First rule in welding, if you smoke, get a zippo.
That being said....I think the exploding lighter deal is BS. Never seen it happen. I have burned holes in them before, thrown them in fires, etc., and have yet to see one do anything other than produce a long flame.

 

I used to be quite a pyro when I was a kid. Butane lighters would either erupt into a good size fireball( about the size of a basketball) or it may explode with about the force of a good firecracker. I could see some serious burns and maybe shards of plastic spearing into the skin, but I highly doubt it would blow someone's leg clean off.

 

There is the same amount of force in a Butane lighter when it explodes as there is in
approximately three (3) sticks of dynamite.

Not even close! Whoever wrote that just doesn't understand physics, math or chemistry.
Butane doesn't even explode in the same sense that nitroglycerin or other true explosives do; a mix of it plus air undergo a very rapid burning under normal circumstances. Also, the amount of energy contained in the small lighter is considerably less than that contained in a single stick of even low-powered dynamite.
Just 'cause you see it on the internet, (or even in a newspaper or magazine) does not mean it's correct or true.

 

Yes you are correct!!

 

Myth busters tried this and couldn't get it to work.

 

HaHa! What a load of crap!
Common sense fails you.

3 sticks of dynomite... Please.

 

Hey I did not write this I just quoted it all from some info that was sent to me.
I have not heard of this before.
Wondered if you guys had !
Judging by responses no one has

 

I was told the myth was started by a boss who didn't like people smoking on the job.
But it's still just a myth.

 

I had a Bic brand lighter explode but I was not welding. I was living in a small cabin at the time which had a propane space heater in the bathroom. Said heater was near the bathtub and I had laid my cigarettes, lighter and ashtray on top of the heater, as I had done all summer long, while I was taking a bath. It was no longer summer and I had just lit the heater and ran a tub full of hot water. I was not looking at the time of the explosion, in fact I had laid back in the tub to get my hair wet. Sounded like a shotgun went off in the bathroom, and I did see the flash through closed eyelids. The lighter case had split but was still right near the heater. There were no scorch marks on the wall or heater and no plastic shards. It was noisy and bright, and I never laid another lighter on that heater but there were no injuries or even minor damage as a result of the explosion. Still, I always carried a Zippo after that, if nothing else that butane was very noisy when the lighter split open. Quit smoking a little over 2 years ago so I no longer carry a lighter at all.

 

It appears that some of the lower writing in post #1 was yours; if you'd use quotes, or set things off with lines or something, it would be easier to tell what is your writing and what is the copied original.
I guess you found out what we think about the story! :laugh: No harm in askin'! :drinkup:

 

See what Snopes says... http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/lighters.asp

 

I have heard about one set of circumstances where a disposable lighter can do massive damage. Long before I became a weldor, I did some industrial cleaning. This one aluminum foundry, when you go through security you have to hand over any butane lighter you may have. Zippos are okay, or they'll even give you matches. The rumor is that some disgruntled employees used to toss butane lighters into the remelt furnaces which are full of liquid aluminum, resulting in a large explosion and a ruined batch of product.

 

when combined with other things, a butane lighter can be the start of a big problem, depending on USE.

on its own? see video and note Blender's condition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGPsBz-Xte8

 

. . . see video and note Blender's condition. . .

The blender looks fine to me, all I saw was a quick fireball, no flying parts.

But the video looks rigged to me.
How would the butane fueled flame escape through the bottom of the sealed blender cup?
While not even blowing the lid off of the cup?
I'm not buying it.

Good Luck

 

and injury may perhaps be burns and/or loss of clothes...

 

The blender looks fine to me, all I saw was a quick fireball, no flying parts.

But the video looks rigged to me.
How would the butane fueled flame escape through the bottom of the sealed blender cup?
While not even blowing the lid off of the cup?
I'm not buying it.

Good point.
Maybe they used [an already broken] one from the Goodwill?

 

"The blender looks fine to me, all I saw was a quick fireball, no flying parts."

I did not think of the difference between burning an intact lighter casing vs the blender method. but my point was that the blender is almost unharmed... stick of TNT indeed!


Now, as I see it, what happened in the blender video is:

lighter in blender is smashed to bits, releasing butane.

butane evaporates, seeps out of jar and may have been ignited by the (presumably Brushed) motor, resulting in a quick flash fireball. and if you look, not all fuel in the jar appears to have burnt and keeps burning at the end of the vid.

I suspect the fuel took a bit to leave the jar and light, and it probably vaporized more slowly in the jar.

igniting an intact lighter would be more of a bang, but nowhere near bad enough to dismember anyone...

 

I saw that episode, it was a handful of lighters.
According to the rumor it should have been the same as a dozen sticks of dynamite, or is it in the kiloton range by now ?

 

According to the rumor it should have been the same as a dozen sticks of dynamite, or is it in the kiloton range by now ?

Do you realize that the 'flints' are really made of "Mischmetal(*)" and composed of rare earths, some of which have radioactive isotopes; if he had just spun that blender fast enough and had enough 'flint' present .....


* __ Mischmetal (from German: Mischmetall - "mixed metal") is an alloy of rare earth elements in various naturally-occurring proportions. It is also called cerium mischmetal, rare earth mischmetal or misch metal. A typical composition includes approximately 50% cerium and 25% lanthanum, with small amounts of neodymium and praseodymium. Its most common use is in the "flint" ignition device of many lighters and torches, although an alloy of only rare-earth elements would be too soft to give good sparks. For this purpose, it is blended with iron oxide and magnesium oxide to form a harder material known as ferrocerium.

Carl Auer von Welsbach was not only the discoverer of neodymium and praseodymium, and co-discoverer of lutetium, but was also the inventor of the light-mantle (using thorium), and of the rare earth industry. He built a factory to manufacture his mantles, and had discovered that the necessary thorium was available from monazite sand, which at the time originated from Brazil, but which soon thereafter was also coming from North Carolina and India. But after the 6-10% thorium content had been extracted from the monazite, he had a lot of lanthanides left over, for which there was no commercial use. [The 1% of cerium that was added to the thorium oxide to improve the performance was all that could be found initially to usefully employ any of the remaining lanthanide.] Thus, he began exploration for applications to which the rare earths might be put. Among his first discoveries/inventions to bear practical fruit turned out to be Mischmetal and the lighter flint, both of which continue in use a century later. It has been pointed out that von Welsbach was one of the few scientists that has ever been honored with a statue in a public square. The company he founded is still in the rare earth business, and indeed, still in the lighter flint business.

Preparation:
Historically, mischmetal was prepared from monazite, an anhydrous phosphate of the light lanthanides and thorium. The ore was "cracked" by reaction at high temperature either with concentrated sulfuric acid, or with sodium hydroxide. Thorium was removed by taking advantage of its weaker basicity relative to the trivalent lanthanides, the radioactive radium isotope daughter products of thorium were precipitated out using entrainment in barium sulfate, and the remaining lanthanides were converted to the chloride. The resulting "Rare Earth Chloride" (Hexahydrate), sometimes known as "Lanthanide Chloride", was the major commodity chemical of the rare earth industry. By careful heating, preferably with ammonium chloride or in an atmosphere of hydrogen chloride, the hexahydrate could be dehydrated to provide the anhydrous chloride. Electrolysis of the molten anhydrous chloride (admixed with......[continued]



(From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischmetal)

 

The fire ball is defiantly not 3 sticks of dynamite but defiantly not something I would want to happen in my pants.

:blob2:

 

I never had a lighter blow up in my pocket, but I had 3 Blue Ribbons blow up in the trunk of my 54 Ford when I was in high school. The car had been out in the hot SC sun all day while my friend and I were swimming in his pond.

When they blew up we didn't know what it was and if made the back of the car go up and down. Not knowing what it was I opened the trunk real slow thinking maybe I had left a gun back there.

After seeing the mess it made I know one thing. You wouldn't want to have a beer blow up in your pocket - it would be a terrible waste of good beer and it might make you mess up your pants.

 

The myth that has circled the globe. Now there are job sites that prohibit those lighters on the job site and yet the original memo was fictitious.

I DID witness a guy throw a butane lighter against a cement wall and have it blow but no fire, just a pressure release. It was one of those "hold my beer and watch this" moments. He had to throw so hard his arm hurt and it took him three tries.

 

DISPOSABLE LIGHTERS WARNING

HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT TRUE

Horse-puckey!
The first time I heard this story was in the late '70s.
It was horse-puckey then, remains horse-puckey now. :dizzy:


Rex

 

I did have a .22 lr shell go off while welding. No, not in my pocket. Thank God.

Had a small pile on my welding table, don't ask. Just a quick weld. Bang! WTH!

Found the split case, no projectile.

 

Bet you split your pants when you soiled them too !!! I know I would have soiled mine ! :laugh:

 

As soon as it went off I smelled the powder. I instantly knew what it was and started feeling myself all for blood. Scared me good!

 

If it would have been me, I would have smelled more than just powder. As in DOO-DOO! :laugh:

 

I always found I had to relax to be able to make. Maybe it's just me. I doubt I'll ever go in my pants due to any type of accident (barring death or other release of control over all four sphincter muscles holding it in).

At the burn temperature and rate of pressurized (liquid) butane, WORSE case scenario, you could expect second degree burns over 9-18% of the body (remember the rule of nines). It'll hurt. You'll need silvadine. Possibly even a skin graft. Death? Possible depending on sanitation. Infection is the number one killer of burn victims. Just thought I would chime in.

 

Has anyone ever tried the "flint trick"? Next time you have a butane lighter that goes empty, remove the flint and spring from the lighter. Stretch the spring a bit, and wrap it around the flint a few times. Get it good and tight as the spring will expand in the next step. Hold the end of the spring, the end without the flint, and hold the flint in a flame from another lighter. When the flint glows red hot, throw it against a hard surface, and you will get a nice shower of sparks. While I have done this indoors, make sure no really fluffy pets are around.

 

i agree on the zipo thing.
i also have a refillable butane lighter with a metal casing.
but i keep that in my truck, works great for lighting a smoke on the road. (wind wont blow it out)