[CR]Carbide lamp safety

(Example: Framebuilders)

From: "Reid Fisher" <reidfisher@hotmail.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:27:26 +0000
Subject: [CR]Carbide lamp safety

Interesting topic. Carbide lamps are super low tech, and will pretty much survive anything short of being smashed. My very limited experience came from caving with friends in the '80's, but a couple safety comments should transfer to the old bike lamps.

Julius's main question was how to turn one off, and that got answered. The two key points to stress are that: 1) you should blow the flame out rather than let it die and soot up the jet; and 2) even if you turn it off, acetylene gas keeps being generated until all the available water has reacted with the carbide. So, don't blow it out and throw the lamp in a small closed space -- kaboom potential. Also, you can't plan on being able to relight the lamp much later without reloading. The carbide loves water, so keep it dry, dry dry; remember if it accidentally gets wet, it starts to produce acetylene. Plastic baby bottles were the favored caver's stash for carbide and spent carbide. Finally, clean the carbide reservoir out before you store the lamp just to avoid a mess.

Reid Fisher currently carbide-less in San Martin, California

Reid Fisher
1670 Chris Lane
San Martin, CA 95046
wk 408/778-2818
hm 408/686-0744