well it finally happened

[mooseman]

Well it finally happened, damn near burned my self out of business on Friday afternoon.
Left the shop at 4:25 to pick up my wife at her work and drop her off at home ...returned to the shop AT 4 :45 to find  the first of Seneca Falls Finest rolling up and my shop full of smoke and visible flames rolling off the flash dryer.

Fortunately the fire was isolated to the pallet and flash that I had left over the shirt, a quick dump of a 5 pound dry chemical kicked ass ....fire out.

Here is the reason I share this with you all.........
I NEVER leave the dryer and flash on when I leave the shop even when my folder and boxer helper is there working.

On Friday I broke my routine.  I was about a dozen shirts from finishing a job and did not want to wait for the heaters to came back on line after shutdown so I didn’t hit the switches.
Would have been fine IF I REMEMBERED to swing the flash off the pallet but no my brain was off and out the door well before my body.

Rule no 1 Never break your rules
Rule no 2 don’t scrimp on fire extinguishers, we have 4 in a 1000 square foot shop...one of them saved me a ton of water damage.

I have insurance but apparently I do not have an agent as I still have not been able to find her for nearly two days now. It is going to be a little warm all over again when we finally do make contact.

The pics below tell the story....mooseman LUCKY

[dirkdiggler]

had that happen 15 years ago, glad it was only the pallet and flash.  Same here.  That's why I LOVE quartz flash.

[mk162]

unless you sustained more damage than that, i wouldn't mess with insurance.  it will jack your rates and they might drop you.

do you need a new flash panel?  What size is that?  I might be have one lying around.

[GaryG]

Sorry to say after bubbling some rubber in the 20 years, this happened to
me just last month. Always say to myself Flash, Flash, Flash...but a customer
came in, just ran up front and dilly dallied around showing pens for about
15 minutes, and walked back to smell first, then see 3" flames from pallet to flash!
Man, that was very discouraging. It gives you a gut check for the longest time to come.

Maybe a couple of strategically placed smoke alarms.
Flash is a silent killer...


Glad nothing else went Moose

[GraphicDisorder]

Could have been a lot worse!

[jason-23]

been there , done that , got that t-shirt.

[3Deep]

Glad no other damage was caused, and your right Moose rules!!! never break them

Darryl

[Shanarchy]

Yikes!

All your equipment is still ok other than the flash and pallet?

[Homer]

need anything moosey, I'm just a short car ride down the 90. glad you still have a job.

[Frog]

Glad that it wasn't nearly as bad as mine.
Of course, I ended up with a new and improved building, new and improved equipment, a new and lasting relationship with another printer in town, and, perhaps the most important, helped lead to my introduction to industry forums, especially TSPMB where I spent a lot of time for a few years and was known to make a post or two.
The catastrophe also did wonders in kicking up my marriage a notch, but all in all, I still recommend caution with flash dryers! 

[mooseman]

Hey all thanks for the kind offers and shared stories.
my big issue here is a bunch of inventory I had for live orders that I am going to replace if insurance covers or not. A new flash is on order, shop all scrubbed and painted everything else is good to go. Insurance guy was by yesterday pretty decent guy not sure what that will bring but we are going forward with or without a check from the company............should be throwing ink later today.

Thanks everyone
mooseman

[Admiral]

We upgraded to a swivel flash for the consistency and ease, bonus is you can't burn the place down with it really.  Same with quartz on the auto for us.

Removing the under / over flashed screw ups on the manual pays for the more expensive flash. 

[Shanarchy]

We upgraded to a swivel flash for the consistency and ease, bonus is you can't burn the place down with it really.  Same with quartz on the auto for us.

Removing the under / over flashed screw ups on the manual pays for the more expensive flash.

I keep thinking about getting an automatic flash for the manual. I have a bad habit of walking away for a minute while the pallet is under the flash. Does the automatic flash slow production down at all?

[mk162]

Shane, just buy and auto...

[Gilligan]

We love our auto swivel!

Press the foot pedal down and keep on doing what you do, my guy has almost NEVER had to even think about dwell time on the flash other than testing to make sure the dwell is set properly.  But he doesn't have to worry about timing anything as he prints.

Only think I covet is a quartz with a proxy.  Hommer just recently got a 3rd party made one that is reasonably priced... I thought he was supposed to give that bad boy a review but I'm guessing he's busy making money with it.