Fire!!!!!!

J

John L

Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Messages
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Well...I make a lot of slipjoints and try to use a wide mix of scale materials. I enjoy the scale materials almost as much as making the knives. Well...I had this piece of candy stripe...celluloid, I now guess, cut out a right and a left, glued on liners with Loctite...never failed me before....and Voila...won't hold. Next I cleaned it all up and reglued with CA. It held this time. I then began to shape the liner/scale glueup to a pleasing roundish shape. Well...not knowing what to expect as far as grinding/sanding the material...I put on a new 120 grit belt. Just barely toucned it to the candy stripe and fire broke out on the scale, on the floor , on the belt...everywhere. Amazing!! I calmed down and began again...don't learn too good....do I .....fire again. Got out a Norax belt...no fire just shmeared the celluloid. Now..put on a 220 AO belt and had at it again....just a teeny bit at a time. This worked..kind of....and well..kind of not. I think this is the end of the candy stripe material. Shop did not burn down, have all my fingers, two eyes, etc. I quit this stuff. It is interesting, however. Maybe tomorrow......:p:p:p:p:eek::p

John Lloyd
 
John I've had fun with celluloid too- candy stripe, x-mas tree, and fake abalone. Never actually
had flames (smoke!). Found slower and wet if possible helps. I love the colors.
Ken.
 
This reminds me of a post on another forum where a guy tried to drill a hole in a ferro rod using a drill press. Same results: very exciting for him. Glad it wasn't worse.

randy
 
Clean up your grinding dust, because sparks from grinding steel will now ignite it!
 
rwn2000 said:
This reminds me of a post on another forum where a guy tried to drill a hole in a ferro rod using a drill press.
Click to expand...

Wow, that's just... wow. Good gravy, I have tears in my eyes from laughing.

Wow.
 
No, cellulose is kinda famous for this. Light a ping-pong ball on fire sometime if you don't believe me. But stand back.:D
 
james terrio said:
Wow, that's just... wow. Good gravy, I have tears in my eyes from laughing.

Wow.
Click to expand...
I couldn't find the original post, but the first hand account was one of the funniest things I've ever read on the internet. :)
FYI, you can drill a ferro rod without too much excitement if you use slow speed, a sharp bit and lube with beeswax or something else non-flammable. The OP on the other forum didn't get that memo, apparently, lol.

and ping pong balls and lighter fluid? i don't even want to know how that combination was discovered, lol

randy
 
Figure that stuff out because I really like your knives and wouldn't mind having some more as the bills and the overtime allow.
 
Reminds me of the time I used steel wool to clean a button battery. Almost instantly the steel wool was on fire when it made contact with the cell and it was a well used battery.
 
I saw the steel wool and battery trick on a survival show.

I'm surprised to see celluloid is in use as handle material. Always knew it was flammable, but didn't know it was THAT flammable.

I think I'll stick to making handles out of napalm. It's safer.
 
All silliness aside, Bill is of course right about keeping the area around your grinder clean. I never started a fire exactly, but I've had a couple pretty glowy piles of steel dust and smoky, smouldering wood dust. The little woman was not amused.
 
There have been many fires due to knifemaking and the dust it generates together with the sparks. I keep my dust collector clean. But I have rule of thumb that I stick with that I learned from another knifemaker's experience with fire.

After shutting down the shop I do not leave the house for any reason until at least a half hour has passed, then I do the nose test, and if any smoke is detected I investigate further. If there's no burning smell the shop is safe.
 
Tryppyr-
Celluloid was a preferred pocket knife handle material until the 1950s.
Unfortunately, it can become unstable and emit nitric acid fumes-destroying the knife and any others near it. I used quite a bit of the modern celluloid about 8 years ago. Some of it has already begun deteriorating.
 
Celluloid ?? Is that cellulose nitrate ? That is what old movie film was made of which can burn easily and deteriorate .It's also a common gun powder !!
 
Yeah, old film is about as volatile as solidified gasoline. Theaters and archives have suffered horrendous fires on it's account. Amazing to think that those old celluloid movie reels were played with an electric arc for illumination...
 
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