Trying to salvage some Mahogany from an 18th century piece of no resale or collector value. As it was a "factrory" piece I was disappointed but not surprised to find the large majority of the piece to be made from poplar with Mahogany trim. Still, I had several pieces that could be cleaned up and reused, so I tried a run through the Performax.
Whoa!!! Now we're getting big time smoke out of the dust collector, and the abrasive belt gets fused with black stuff. What is in this wood?
I opened the shop doors to let the smoke out, but decided to check the catch barrel and the filter stack. (5hp cyclone)
Opened the barrel only to find a small ball of glowing dust just waiting to burn my shop down if I had just gone to lunch. Filter ducts looked OK.
The old "where there's smoke, there's fire" applies double for woodshops so don't ignore the warning, boys & girls!
If It's Hot, Don't Chill
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Re: If It's Hot, Don't Chill
#2
I talked to some local floor refinishers once who had lost a van to a fire in a bag of sanding dust. I think one had taken a bag of dust out to the van and had a smoke break while doing so. Tossed the butt in the bag and went back in to work. I don't think anything happened that day, but the van burned overnight.
Jason
Re: If It's Hot, Don't Chill
#3I get the cig butt fire starter, but I didn't expect a fire without sparks in the sander with no nails in the wood. Cost me a sanding belt but I figure I got away cheap this time.
Re: If It's Hot, Don't Chill
#4
Heat is heat, no matter the source…
Jason
Re: If It's Hot, Don't Chill
#5Jason Roehl in Lafayette, IN wrote:Heat is heat, no matter the source…
Jason
Yup. Figure it could have been nitrocellulose lacquer finish (flammable), heat from the belt loading, heat from the belt dulling on silica grain fillers, it doesn't much matter once there's smoke.
I'm glad you dodged it Mark, pays to be lucky, pays even more to follow the smoke!
Re: If It's Hot, Don't Chill
#6Probably just a mechanized version of rubbing 2 sticks together to start a fire.
Glad you caught it in time!
Re: If It's Hot, Don't Chill
#7Got lucky, Bill. Normally I'd have just opened a couple of windows to let it air out. I guess it was the fused belt and the amount of smoke that had me looking further.
Re: If It's Hot, Don't Chill
#8
Do you have smoke / CO detectors in the shop?
Re: If It's Hot, Don't Chill
Edited #9admin wrote:Do you have smoke / CO detectors in the shop?
Other than the one stuck on my face, no. 
Any other alarm wouldn't be heard as the shop's a separate building.
I have no ignition sources in the shop building: HVAC is unassisted heat pump, no battery chargers working when I leave, compressor likewise, minimal amount of oil finishes.
Added later 23 d 8 h 08 min 29 s:
Smoke Detectors: Were ALWAYS mounted in my basement shop before I built the separate building. One mounted in the shop and one in the garage where the dust collector was installed. The shop unit did Not Like my working cherry for some reason. When the thing popped SWMBO would call down about why I couldn't use walnut. I had to remind her that she (SWMBO) had ordered cherry.