Propane tank converted to air bladder... any comments?

[rback33]

Pat,
I too am sorry that the talk of the "BOO" prank brought back bad memories. That said, I don't think it quite fair to equate the two scenarios. You could have very easily been killed or at least very badly hurt by your "jokester", as would happen if fire was yelled in a theater. Shouting "boo" or clapping your hands at some nervous friends that is performing a perfectly safe function in which no harm can come unless he has some unknown medical condition. I come from a LONG line of jokesters that has had the doo scared out of me many times by my dad. The best thing is... my dad HATES snakes.... and u can pick rubber ones up anywhere....

Again, I am horrified he would have done that to you in such a precarious position. I am probably more so than most because I HATE dealing with electricity. I'll change outlets and do wiring things, but not unless the breakers are off... now my dad...he does them hot... he's nuts.

 

[patrick_g]

Pat,
I too am sorry that the talk of the "BOO" prank brought back bad memories. That said, I don't think it quite fair to equate the two scenarios. You could have very easily been killed or at least very badly hurt by your "jokester", as would happen if fire was yelled in a theater. Shouting "boo" or clapping your hands at some nervous friends that is performing a perfectly safe function in which no harm can come unless he has some unknown medical condition. I come from a LONG line of jokesters that has had the doo scared out of me many times by my dad. The best thing is... my dad HATES snakes.... and u can pick rubber ones up anywhere....

Again, I am horrified he would have done that to you in such a precarious position. I am probably more so than most because I HATE dealing with electricity. I'll change outlets and do wiring things, but not unless the breakers are off... now my dad...he does them hot... he's nuts.

I make no claim that my personal feelings that were engendered were appropriate. They were out of proportion to the stimulus which was certainly different as you said. The fault lies with me. But you see that is the way it works with people. Once you are sensitized/traumatized your response to a remotely similar stimulus may be definitely non-linear AND you can't help it, you have been "programed."

I like a good practical joke too but not to the point of getting someone hurt or killed. My retaliation to the Bozo never did him any physical harm (beyond pushing him toward a nervous breakdown.)

I'm the guy who when finding a bear raiding the trash can goes into the house hiting the doorbell on the way in and exclaiming, "honey, its for you."

I have redone a lot of switches and such with the power on and have the arc welded screwdrivers to show for it. I truly hate being shocked. I have met people who can kill an engine by laying their arm across the spark plugs or grabbing the plug on a lawn mower to kill it but NOT ME. Did I mention I HATE being shocked?

Although I hate being shocked (now) when I was a baby in a stroller I used to pick up bobby pins and jam them into the wall outlets, cry a while, and then go do it again (according to my mom.) Funny that a guy who has built powerful pulse LASER requiring large capacitors at 10-15 Kilivolts and has at times made a living doing electronic engineering (including portable welder projects) hates even the thought of being shocked.

I built a tube type stereo preamp once with a brushed aluminum front panel which when lightly touched sort of felt like a low level shock but was actually a texture thing. I spent some time trying to find why it was shocking me when it wasn't.

One of my worst experiences was drawing RF sparks out of a metal microphone into my lips when running high power on a ham rig on my sailboat. Ham radio can be worse. When releiving ones self over the transom while sailing along and using the back stay to hold onto with one hand to stabilize yourself from the swaying motion and having someone key down on the transmitter that is using the back stay for an antenna and your personal conductive liquid stream completes the circuit to the ocean.... Oh well, it is a shocking experience or so I have heard. Haven't experienced it myself, I just spoke into the mike.

Pat

 

[Jstpssng]

Thanks for all the comments and input. Although I've made no comments I've been checking in regularly... I'm going to err on the side of caution and retire my tank.

On the subject of practical jokes I've learned over the years not to invade someone's "space". A former boss told me once that a coworker came up and jabbed him in the ribs; he instinctively swung off and broke the guys nose then went OH< S***. (They had a fun time making a story up for THAT worker's comp claim)

Years ago when working at a factory I reached around a coworker (who was a Vietnam vet)to pick up a pair of scissors; he said "DON'T do that again... 10 years ago you'd be dead!!!"


Being rather jumpy myself, I can ID with both of the above.


Thanks again for the comments and input.

R

 

[Mighty Dodge]

The potato guns I've seen are either powered by ether or lighter fluid. The nozzle on my tank is threaded in. I could put a larger one on for potatoes or tennis balls perhaps......hmmmmm.

M.D.

 

[patrick_g]

The potato guns I've seen are either powered by ether or lighter fluid. The nozzle on my tank is threaded in. I could put a larger one on for potatoes or tennis balls perhaps......hmmmmm.

M.D.

Lighter fluid? Ether? How wimpy! Charge the chamber with oxygen and acetylene from your welding rig. Shove the load (tennis ball, potato, whatever) way in to exclude air (messes with fuel air ratio) and introduce copious quantities of O-A (at the ratio that burns the best) into the chamber. You'll get a bang out of it!

There was a guy at a muffler shop in San Diego on University Ave who used to launch used golf balls that way. He set the elevation and azimuth of his rig for an Outdoor Advertising billboard a block and a half away with an open field behind for just in case. That thing would be lethal if aimed at a person up close.

Pat

 

[pat32rf]

If anyone is serious about using a freon or propane tank it is not a big job to hydrostat them using water a valve and a pressure gauge....plus a heat source. Used to do it all the time on water tanks that we repaired.

 

[Tom_Veatch]

... it is not a big job to hydrostat them using water a valve and a pressure gauge....plus a heat source. ...

Just be darned sure you don't have any trapped air/expansion space inside the tank. Otherwise you may be looking at a steam explosion if the tank happens to fail the test.

 

[VA_Joe]

I used to do this with freon tanks until I got an HD pick-up. Problem is that the tanks are too small to work a truck tire needing 50PSI. Sears sometimes has the 10 gallon tanks on sale for $20. These work much better for the occasional top-off of the truck tires (i.e. without having to drag a line out). Also - when you consider the cost difference ($10 for the connectors to convert a tank vs. $20 for the craftsman tank) - I find it hard to justify (although I do think it's completely safe to use them for this purpose).

My two cents.

Joe

 

[gemini5362]

Pat I am going to reply to a couple of your posts. In case you were not joking and dont know. They make a device for setting the bead on tires when you cannot get them to set normally. I have priced them and they are fairly expensive the homemade device he has would do the job just as well I believe and should be a lot cheaper to make.


I had the other experience from your electrical scare. When I was in college we were building a radio from scratch. The instructor told us to use a muti tap transformer that he had. What he forgot to tell us that one of the secondarys was 568 volts. We were doing some tests and I saw my lab partner clap his hands together and start shaking them. I was going to really chew him out when I realized that he was not joking around. I just took my arm and swept the chasis off of the table into the floor to disconnect it quickly. When the instructor heard the noise he came running up to see what happened I told him and then he realized my partner had gotten hold of the high voltage leads. Luckily for him when the current hit him his hands slapped together and it went through his thumbs. He had nice little black holes on the outside of them. My partner went home and for the rest of that lab he was a much more careful person.

 

[6sunset6]

I might as well jump in with the Law of Unintended Consequences. Our safety engineers are very fond of talking about secondaries.
I have a really good example.I has a pager set to vibrate because where I was there was a lot of noise. One of the things we do with new equipment installs ,before powering up is tug on all the line wires to make sure the compression connections are tight. I knew power was off, I could see the main knife switch. 480v. I had the control cabinet open and was tugging on the 480 lines. Just has I pulled one my boss paged me. What do you think your brain does when you feel a vibration when your finger is hooked around a 480 line. I jumped about 10 feet. I was really lucky I was not on a ladder.
Every one ,including the safety guys still laughs about that one today.