Welding tanks and steam myth .

[gordyy]

welding even by a flamable tank can be a funky buisness
back in 1978 I was working at a service station and did a lot of trailer hitch work , we bought parts for reciever hitches tubes down arms etc, that we mixed and matched to make a trailer hitch for most any vehicle.
was spoting the arms on under the car by the frame ( about an inch from the gas tank) my brother came home from out of state decided to scare me and thru an M-80 into the empty truck pit in the stall next to me.
Needless to say he got the desired crap my pants reaction plus the fact that I jumped and stuck the rod right thru the tank a small flare up when it blew the tank bottom out, then a lot of yelling for someone to kill the welders power as I stood there not real sure how deep my rod was in the tank.
some days a guy just gets luckier than others

I used to weld a lot of service tanks for the farmers up but they always had to take them to the radiator shop first he would rinse them and then I would weld them up never had a problem with them
have heard of a lot of people even filling a diesel tank up with water and it going boom though

 

[Eagleview]

I read , years ago , about a guy who was making a burn barrel out of a 205 litre/50 US gallon oil drum . He had the top cut 3/4's of the way around , the hot swarf was landing in the little puddle of left over oil in the bottom . A combustible gas was the result of this , it went boom . The top swung around as the barrel deformed and it cut him off at waist height , he was on life support for 3 days but perished . In my opinion , no container that has had hydrocarbons stored in it should have hot work done on it unless the very stringent procedures spoken of here earlier are followed to the letter . Life's short enough now ,

 

[washita]

my friends dad used to weld on fuel tanks etc his son told me several stories that would make a normal person weak in the knees, and the old timer is still alive and ornery as ever one fuel tank in particular went 100 foot when he flashed off the tank spraying water like a toy water rocket

 

[DieselPower]

I have torch brazed a few gas tanks over the years and never had even a fizzle. The key to being alive when the job is done is to get all the oxygen out of the tank. I flush them with a caustic soda solution, fill it with water and then stick a hose off of my nitrogen gas tank into it and leave it on. After about 2 minutes of pumping nitrogen into the water filled tank I start brazing. First off by filling the tank with water I have removed almost all the air in the tank and by then keeping a steady flow of nitrogen into the tank I can be sure that any small amount of oxygen that was still in the tank has been diluted so much by the inert gas that combustion inside the tank is impossible. It all comes down to properly using that round thing that lies upon your sholders to make a safe judgment call.

 

[greenmule]

Yeah,I've done simular things[in past],but now,even though I know more,wouldn't even try it or be around anybody else "trying" it.
Its like defusing a bomb,even though you know how,things can and will go wrong.
[Used to jump out of airplanes too,and even though I would consider that safer than welding on a gas tank,wouldn't want to do that again either].