my aerosol and paints and ospho and chemicals in a wooden garage wall cabinet for years and recently found a brand new sealed plastic bottle of denatured alcohol had burst a hole in the cap. The plastic bottle was bloated and even with the pressure released, the bottle stayed in that bloated form. I can't imagine it got so hot or cold in that cabinet being along the wall that backs to the interior hallway, and the highest temperature in my garage has probably only been in the mid 90's, and that was last year. Anyway, in order to try to save the house/garage from a total collapse by fire, I invested in a flammable cabinet for some peace of mind.
Whatever you do be careful of the linseed oil and rags, or sawdust. Rags soaked in linseed oil will burst into flames in less than an hour if just thrown into an open wast basket.
I have my old chemical crap (that I haven't gotten rid of yet) in a vintage frig (that I haven't gotten rid of yet) out in the hot sun.
I agree that seems like an awfully light-duty jug for such a dangerous chemical to come in. Glad you caught it before it did even more damage.
Thanks for posting this. We should all take inventory of our chemicals now that we have been warned. Scary. I never liked attached garages. I saved my unattached garage and cars a few years ago when I entered back into it for no apparent reason to find it full of smoke from a stuck on voltage regular. Burnt up the whole charging system.
I have noticed that a lot of plastic chemical containers, probably because they are thin, or possibly because they are made from recycled plastic, seem to go brittle in a very short amount of time. I store that stuff in the garden shed, away from the house. Some is put on a deep stainless steel tray, just in case. If I go away for a while, I also put all of my power tool batteries in the same shed, as I have heard of too many horror stories about those.
Well I don’t know about you guys but I’m going out to the garage to check and see if I have any issues and where I can put a chemical cabinet
That is a good catch most of us are storing our chemicals on a shelf or regular cabinet. I have tons of paint, reducers, hardeners, and everything else that goes with a paint job. I’m going to look at some explosion proof cabinets to put in the spot all my shelves are that’s storing the stuff now. I guess I’ll look at Eastwood or Autobody Toolmart which I’ve bought a lot from and had good luck
I decided long ago that acids and explosive liquids need to be in a separate portable building -over there-. if it wants to burn it wont hurt much
When I was working we had about a case of NAPA starting fluid in a cabinet. The good stuff, ether! Every time I open the cabinet I smelled ether. I finally realized one of the cans had rusted through and was leaking. That’s very difficult to dispose of I found out. Tried to discharge all of them outside and almost passed out! Super flammable as you know!
Me too. That's it. Out to one of the sheds with the volatile stuff. Paint is one thing... can't let it freeze. But am I right in thinking that most of the dangerous stuff won't freeze? So it can be kept in an unheated shed through the winter?
I checked. Just as I hoped. The chemicals and stuff we're talking about won't freeze until reaching temperatures way way lower than we'll ever encounter. Like -50 to -100 F.
I thought we had stricter laws about shipping hazardous materials that they wouldn't be in such thin containers.
My buddy had an old fridge sitting outside the shop that he kept paint and other chemicals in for years. No cost at the time although when they sold the place I think they had to pay a fee to get rid of it;.
I had a plastic bottle of acid wash up high in a trigger bottle leak up and out the trigger onto a tin of glue. Reached up to get the glue not realised the depressed centre of the tin was full of acid . Luckily the hot rod gods were looking after me and it missed my eyes. Yikes.!!! No more acid wash in a trigger bottle for me.
The Jalopy Journal
