I haven't had a lot of time to do much here but lurk lately, but I thought it was important to share this story with you.
Just as the title suggests, I've come to think that sparks from an angle grinder are pretty benign. By the time they come up against anything flammable, they're too cool to cause any harm. Not to mention that they're so small that the thermal mass is negligible.
Anyway, to save this from becoming a really long story, KEEP YOUR STEEL WOOL AWAY FROM GRINDING SPARKS!
I was cutting off a pipe in the vice with my grinder in the basement. About 5 minutes later, I was cleaning things up a bit and by some weird turn of fate, I was putting away some aluminum stock on the shelf right above where I was grinding earlier.
I felt the heat first. Then I realized that what I smelled wasn't the residual grinding smell... rather, burning plastic.
It turns out that a spark must have landed right in the steel wool, starting a glowing ember inside. It was melting the bag it was in from the inside out!
If I hadn't have been putting that stock away right then, things could have been a lot worse!
So, learn from my close call - watch where you're throwing those sparks!
-Sparky
Just as the title suggests, I've come to think that sparks from an angle grinder are pretty benign. By the time they come up against anything flammable, they're too cool to cause any harm. Not to mention that they're so small that the thermal mass is negligible.
Anyway, to save this from becoming a really long story, KEEP YOUR STEEL WOOL AWAY FROM GRINDING SPARKS!
I was cutting off a pipe in the vice with my grinder in the basement. About 5 minutes later, I was cleaning things up a bit and by some weird turn of fate, I was putting away some aluminum stock on the shelf right above where I was grinding earlier.
I felt the heat first. Then I realized that what I smelled wasn't the residual grinding smell... rather, burning plastic.
It turns out that a spark must have landed right in the steel wool, starting a glowing ember inside. It was melting the bag it was in from the inside out!
If I hadn't have been putting that stock away right then, things could have been a lot worse!
So, learn from my close call - watch where you're throwing those sparks!
-Sparky