Congratulations, Mike.
Also, great job on the fire extinguishers.
Having been party to two machine shop fires (both involving lathes and turning exotic alloys based on Magnesium and Titanium), having the safety equipment is essential.
His includes the right type of fire extinguisher……
(Class D).
Thank you.
While I don't necessarily work with the exotics that require a Class D extinguisher, just having extinguishers placed in proper locations is paramount to be able to quickly access them when or if the need arises. I had one fire back when I was working on a 1967 C-10, the one I traded for, restored and then sold to buy my wife's engagement ring in 1988. I was cutting a cab corner out and didn't realize that the previous owner had stuffed a magazine down under the seat in which caught fire and forced me to quickly grab a fire extinguisher to put it out. Due to following the 7 P's (Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance) I had an extinguisher within reaching distance and quickly was able to put it out before any additional damage other than the magazine itself and some smoke inside the cab.
My dad didn't have fire extinguishers around the farm, but fortunately I had recently started my career working as an Industrial Maintenance Mechanic just prior to this and during my safety and orientation training, fire extinguisher training was heavily discussed so I had bought one to keep in my little workshop on my parent's farm. Had it not been for that, I am confident that the truck as well as the shop on my parent's farm would have been consumed.
During my career, we have had 2 fires in our Industrial Maintenance Department shop over the course of the nearly 38 years I've been a mechanic and both times the mechanic was able to quickly grab a fire extinguisher and extinguish the fire before it spread and resulted in more damage or loss. The worst outcome from both were a mess to clean up from the extinguisher itself, but both could have been much worse had there not been an extinguisher readily available. This is a topic I cover in depth during onboarding new mechanics into our department, especially when they think that the preliminary safety training is a waste of time.
I have been waffling on updating my extinguishers over the past several months as they were needing to be hydrostatically tested again, this is required every 12-years and all had already been tested a couple of time prior. However, this time I had noticed a couple were also needing to be recharged. I have also noticed several people that I follow on YouTube and IG that have either had a fire in their workshop or they had someone close to them have a fire and each one were total losses, which made me decide to pull the trigger and update them sooner rather than later.
I have a few rules in my shop when it comes to welding in my home shop, such as I do not weld on anything within about 45-60 minutes of closing the shop for the night and I also look the area over closely and remove anything that can potentially catch fire prior and if anything seems higher than normal risk, I have a fire watcher, such as my son or wife while I perform the welding. I seldom need the latter, but there have been a few times when I have felt just a little more comfortable resorting to such measures.
