Someone was watching over me....

[Nandy]

So, I went to get a camper in TN. I hitched, did my general walkaround, all looked fine, headed towards Huntersville, NC where I have storage. While I am on I40 almost to the I77 exit I see a couple on my left lane flag me down with a worrisome look in their faces... I go, "oh now, I dropped something, etc..." Intermediately pull to the side and am on my way thinking for sure it is the magnetic lights im using when I see one of the 2 propane tanks under the A-frame only held by the propane hose... I pause in disbelief... But you know, that camper has not been used in forever so no worries. I take my wrench, undo the tank and as I do I get a snif of propane when I undid the tank connection... then I look at the tank...

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn215/nandy_temp/20150411_200729.jpg

Yes, the only tank that had propane was that close to get ruptured by the asphalt that surely was sparking.... I kinda freaked out a bit, took the other tank off and put it in the Blazer, left this one in the propane tank base in the camper and tied and double tied it in. I was not about to put that thing inside my vehicle...

I could have been blown or at least caught fire...

Thank you Lord, one more time....

[Buckrub]

Great Googly Moogly, son!!! WOW.

[Captain]

Take that one in for a "trade in". lol
Damn of you were LUCKY! You should go buy a lottery ticket!

[Arty]

Damned if that didn't give me a little chill!

You a lucky boy!

[Hombre]

Whew! good to be lucky sometimes!

[Big Skyz]

Scary!

[BarryBobPosthole]

My wrinkled penny just got a little more wrinkled reading that.

BKB

[DeputyDog]

Good thing they flagged you down and you paid attention to them. Much further and we'd all been wondering where you disappeared to.

[Nandy]

My wrinkled penny just got a little more wrinkled reading that.

BKB

OMG! of all the replies you sire have me dying laughing here.....

Thanks everyone for your concern.... I think I am building a niche and storing that tank there...

[Thumper]

Wow Mandy ... you were lucky. When I first saw that pic and noticed the brown to blue spot on the steel tank, I immediately thought of a welding class I took many years ago with a section on "tempering".

Read this and it may explain how lucky you were. (check the temps)

Tempering colors

If steel has been freshly ground, sanded, or polished, it will form an oxide layer on its surface when heated. As the temperature of the steel is increased, the thickness of the iron oxide will also increase. Although iron oxide is not normally transparent, such thin layers do allow light to pass through, reflecting off both the upper and lower surfaces of the layer. This causes a phenomenon called thin-film interference, which produces colors on the surface. As the thickness of this layer increases with temperature, it causes the colors to change from a very light yellow, to brown, then purple, then blue. These colors appear at very precise temperatures, and provide the blacksmith with a very accurate gauge for measuring the temperature. The various colors and their corresponding temperatures are:

Faint-yellow – 349 °F
Light-straw – 401 °F
Dark-straw – 439 °F
Brown – 500 °F
Purple – 540 °F
Dark blue – 590 °F
Light blue – 639 °F
Grey-blue – 700 °F

Now examine that picture again and it may get your knees knocking! Some may see colors that others don't, but there could even be a small spot there that could be considered "grey-blue"! I agree that a trip to Vegas should be planned! But seriously, I'm glad all turned out well.

[johnboy]

Good thing you caught that before it wore all the way through! Amazing how tough those tanks are. I remember looking in the rear view after we flipped our rv trailer last summer and seeing the two 30lb propane tanks bouncing down the highway. Banged and dented but still holding gas.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Yeti used to ride a motorcycle to work a lot. One day he was fallowing a truck that lost one of those propane tanks and took him out. He was damn lucky it didn't kill him. Luckily he's a pretty tough big guy.

BKB

[Thumper]

I'm sure those things are way over-engineered since they're made for the general public and recreational use. Still a scarey situation no matter what.

I remember driving home from work one night years ago and spotted a mobile home on fire. I thought it was odd I didn't see anybody around, so I turned around to take a closer look. It was almost fully engulfed and the vinyl siding on the house next to it was melting and smoking. I called 911 to report it and then banged on the door of the second house. It turned out the burning house was empty as the owner was visiting the neighbor in the 2nd house. They had no clue the other place was on fire!! All I could think about was the two huge bottles (about 4' tall) of propane on the tongue of the burning house. I told the women to run out to the highway to direct the fire trucks as the houses sat way back off the road and when I called it in, I didn't know the exact address to give them. I grabbed both garden hoses (a remote well-head) and held one on the siding of house #2 and the other on the propane tanks of house #1 until the fire dept. arrived. Man-o-man, all I could think of was what would happen if those big 'ol tanks had blown! The one house basically burned to the ground, but the second house was saved.

[Nandy]

Went to the storage as planned and turned that bleeder valve and yup, here comes the gas hiss, I let it be while I was working in the camper. There was nt a lot of pressure so it probably had little gas, but still had some...