Help my heads on fire and other shop attrocities

We haven't had one of these threads in awhile and rather than bring up an old one I think a new one is in order.

It probably isn't going to be as funny unless you were there but I'll start.

Yesterday I was laying under a '48 Lincoln welding a patch on the bottom side of the rocker panel. My granddaughter was there being fire watch. All at once the girl is down beating me about the head and shoulders. I smell this stench and she squeals at me, " Grandpa your heads on fire!"

Well she got it put out and I am not the worse for wear, but I don't have split ends any more.

So what exciting is happening in your neck of the woods. Come on be honest.

 

I set a honda and my pants on fire the same week.

 

my pants and pjs several times...

 

I am looking out towards my shop and the lovely hedges along the side of the building. One of them is considerably smaller than the others. A few years ago, I had a "holfd my beer and watch this" moment, and decided to show the grandkids how I could blow a stump out of the ground. I put a nice amount of explosives..don't ask..under the stump, and we moved a safe distance away. Boom, and the stump shuddered, and settled down right where it had been. During the explosion, flames and sparks shot out from under the stump and caught one of the bushes on fire. The kids were laughing their asses off while Pap ran around like a chicken with his head cut off.

I'll tell you how I ran over myself some other time.

 

Frayed cuffs on my jeans have been the cause for an exciting moment or two...plus, I lit my hair on fire once in 1989, but I was doing something illegal at the time, so we won't get into that.

 

Ha, I was going to blow a beaver dam for a friend with fertilizer, that was before Tim McVey. Pretty much the same outcome as your stump, without the fire. Lots of wood went up and lots of wood came back down. next day the little buggers were out there slapping mud on it again.

 

I used to work at a bodyshop that required you to wear a company supplied white starched shirt and grey slacks. I was welding a frame rail on an off topic subaru (laying flat on my back welding the underside) when I found out that white starched shirts are highly flammable. Luckily I had my cotton long johns on underneath the shirt, but I must have looked a sight trying to slap out the flames with only about 6 inches of room between me and the underside of that car. It burned an 8 inch hole in my shirt and scorched the long johns. The company decided to change back to coveralls after that......

 

Anyone who has ever witnessed anything I've worked on has seen their fair share of atrocities.

 

I moved into my house shortly before the holidays 20 years ago.
In the garage, was a large pot belly wood stove for heat.

After the holidays, I had the brilliant idea of cutting the Christmas tree up and burning it instead of setting it on the curb for trash pick up like the normal people did.

So I drag the thing out to the garage, cut it up and shoved it into the stove.
Lit it, stood back a moment, then Whoosh! OMFG! It was roaring!
I ran outside and look up to see flames coming out of the top of the chimney pipe!
Wasn't much I could do but crap my drawers and prey it would die down quickly! Which it did.
I thought I was going to lose my garage.

 

Worked at a restoration shop in Florida, one of our customers had driven his car(small late 50's Fiat) from Florida to Arizona and back....wanted us to check out the car upon his return, crawled underneath and was soon set upon by a family of scorpions he'd picked up along the way, I actually managed to knock the car off the jackstands climbing out from under it.

 

The other day I was welding a quick patch with out my apron. Well a fairly large chunk of slag burned through my jeans and instead of just standing up and letting it fall out. I rolled it around under the jeans thinking this would help. I think I created a picture of Elvis on my skin.

 

Haha I wish I could remember all the dumb things I have done over the years,but the most recent was doing a bunch of grinding and I saw some extra light around the edge of my mask...then I felt the heat.... ahhh my crotch was on fire !! Didnt think I could still move that fast!

 

It was a Friday night and I had just finished rebuilding my Bike.I was so happy everything had gone right and it was on the bench running while I looked for leaks and made adjustments.Suddenly there was a loud screech and the motor stopped.As I looked over to see what had happened,I notice the oil cans.I had forgotten to put oil in.Junked the cam and head.

 

I posted a few of my own on one of the other threads, this is one I witnessed, involving my brother. My brother used to have this big, stupid, hapless, friendly dog named Patsy. Patsy was a springer spaniel/black lab/rotty cross, dumb as a post, and sweet as pie. He used to play this game with her, where he would put on this one particular raggedy old sweater, and she would grab ahold of the sleeve and pull on it and they would growl at each other. When the sweater went on, that meant "game on".
One weekend I was over at his place, and he said he was going to change the oil in his truck. I was kind of surprised when he came out of the house wearing "the sweater", but I didnt say anything. Patsy immediately sat up, and I saw her ears go forward, but she didnt make her move until AFTER my brother slid under the truck. Once he was laying under the truck, tools in hand, she made her move. So my brother is flat on his back under the truck, completely defenseless, Patsy has his sleeve in her teeth, legs braced, pulling for all shes worth ( she was a BIG dog,about 80lbs) and my brother is yelling "damn it Patsy, NOT NOW! NOT NOW! LET GO YA STUPID DOG!" and I am laughing so hard I damn near pissed myself.
Afterwards, I asked him what the hell he was thinking when he put "the sweater" on to change his oil. He said "I wasnt, I was just looking for something scruffy and old to put on. I just forgot." Funny as hell, I'm still laughing just thinking about it 15 yrs later.

 

i was grinding on some steel from a muffler clamp on my daughter's Corvette so she was keeping me company. I always wear bib overalls and wasn't wearing my leather apron. Se seemed quite alarmed and then even more amused as the front pocket on the overalls caught fire. Luckily I was wearing my welding gloves and could just pat it out.

 

Gotta couple of stories, both involve a close friend (from High School) back in the 80's --- the first involved a 64 Plymouth Belvedere that I had bought for the drive train (this should make you sick, it was a two door hardtop and the reason they stopped driving it was a broken side glass), it hadn't been driven in quite awhile so we had it in my new shop to check it out. I was out of town for a meeting so my friend Don decided to work on it. It wouldn't start so he figured the fuel pump was toast so we had a little plastic tank we could use as a gravity feed fuel source. He had pulled a plug to check for spark laid it on the valve cover. Started turning it over, the engine caught, the fuel pump started working pumping gas on the exposed plug. Lucky there was a water hydrant next to the car, scared the crap out of him though! The second time we almost burned up the shop we had a bunch of plastic covers off of several fluorescent light fixtures and Don thought they'd make a little extra heat in the woodburner so we chucked a couple in the wood burner. Once they caught the stove pipe turned cherry red and it sounded like a tornado as it was sucking air. I shut down the draft as tight as I could get it and we breathed a lot easier after about 20 minutes. We still laugh about that, and we were old enough to know better

 

with over 20+ years of welding under my belt,i could begin tell how many time i started my ass on fire,or some FANG starting their ass on fire,i'm well trained in the smell of burning cotton!
one of my first WTF moments was when i was around 13,in a South Dakota ground blizzard, some jack wagon came into the yard where i worked wanting a tranny out of a car{RIGHT NOW!} so i get elected to go fetch it so i get the bright idea to use a concrete saw with a fiber blade to cut it out-the car is on it side.
about 5 minutes into i smell burning cotton--look down & my crotch is in flames without thinking i start to smacking my junk--yep right in the nuts! when i get back to the office every body is pissing themselves!even the guy who wanted the tranny,he asks 'where my tranny?'--my answer
FCK YOU!go get it yourself!
they said they sat & watched the whole damn show from the safety of the office,& were taking bets on what i would do to screw it up. BASTARDS!

 

I have an old kitchen stove in the shop for heating castings and curing paint, pies and muffins lol. I found that if you turn it on warm and shut it off it works good to warm up cold spray cans. Get them a little warm and they spray great!! Well one day I cranked the oven on to 425 preheating it for a pizza. Turns out I forgot a paint can was in there and blew the door off. The door hit a steel table, but it had enough force I think it would have went at least 10 feet!! Got a new (used) oven now....

Glad to here you're ok. You head is the worst possible place you want severe burns!!

 

I was young and cool, got of work at the pizza joint. The cherry of my ciggie fell off and went into the seat where the cover wasnt but the padding was. I had 10 miles to go to civilazation. By the tome I got there the whole seat was ON FIRE and I was driving from the passenger side. the Chevron station was the first water source and I went for it. The radiator water worked fine. Then I'm pointed to a sign that said "Gas leak,CLOSED" Good times.

 

This happened at a buddy's machine shop. I walked in one day and he's in the back working on his compressor, which is running. He's crouched down next to it, stands up and whooossss... there goes his shirt!

The tail got caught in the belt and it tore it off his back, popped all the buttons in like 1/8th of a second. He's a big guy, so he wasn't close to getting pulled in. It comes up in conversation now and then when we discuss compressors.

Bob

 

One more quick one. I'm working on a 396 Chevy which is on my engine stand tearing it down. One cylinder head was being difficult and I put a hammer handle in one of the intake ports and give it a big pry. The head comes off and falls right on my feet.

I'm standing there waiting for the extreme pain and thinkin' of who can take me to the ER... then I realize that the head had landed on 2 big coffee cans that I was dropping hardware into. I was standing right between them, talk about close.

Bob

 

I was putting four new tires on an O/T jeep cherokee with my cousin. We had the jeep on four jack stands in the yard so we could get all four tires done at once. It had two flats and we only had one spare otherwise we would have driven it to the shop. When we were putting the new ones on I had the tire in front of me, legs under the car, lifting it onto the lugs. My cousin pushed hard on his side and it fell off all four jack stands. Luckily I was able to move my legs out in the nick of time. (Thank God!) the rest of the afternoon was spent digging the yard up to jack the axles up enough to put them on. Next time I will just make two trips to the tire store and take a max of two tires off at a time. Lesson learned

 

I slipped and fell a few months back. She's due in June!

 

Just because you can fit a mamoth smoke bomb in a flare launcher does not mean you should do it. I have a big spot by my stash od frames and body parts that is gonna be real green this spring.... Oh well it was fun ... until it came to firefighting with a shovel

 

My son has a shirt that says "All my mommy wanted was a back rub"

I feel for you breeder, accidents happen.....you gotta watch where you're falling, and you should make it a habit to wear pants next time.

 

When you got that helmet down and you catch a glimpse of too much light around you , FIRE. If you feel something unusually warm on your leg or crotch area, FIRE. If you want some fun wear some cut off jean shorts, with the little strings hanging, and start welding. You will do the hot crotch dance.

 

I prolly should. Would make my trips to Walmart less eventful.

 

My brother had a 68 vw that he rolled, the engine was recently rebuilt so we pulled it
and he found a 64 to swap it into. It is not a boltin- the trans case has to be ground
among other changes. We spent days working on getting everything ready than go to
install it. I was under the car aligning everything, he was doing something- prob getting
something off the wreck, and his girlfriend was helping. She turned the jack handle and the engine started moving down right onto my chest- I kept telling her to turn the handle
clockwise and pump the handle but she kept turning it counterclockwise. My bro finally
showed up- said he could not believe I was still calmly telling her to turn the handle
clockwise. She still talks about the day she lowed an engine on to her brother in laws chest, yes the got married 10 years later and have been married for 25 years now.

She is also the one I had installed a bay window in her kitchen in Nov- had to reframe the opening, husling to get the new window in by nightfall. Got it in, aligned the window head with the other windows and came back the next day to finish it. My bro was sitting at the table and would not look at me so I knew... sure enough she walks in and complains the window is too high. We took it out, reframed it again, put the window
back in and asked her to ok it. She sits down, says perfect- now I can see the birdfeeder. I turned around the birdfeeder hung from a rope- I could have just raised it.
Jim

 

I hope you got your pants put out!