I didn't know. Probably everyone else does, but just in case not, I had a piece of steel wool fall off a box and across my yard tracks this evening. The short warning went off immediately and the piece of steel wool became a fireball almost instantly. I grabbed it and put it on the floor and stomped it out right away, but it was still burning for a while. It even re-ignited a couple of times. Be careful! I'd say to NEVER put steel wool at or above track level.
Steel wool should never be near a layout. Even if it doesn't ignite the loose wool can be attracted to uncoupler magnets and locomotive motors and on a DCC layout and even a DC layout can cause a fire as you have experenced. When I was a kid, on the 4th of July, we used to tie wads of steelwool to a length of rope, light it with a match and swing it around throwing sparks all over the place. Cheap fireworks.
The ratio of fuel to oxidizer is not sufficient in a coin. Steel wool has lots of air all through it and much more surface area exposed to the air. Steel wool has enough resistance to get hot and ignite if you pass enough current through it. Once started, it burns real well.
It certainly is known. Never have it near your layout, modeling bench, etc. Fire hazard under the right conditions and also a potential problem around those items noted a few posts above. I don't even have any in the house, don't need it for anything. Boxcab E50
How hot does a 1.5 volt or 3 volt flashlight bulb filament get when voltage is applied? The answer is white hot and that is what makes visible light. Now imagine 100's of those tiny strands of fine wire (filaments) in a pad of steel wool. Place that same quarter(s) across a car battery and see what happens. It just takes more amps to do the same thing. Jerry
I once put a AA battery in my pocket full of pennies and had a burn on my leg before I smelled the smoke. I'm scarred to this day. I didn't know you could start a fire with a battery and steel wool, though.
I used to work on my cars at my grandfather's garage. I was under the front of my '66 Chevy II and reached up for a wrench laying on the radiator support pushing it by accident onto the positive terminal of the battery. Instant arc welder! Fortunately my grandfather was nearby and remedied the situation. I'll never forget that day! Jerry
Lucky thing the battery was not venting any gases at that moment. Ever seen a battery blow up? Depending upon circumstances it can simply split, or act like a small bomb. Boxcab E50
No, I have not seen a car battery blow up and I don't want to! I'm not even interested in seeing steel wool light up; especially not on my layout. I have had enough practical experience and highly respect electricity as anyone reading this thread should. Jerry
LOL. I had a similar experience. My foreman gave me a 9-volt battery one morning which I stuck in my pocket. I then stopped for a cup of coffee and threw a handful of change in the same pocket. I proceeded to drive down the road only to have this burning sensation in the area of my pocket. By the time I could stop I had an extremely hot handful of coins which i very gingerly (and quickly) removed from my pocket along with a hot 9-volt.... And you'd think I'd learned my lesson!!! Sometime later I was sitting in my work truck eating lunch and reading the paper when suddenly I heard this BOOM! from about 2 feet away. It startled the heck out of me and I had no idea what it was.... When the smoke cleared and I collected myself I realized that what had exploded was a 9-volt battery that I had tossed in with some spare screws and bolts in one of the cup holders on the front of the dashboard.....then I thought back to that 9-volt in my pocket that day........yikes!! Needless to say, I'm careful with batteries now......
steel wool and a battery? i was taught to start a fire like this if you lost your matches and flint/steel kit in boy scouts :tb-biggrin:
Inquiring Minds Want to Know SOUPAC, I know I must be thinking the same as others here. And it is, what were you doing where you would have steel wool on the layout?:shock: Steel wool can also be used to make one of these.:bomb: So please be careful. We need all of the N-scale modelers we can get.
When I was young, I had a friend whose dad had a small layout. He used steel wool for the tree foliage, and one day we were goofing around on the layout, and I knocked a tree over on the tracks. Spectacular (and scary)! I had my car battery blow, once. Late in evening, left office, went to start my car and "boom". Made an awful mess. We actually had the site haz-mat team respond. With washing and new battery, car was fine (Acura Legend -- lasted 20 years, 270K miles)
As a 20 year fire fighter I never heard the steel wool one but have seen a handful of house fires started by people throwing batteries in the kitchen garbage unprotected and starting a fire, I always wrap then up in paper and then put them in a zip lock bag to prevent contact with metal in the trash. Even a "dead "battery" can have enough power left in it to cause a problem.
I use fine steel wool for the final buffing when hiding seams in kit bash projects like plastic passenger cars. It gets rid of the file and sanding marks before painting. I keep a big magnet around to sweep my work area real well before I bring any locomotives over to the work bench. Don't want little bits of steel in the motors. I store my steel wool in a zip lock bag well away from any engines. I had a buddy when I was a kid who cleaned the rails on his 027 layout with steel wool then destroyed one of his locomotives when he ran it around. Never did that again.
I had thought about using small amounts of steel wool to make forsythias for my early-spring-based layout, but perhaps I should consider some other materials.
