posted on October 26, 2004 02:32:10 PM new
Don't REALLY know if she was going to sell this on ebay, but I wanted to share this story ... we have a cousin near the Twin Cities who has been working with (wood) furniture items for many years ... decades, in fact .... for repair business and for resale.
We just found out this afternoon ... she had an old carved out tree-trunk bear totem type piece that she was trying to restore and preserve ... she had poured some linseed oil onto it last Tuesday outside, but moved it into her garage overnight .... Well, the linseed oil/wood combination apparently spontaneously combusted (like oily rags will do) ... She said that in the middle of the night, her cats were making some noise in her bedroom and when she opened her eyes, she saw this orange glow ... At that time, no smoke had entered her house yet ... She let the cats out to safety and knocked on her renter's door downstairs, to get her out, called 911 and then ran out and moved her good van (with her work tools in it) away from the garage ... So fortunately she can continue working when she’s not dealing with getting things back to normal ... Insurance adjustment is such a hassle, and she’s currently without her fax and house phone, and is living with her Dad next door (she and her ex-husband had built his house for him ...) ... her 2-story garage is destroyed, and her house part was mostly filled with smoke and water damage .... Lord, you just never know when something like this can happen to even 'knowledgeable' people in handling these wood restoration products ...
i'll add a few pictures here in a minute or two ... God bless her ... reminds me of some of mcjane's photos, who suffered from a different force of nature ...
[ edited by AintRichYet on Oct 26, 2004 02:46 PM ]
[ edited by AintRichYet on Oct 26, 2004 02:47 PM ]
posted on October 26, 2004 03:05:04 PM new
Gee, what a shame! Thanks for the tip on the oil. I've heard of oil-soaked rags starting fires but this wouldn't have occurred to me.
posted on October 26, 2004 03:10:20 PM new
who woulda thunk it??? is Right!!!
there, but for the grace of God, go I! ... unbelievable! I feel so badly for her! ... she had just come down here to Ohio in mid-September and stayed with us a few days to go antiqueing ... and she taught us a lot about various treatings for our antique furniture that we will resell ......... then for this to happen?! ... very scary stuff.
posted on October 26, 2004 04:05:46 PM new
I just don't believe that this is the whole story. I used to deal in firearms when I lived in MN. I often restored gunstocks using Linseed oil. I would rub it in & put them on the pipes leading from the furnace to dry over night. Never had antthing like this happen.
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
[ edited by sanmar on Oct 26, 2004 06:33 PM ]
posted on October 26, 2004 07:01:24 PM new
That is terrible.
I have used linseed oil for painting, but it's things like volatile liquids like turps that are usually the combustibles in these equations.
She must use solvents for removal of varnishes.
The linseed was prolly good food for the fire.
Boy glad she's okay.
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Avatar wish list....
posted on October 26, 2004 09:26:44 PM new
You've been lucky Sanmar--linseed oil is very combustible. It could be that the size of the totem piece & the amount of oil used on it was a factor. Or, it could have been exposed to something in the garage that helped it along, such as chlorine bleach fumes (linseed & chlorine is a no-no).
____________________
"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
posted on October 26, 2004 09:47:54 PM new
Bunni,
You and Sanmar are both correct. Linseed oil is perfectly safe on hardwood, such as walnut rifle stocks. The U.S. Army was one of the biggest users of linseed oil in the era of the M-1 Garrand rifles and before. But when applying it to soft wood, it's about the same as a Molotov cocktail. All you need is a fuse (or a pilot light from a water heater in the garage).
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
posted on October 26, 2004 10:40:26 PM new
Hi ltray,
I wish I had a nickel for every time I treated a rifle stock with linseed oil. I trained with a plastic stock M-14 on active duty, but my National Guard unit still had M-1's with the walnut stocks. One of the things I remember is the safety indoctrination we got over the use of linseed oil. It's awful easy to forget to remove the application cloth from the building thereby creating a hazard. Also,it would take a chemist to fully explain the hazards of using that stuff on certain types of wood.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
posted on October 26, 2004 11:32:59 PM new
Wow! Thanks for your post, Aint. My husband just finished one of our inside doors out in his shop which is attached to our garage. I just told him about this thread and he went out to open a window. It's been cold and rainy here today and there's no water heater but he has lots of equipment out there that can spark when used.
Had no idea linseed oil could do that. My sympathies to your cousin.
posted on October 26, 2004 11:34:01 PM new
itray; It was cosmoline. I used to buy surplus UDSA itray1903's that still had it on them. sparkz is right, the cloth was prolly the culprit. Put that in a can near heat & you have a reall problem Linseed oil by itself is not dangerous, it needs a more volitle ingredient to cause a fire.
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
[ edited by sanmar on Oct 26, 2004 11:37 PM ]
posted on October 27, 2004 04:25:41 AM new
Well, we talked my cousin-in-law on the phone last nite ... she's doing ok and seems pretty upbeat (that's what kind of person she is) ... she wants to get a house trailer onto the property to live in, while the house gets put back to normal. They estimate it will take 3 months, but if Minniesoda has a harsh winter, it will probably take longer.
It was a small-town volunteer fire department that responded to her call, at around 11pm last tuesday ... took them 12 minutes to get there ... they are the ones that told her it was the linseed oil that she poured in and onto the totem, which was an old and porous wood art, and she had treated it for a few days ... but she is not completely convinced it was the linseed oil alone that caused the fire, because the totem was burnt only around the top half? ... I don't really understand what she meant, but bottom line, you sure never think that these kinds of things will happen to YOU. ... it's just something to be really careful about ...
posted on October 27, 2004 05:06:58 PM new
Yah, parklane .... I told her I didn;t used to like cats, but now I do LOL ... her cats very well may have saved her and her tenant's life!!!!!!
