Here’s a great story we pulled from the FordMuscle Garage Forum, another testimonial that deserves some homepage time. Shortly after reading this candid confession from FordMuscle subscriber “Rancheroo”, I moved the golfbag in my own garage to the utility shed. Give some credit to “Rancheroo” (Rick) for making his lesson public so we can all be a bit safer when welding at home. Here it is.

I’ll have a fire extinguisher on payday. Until then, no more welding. On Saturday I was trying to tack a washer onto a clamp (long story) . The clamp had some sort of plating on it. I’m not sure if it was chrome or not. It looked about like the finish that you’d see on a Craftsman wrench.

Anyway, while trying to tack this washer onto the clamp, I noticed these balls of molten metal SHOOTING, not just falling, but SHOOTING all over the damn place. I really had to hold the torch in the piece for a long time to get the washer tacked in place with fireballs flying all over the place.

Once I flipped my shield up, I noticed my golf bag was on FIRE. I reached over three bikes, grabbed it, threw it into the back yard & hosed it down. One of these fireballs dropped into the bottom of my golf bag & caught all kinds of stuff on fire.

I now have a large hole in the bottom of my bag and several melted grips. Glad I didn’t burn the house down and especially glad I hadn’t re-gripped my clubs yet.

All kidding aside, it’s STUPID to be welding with flamables within 10 feet. Them fireballs was just a flying off that plating!