DragStuff

Since cold weather is coming I thought I'd bring that shoe post back to remind people about the dangers of heating bottles with a torch...

Now, on another note I've been meaning to tell a story about our good buddy David Lemmond that moderates in our chassis forum. David don't like to talk about this much, but I want to post this pic to make a point about how dangerous those things can be.



These are the shoes David was standing in about 14 years ago when a mother bottle blew up on him, he was standing a few feet away heating the bottle up with a torch on a very low setting. Almost immediately the mother bottle blew up knocking him out of his shoes and into the side of his Nova. The blast wave was so big that it rippled the body of the Nova, lifted the top off the cinder block building and knocked a buddy that was standing with him across the room. The explosion was heard for miles around and they found parts of the bottle 100's of feet away. David got banged up pretty good and was in the hospital for a while after this accident and so was his buddy. This is the short version of the story, and maybe if David feels like it he'll expand on it, but if he doesn't respect that too.

Note: Your first thought might be that using a torch wasn't the best idea, but keep in mind that when he was doing this he wasn't putting heat directly on the bottle, just directing the heat at it quite a ways away. Heating with a torch years ago was VERY common, not that it was a good idea it's just how it was done. Regardless David will be the first one to say to never use a torch because you never know when you're going to get ahold of a weak bottle that can't take uneven heat applied to it.

The deal is never over temp a bottle or overpressure it, IF the burst disc doesn't blow then you have a bomb on your hands that packs one hell of a punch.

since i dont know what a "mother bottle" is........why and what are you heating up ?? are you talking about heating up a nos bottle at the track with a torch ?? if so....thats just plain stupid !

I believe in this case, the "mother bottle" would be the big 100+lb bottle that you fill all the smaller 10lb and 15lb bottles with. I know years ago, this was done alot as they didn't really know any better. It's funny that I still see this done in this day and age after so many stories like this one have surfaced....

this ought to be a real eye opener to alot of people including myself

It doen't help promote safety when you have shows like "Pinks" that show guys heating their N2O bottles with a torch. I have also seen cars running sub 11 second times with no roll bar on Pinks. Smart, real smart...

Generally we can accept somethings because at the time it is not thought of as a problem. I think if you ask John Medlen he might agree. Unfortunately we get tragic wake up calls. Maybe should e-mail Pinks and alert them to the dangers and if they continue to allow it, in the words of Ron White you can't fix stupid! I don't want to see any one hurt but it happens every day, and generally it is some dumb thing we just don't think about or short cut. I know better about some things, but in the last few weeks have managed a mild flash burn to the eyes and then topped it off with some Fibergass to the ole peepers. Am I a dumb ass? Honestly yes! Took Short cut and know better. But if something is "accepted" practice, then blows up on us, oh shit! From my short time here there is a bunch of great info an decent folks. Hope Dave suffers no long term effects nor his buddy. Cars can be replaced and buildings rebuilt. Thanks for the "safety tip"

71 nova you wrote you saw them do it on PINKS along with some other stupid stuff..........Have you ever seen anything on that show that wasnt related to stupid, We have "grudge" matches at our track all the time and apparenty no one knows this is dangerous as just about every one there who uses NOS heats their bottles with a small torch, some big time guys too who you also see on speed from time to time,who will remain nameless. Also the cool thing to do is ride around on your golfcart with the torch in the cup holder or carry it in your back pocket up to the line with the car..before I come off soundin too cocky I used to to this untill I saw first hand in a similar situation just how violent NOS can be. If you guys suffered through the episode of pinks where there was a white mustang against a yellow 240 you saw the guys in the mustang with the torch just sitting there against the bottle in one spot those guys also were the ones blowing fireballs through the carb the whole night..........yeah they race locally and pretty much made our home track look like hillbilly heaven they put on fire shows all the time there too so this was no suprise to me when I watched it on TV some people should just leave that stuff alone, the same guy with the mustang totaled another mustang a few weeks ago at our track tryin to "put on a show"

Every time is see some 1 heating a bottle with a torch I move away as fast a s possible
Glad to hear that he survived that