Don't store Oxygen and Acetylene together in an LPG bottle and attempt to weld

[Cerebus]

As you seem to like calculations the heat of combustion of acetylene is 50.2 MJ/kg. Commercial acetylene cylinders available in the UK hold between 1.13m3 and 9.01m3 of acetylene at STP. That's between 50 and 402 moles - one mole of acetylene is 26.04g. That's between 1.3kg and 10.47kg of gas. That's between 65.26 MJ and 525.6 MJ. The oft quoted "TNT equivalent" is 4.184MJ/kg. So the smallest common commercial cylinder of acetylene has a TNT equivalent of 15.6 kg of TNT and the largest 125.6 kg.

I'm sure the average house has more energy than that just in the 2x4's for the frame. If you could accidentally make a proper bottle explode, that would be different. Even the entire trailer truck of bottles cooking off (posted earlier in the thread) wouldn't have blown up a residential neighborhood or anything like that.

Licenses for this are stupid. If someone has intent to harm other people, paying $30.00 to take a 5 hr nap while some retired hill billy reads a 10 page brochure isn't going to deter them. Show me where terrorists used acetylene gas to kill people. Show me where criminals have held up a business or a bank with a bottle of acetylene.

So something explosive has to be in active use as weaponry by terrorists and criminals before you consider it properly dangerous? And I get accused of hyperbole? Why do you bring intent into it? It's not deliberate mayhem that we're trying to avoid but people who are terminally stupid, or think they "know best" - you know like the guy on the building site who doesn't wear a hard hat, or use a harness when working at height because "I've done this for twenty years and I'm still hereeeeeeeeeeeeee" <Splat!>.

Show me where an accident killed the neighbors on either side.

Use Google, the list of fatal accidents involving acetylene as a primary cause is very long.

Here's a van, well what's left of it, whose driver died because of an acetylene leak



Here's the green building in the background:

[KL27x]

So something explosive has to be in active use as weaponry by terrorists and criminals before you consider it properly dangerous?

Either that OR it causes significant damage to other people.

If a guy very rarely blows up his van or his shed or his entire house, it's unfortunate.

Just google suicide rate and compare that to how many people die from acetylene accidents and tell me why it matters.

And you think spending tax payer money for a bunch of cunts to come up with a formal accreditation course will fix that? You think the guy in the van knew his tank was leaking but didn't know it could explode? No, it was an accident, and he didn't know the valve got bumped.

It takes a paragraph to describe what not to do. IanM pretty much covered it. I wonder what else they can do in a licensing class that will mean squat other than bore people to death.  And tell me, what percent of applicants do you suppose are going to fail this course/test? If you said anything but zero, you're kidding yourself. Accidents happen in real life; it's not because people are too dumb to pick the right answer on a common sense multiple choice quiz while someone is watching.

It's like you think needing a license to buy rope, or some education about how people squish when they fall from 100 feet, is going to stop people from falling off mountains.

When the guy in the van's family successfully sues the distributor of the acetylene... this is when you will need a frigging license and registration to buy acetylene. It will be to protect the seller, not you.

[Cerebus]

So something explosive has to be in active use as weaponry by terrorists and criminals before you consider it properly dangerous?

Either that OR it causes significant damage to other people.

If a guy very rarely blows up his van or his shed or his entire house, it's unfortunate.

Just google suicide rate and compare that to how many people die from acetylene accidents and tell me why it matters.

And you think spending tax payer money for a bunch of cunts to come up with a formal accreditation course will fix that?

It takes a paragraph to describe what not to do. IanM pretty much covered it. I wonder what else they can do in a licensing class that will mean squat other than bore people to death. 

Ah, so you have an acceptable body count in mind below which it's unacceptable to spend a cent of public money, do you? Not that anybody mentioned spending any public money, it's quite easy to make these things self-financing. How many bodies exactly? How many deaths/100,000/annum is your threshold for a cause of fatalities to be worth trying to do something about?

[vk6zgo]

As you seem to like calculations the heat of combustion of acetylene is 50.2 MJ/kg. Commercial acetylene cylinders available in the UK hold between 1.13m3 and 9.01m3 of acetylene at STP. That's between 50 and 402 moles - one mole of acetylene is 26.04g. That's between 1.3kg and 10.47kg of gas. That's between 65.26 MJ and 525.6 MJ. The oft quoted "TNT equivalent" is 4.184MJ/kg. So the smallest common commercial cylinder of acetylene has a TNT equivalent of 15.6 kg of TNT and the largest 125.6 kg.

I'm sure the average house has more energy than that just in the 2x4's for the frame. If you could accidentally make a proper bottle explode, that would be different. Even the entire trailer truck of bottles cooking off (posted earlier in the thread) wouldn't have blown up a residential neighborhood or anything like that.

Licenses for this are stupid. If someone has intent to harm other people, paying $30.00 to take a 5 hr nap while some retired hill billy reads a 10 page brochure isn't going to deter them. Show me where terrorists used acetylene gas to kill people. Show me where criminals have held up a business or a bank with a bottle of acetylene.

So something explosive has to be in active use as weaponry by terrorists and criminals before you consider it properly dangerous? And I get accused of hyperbole? Why do you bring intent into it? It's not deliberate mayhem that we're trying to avoid but people who are terminally stupid, or think they "know best" - you know like the guy on the building site who doesn't wear a hard hat, or use a harness when working at height because "I've done this for twenty years and I'm still hereeeeeeeeeeeeee" <Splat!>.

Show me where an accident killed the neighbors on either side.

Use Google, the list of fatal accidents involving acetylene as a primary cause is very long.

Here's a van, well what's left of it, whose driver died because of an acetylene leak



Here's the green building in the background:

Damage to large areas of glass? -----yes

Damage to wooden? window frames?----yes

Damage to brick walls?-----nothing visible in the pix.
Surely, using your examples, there would be huge holes in them.

Was there any injury to anybody else? ---well, you don't tell us, so we can only guess.

[KL27x]

Ah, so you have an acceptable body count in mind below which it's unacceptable to spend a cent of public money, do you? Not that anybody mentioned spending any public money, it's quite easy to make these things self-financing. How many bodies exactly? How many deaths/100,000/annum is your threshold for a cause of fatalities to be worth trying to do something about?

Show me one accident that would have been stopped by licensing. Harold? No. He could have swiped it from his employer. Even if the employer took a useless day course and paid his $25.00, it wouldn't have mattered.

Your thing with the hard hat or harness? Guess who cares about that? Their employers are the ones on their ass about that. And it's not because they give a shit about the guy on the scaffold. It's because they care about OSHA fines, workmen's comp, or the guy's widow and her lawyers. Do you think the guy on the scaffold doesn't know what happens if he falls? Do you think he needs more education about gravity? If you work for yourself, you can build your own 100 foot high private tower without any safety gear, if you want, and no one will bother you about wearing a harness or a hard hat, or using non-OSHA compliant tools.

If you can convince your employer you won't sue, you might be allowed to work 1000 feet in the air with no harness. The Navajo Indians were allowed to build skyscrapers with no harness, because their employers trusted their familes to not sue.

[Cerebus]

Ah, so you have an acceptable body count in mind below which it's unacceptable to spend a cent of public money, do you? Not that anybody mentioned spending any public money, it's quite easy to make these things self-financing. How many bodies exactly? How many deaths/100,000/annum is your threshold for a cause of fatalities to be worth trying to do something about?

Show me one accident that would have been stopped by licensing. Harold? No. He could have swiped it from his employer. Even if the employer took a useless day course and paid his $25.00, it wouldn't have mattered.

Your thing with the hard hat or harness? Guess who cares about that? Their employers are the ones on their ass about that. And it's not because they give a shit about the guy on the scaffold. It's because they care about OSHA fines, workmen's comp, or the guy's widow and her lawyers. Do you think the guy on the scaffold doesn't know what happens if he falls? Do you think he needs more education about gravity? If you work for yourself, you can build your own 100 foot high private tower without any safety gear, if you want, and no one will bother you about wearing a harness or a hard hat, or using non-OSHA compliant tools.

As they say up north "There's no talking to some people".

[KL27x]

As they say up north "There's no talking to some people".

What's the point of posting this? We were talking just fine. If you change your opinion, it's ok. If you still believe in it, then you have a long way to go to support your argument, and we are all ears. It's an interesting point of view, you have.

In the US, there are very few people who buy acetylene outside of a professional work environment. Many professional welders do not even bother to have acetylene at home. Not wanting to die is a pretty good deterrent to anyone who won't use it on a regular basis. A lot of places in the US, private monopoly is making it too expensive, anyway. You have to lease the cylinders by month, whether you use any gas or not.  Besides, we have plasma cutters and TIG/MIG. I wonder if there are more people jumping out of airplanes (and sometimes dying) or private acetylene rig owners, here.

When Kim Kardashian tweets something about oxyacetylene being great fun for all, then we might need some regulation. Fucktards aren't generally interested in cutting and welding things and paying a several hundreds of dollars for the privilege. And I guarantee the guy selling the gas at the welding shop scrutinizes unrecognized faces asking for a fill, and he makes sure their gear is well-maintained. (Both because he is aware of the dangers and he doesn't want to blow himself up, and also because he has new gear to sell you).

Before you cry for tighter regulation, ask yourself if you had a single thought about this topic before this forum thread. And ask yourself if you will care in 6 months from now.

[Cerebus]

As you seem to like calculations the heat of combustion of acetylene is 50.2 MJ/kg. Commercial acetylene cylinders available in the UK hold between 1.13m3 and 9.01m3 of acetylene at STP. That's between 50 and 402 moles - one mole of acetylene is 26.04g. That's between 1.3kg and 10.47kg of gas. That's between 65.26 MJ and 525.6 MJ. The oft quoted "TNT equivalent" is 4.184MJ/kg. So the smallest common commercial cylinder of acetylene has a TNT equivalent of 15.6 kg of TNT and the largest 125.6 kg.

I'm sure the average house has more energy than that just in the 2x4's for the frame. If you could accidentally make a proper bottle explode, that would be different. Even the entire trailer truck of bottles cooking off (posted earlier in the thread) wouldn't have blown up a residential neighborhood or anything like that.

Licenses for this are stupid. If someone has intent to harm other people, paying $30.00 to take a 5 hr nap while some retired hill billy reads a 10 page brochure isn't going to deter them. Show me where terrorists used acetylene gas to kill people. Show me where criminals have held up a business or a bank with a bottle of acetylene.

So something explosive has to be in active use as weaponry by terrorists and criminals before you consider it properly dangerous? And I get accused of hyperbole? Why do you bring intent into it? It's not deliberate mayhem that we're trying to avoid but people who are terminally stupid, or think they "know best" - you know like the guy on the building site who doesn't wear a hard hat, or use a harness when working at height because "I've done this for twenty years and I'm still hereeeeeeeeeeeeee" <Splat!>.

Show me where an accident killed the neighbors on either side.

Use Google, the list of fatal accidents involving acetylene as a primary cause is very long.

Here's a van, well what's left of it, whose driver died because of an acetylene leak



Here's the green building in the background:

Damage to large areas of glass? -----yes

Damage to wooden? window frames?----yes

Damage to brick walls?-----nothing visible in the pix.
Surely, using your examples, there would be huge holes in them.

Was there any injury to anybody else? ---well, you don't tell us, so we can only guess.

I wasn't trying to prove a particular thesis, and I don't see why you're seeking to imply that. It was, as stated, a leak in a van not a whole cylinder exploding ab initio. The report, coming from the Telegraph and a local northern newspaper documenting an explosion in Wolsingham, Durham is remarkably remiss in failing to specifying the exact quantity of gas involved in the explosion. I can't imagine why they were so remiss on the physics unless they were distracted by the trivial issue of a man dying as a consequence of a preventable explosion in a public place.

I picked it simply because it was the first I could find that had pictures of surrounding as well as the erased body of a vehicle. I though that perhaps the obvious realities of the sight of a fatal explosion might drive the real-world consequences home to those quibbling about the supposed futility of licensing and the huge restriction in people's freedoms that they imagined that might entail. The pictures came from https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/3787789.Acetylene_gas_explosion_____Hundreds_could_have_died___/ and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1552777/Welder-dies-in-van-blast.html

Were there other injuries? No other fatalities listed, but why does it matter? That there aren't is mere happenstance concerning who was near or not when it happened at 7am. Would you volunteer to be standing between the van and the buildings behind? Isn't the danger self evident enough without being able to supply you graphs of the overpressure in various locations compared to the quantity of a high explosive necessary to achieve the same overpressures.

[Beamin]

Speaking of qualifications I hear they still let people post,  who seem unable to grasp the concept of editing obvious typos and deleting accidental empty double posts.
But then, I suppose double posting doesn't kill anyone. Fortunately for us, or we'd all be dead by now wouldn't we Beamin?

Thank you for pointing out the fact that I'm legally blind and losing more and more of my eye sight. Some days it looks like I'm looking through wax paper. You think it's annoying to read a post with typos try dealing with this all day every day knowing there is no cure and it's only getting worse. Then add to that people who get impatient that it takes you longer to do things because they can't be inconvenienced for 30 seconds. It takes me a long time to make a post and sometimes errors go through even after I check them like when auto correct changes things and it looks the same to me. Rather then just give up I do it anyways and just try to ignore the people that are unpleasant and considerate. I didn't chose this nor would I wish this upon anyone else. Sick of being called lazy when I have to put in double the effort to make something 1/2 as good.