important warning!

[DENN_SHAH]

i just ran across this and im not sure where this should go, but i think everyone needs to know about it.

http://www.brewracingframes.com/id75.htm

[trickedout420]

its a risk you take...why would he even think about using brake cleaner or carb cleaner for welding cleaner he's just dumb he should have died for being stupid..they sell metal prep and cleaner thats not harmful and designed to be used in high heat applications..i have been using brake cleaner and carb cleaner for years all i do is where one of those cloth face masks cause your stupid to breathe that stuff in..this is why these products have bad reputations, because of people like this guy who use them improperly

[daved931]

Someone forwarded that link to me yesterday.

Truthfully, I had no idea that welding over something that I had just used brake clean on would be dangerous. I don't really do much welding and it seems like brake clean evaporates so quickly that it's nothing I ever thought about.

[someotherguy]

trickedout - just about everybody knows there's potential dangers in shop chemicals, and I would bet you more people underestimate the risks all the time and just get lucky nothing happened. You'd have to be a master chemist or spend hours researching ahead of time to know all the real risks, so I wouldn't be too hard on the guy. Yeah; he made a serious mistake and almost bought the farm. At least he wasn't too proud that he wrote up the article to help prevent others from making the same mistake.

Something I've noticed regardless of it being carb cleaner or brake parts cleaner: yes, they both evaporate rapidly. However, if you use a lot of it, it will tend to reach a kind of saturation point and quits evaporating, and pools up. Might be that it's consumed all the oxygen in the immediate area around the pool! Anyway a little bit of air blown at it tends to kick it back into evaporation and gets rid of it.

Agreed though, I still wouldn't use it to clean metal before welding...but I'm not a welder, so I haven't really been in that situation before.

Richard

[mattillac]

Thanks for the heads up, My buddy who is in the hvac trade always informs me about freon mixing with a open flame=instant death? TY again and lets try and keep ourselves safe =)

[rebelbowtie]

i wouldnt clean metal with it just because it would contaminate the metal. plain and simple. although i have used acetone to clean metal before. that too contaminates metal and produces more harm than good.

[chevyracer005]

wow makes me think about all the stupid stuff we did with brake clean in high school. brake clean+lighter=instant flame thrower lol

[Ginsco]

I used to use Acetone or MEK to clean 4130 tubing before welding on our aircraft restorations. After taking the advice of an old time airplane builder, all I use now is denatured alchohol and it works great.Give it a try sometime.

[PHATSPEED7X]

Link won't work for me.

[daved931]

Link won't work for me.

Long story made short:

Dude normally uses carb cleaner to clean off a gas tank before welding. He's all out so he uses brake clean. When the argon shielding gas from his welder mixes with the contents of the brake clean reside, it makes poison gas. Guy almost dies, kidneys shut down and liver gets f*cked up.

Always use a metal prep cleaner before welding. Don't use brake clean.

[MadScientist]

One glaring error here in the chemistry. Argon gas is nonreactive. Tetrachloroethylene decomposes to hydrogen chloride (anhydrous hydrochloric acid) and Phosgene when heated to above 600 degrees. It has NOTHING to do with the argon shielding gas.

[daved931]

Thanks for the correction

[NEUMANNZZ]

I just use a grinder to clean the metal.

[someotherguy]

One glaring error here in the chemistry. Argon gas is nonreactive. Tetrachloroethylene decomposes to hydrogen chloride (anhydrous hydrochloric acid) and Phosgene when heated to above 600 degrees. It has NOTHING to do with the argon shielding gas.

Uh-oh! Chemist in the mix! :D

X2, thanks for the correction. However, bottom line is the same, guy just about offed himself with a screwup and while his research and conclusions are a little bit flawed, he did experience first hand why you don't use stuff like that to clean metal with and then weld.

Richard

[Chev-350]

Thank's for puting that on I never heard tell of that and I'm going too tell everyone I know abought it.

[honky_donkey]

one of the chemicals used in ww1 was phosgene and from what I understand, it was a hideous wa to die

[RichLockyer]

http://personal.linkline.com/rlockyer/smiley/threadnecro.jpg

:D LOL!

[transplant]

I guess I'm just lucky that has not happened to me. I've used brake & carb cleaner to remove oil & grease before I weld. Never again.

[RichLockyer]

I guess I'm just lucky that has not happened to me. I've used brake & carb cleaner to remove oil & grease before I weld. Never again.
Since the thread is revived (and it really is an important topic), carb cleaner is generally not a problem.
Most carb cleaners are primarily acetone. Normal safety practice of welding with good ventilation is all that is needed... just keep your head out of the plume.

Brake cleaner is the real problem. Not all brake cleaners produce phosgene when heated.

To the above comment on the paper mask, wrong answer. Paper masks, and most hardware store cartridge masks, are merely particulate traps and do nothing to filter harmful chemicals (including cadmium if you are welding grade-8 hardware).