Cutting oil drums warning

Hi all
Thought it time for a heads up caution on this activity. A work colleague was using an angle grinder with a 1mm cutter disc to cut open 200 litre oil drum.

He said the drum smelt like the other 3 oil drums he had just cut. He had cut down to the last 60mm when it exploded and a sheet of flame came out the cut and burn't him from hip to ankle.
He was working by himself and had to call the ambulance out and cart him off to hospital.

It was a bad burn but the whole incident could have been worse. A similar accident killed a student in a Charters Towers school a while back.

Thought it worthy of a mention here.
Grahame

good heads up there grahame. :2tsup:
remember guys - stay safe

Be also warned that many drums can contain hazard contents. In the old days of using 44s as scaffold a set of drums rocked up. 40% of them had a pesticide in them.

The blue plastic drums are much better. Almost guaranteed that they wont contain fuel. No sparks, no rust, more flexible, lighter. Bloody fantastic.

I've heard that if a drum contained flammable liquid and you think its clean as a whistle, the seams can still contain some of the liquid. Then when you heat it with a grinder or oxy some of the fuel evaporates into the drum and boom! I've also heard some people have been decapitated cutting open drums. I always open them with a hammer and chisel but I suppose there is still the chance of a spark so I guess you gotta wonder what’s an open drum worth?

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Originally Posted by spooled

I guess you gotta wonder what’s an open drum worth?

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We buy fruit juice concentrate at the factory where I work in open top 200lt drums, it's not viable to send the empties back to the vendor (in Mildura) so we sell them to a local scrap dealer for $2:oo:each. Check the scrap metal merchants near you, you shouldn't need to pay more than $10 for one,including lid and clamp.

Peter

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Originally Posted by autogenous

The blue plastic drums are much better. Almost guaranteed that they wont contain fuel. No sparks, no rust, more flexible, lighter. Bloody fantastic.

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They don't work real well as a BBQ though. :D

Thanks for the heads up Grahame.
So is there a safe way to do this or just don't do it at all???

Find out if possible what was in the drum.

Hit it with a bit of degreaser and flush out.

Hammer and a sharp cold chisel.

A couple of minutes work to take the lid off. Then cut the drum down to size with the grinder after there a bloody great hole in the top.

With a big hole in the top ,the air vapour concentration is all buggered up and should not flash off.

I have heard it said to put a car exhaust piped into a drum, but what if the motor is running rich? Ka Boomm!!

Grahame

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Originally Posted by rodm

Thanks for the heads up Grahame.
So is there a safe way to do this or just don't do it at all???

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hammer and cold chisel is the recommended method

ian

I have cut a few drums up, and in future will try the cold chisel.

I have occasionally needed to cut a drum into two halves with the ends intact. so what i do is fill them completely full of water, this should lift up any lighter than water or air explosive gases out through the bung. I also make sure I choose drums I know have only had veggie oil or something non flammable in them. this is hard though, as labels are no guarantee by any means.

Then I run an air powered grinder around the middle of the drum to cut through. Gets a bit messy. I have done it with an electric grinder as well, but as you can imagine you run the risk of electrocution.

Would drilling a hole and then using an air nibbler work or would the steel in the drum be too thick?

The metal is not that thick about 25 or 30 thou.
The air nibbler shoud have no probs if the stroke is deep enough to overcome the curvature of the drum.

grahame

Grahame, years ago I read an article that basically recommended your method, but talked about using caustic soda in the water. Not sure why, perhaps as a degreaser?

you need to wash out well with hot watter and detergent then the cap left off and turned upside down overnight then they can relitively safely be cut in half.

this is also the prcedure used when cutting the top off old gass bottles.:2tsup:

G'day.
I cut 2 Hydraulic oil drums in half long ways last weekend.
1mm grinder wheel, no worries. When The 2 halves parted, there was about 2 litres of oil left in each drum.:oo:

No kaboom:2tsup::2tsup:.

Welded reo bar legs on them for outdoor fire warmers for party this weekend.

I can't see why caustic would not work.Its' the basis of the old time degreasers.

I would not trust my safety to detergent and wash out on lapped seams.Thats what oil /fuel drums have.

Many years ago against my better judgement I silver soldered a honda bike fuel tank that had lap seams .

It was degreased and double steam cleaned. I had it full of water and tied astraddle a fence. It went kerboom when I put the flame to it.

Remember the tanks had little hollows for the knees.When I finished with it,this one did'nt. No damage done to me except for half drowned and ears ringing.

Grahame

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Originally Posted by glock40sw

G'day.
I cut 2 Hydraulic oil drums in half long ways last weekend.
1mm grinder wheel, no worries. When The 2 halves parted, there was about 2 litres of oil left in each drum.:oo:

No kaboom:2tsup::2tsup:.

Welded reo bar legs on them for outdoor fire warmers for party this weekend.

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Most hydraulic oils are glycol based, that's why they make such good paint strippers (ever dropped brake fluid on you new car?) They are not very flammable at all.

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Originally Posted by AlexS

Grahame, years ago I read an article that basically recommended your method, but talked about using caustic soda in the water. Not sure why, perhaps as a degreaser?

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Don't play with caustic soda... if it gets in the eyes (eg while cutting) chances are you will lose your eyesight. It is also very corrosive on the skin.

Play it safe!

Chipman:no:

Tell me about it,
I worked with millions of litres of the stuff at the refinery. We had eyewash stations every 20 metres. Had new boot issue every couple of months.

I can't say why but the stuff in drums does not always blow up.Mark had cut three drums with oil and no poof.No 4 and BANG. Just keep rolling the dice if your game..

Grahame

You are right....Caustic soda in the eyes is one of the worst accidents to deal with. Dilute caustic is more dangerous than dilute acid.

As a student, I had a job in a lab, had to pipette (by mouth) 40% NaOH for food testing and one night it ended up in my mouth.... Didn't swallow it but the top layer of skin on my toungue disappeared really quickly.

I am glad they do it differently now! Never pipette by mouth.

Chipman:((

We use pearl caustic(99.98%) to remove antimony arsenic and a few other compounds from the lead... yes caustic is one of the worst things to get on you, I've seen it 1st hand it "bubbles" your skin like molten plastic(nasty).

Any of you's ever seen a drum cutter chisel? A friend showed me one years ago, it had a curved cutting edge with the striking surface on the top which formed a T shape.

Or you could use the proper tool... one of these