Can you Vacuum up smokless powder?

[ace1001]

It is between the boards of my woon floor. Will the motor ignite it?:roll: Ace

[PatMarlin]

Probably not spossed too...

I vacumm a little with my shop vac, and no explosions yet.. :mrgreen:

[kenjuudo]

I've survived sucking up powder and even a few primers with a one gallon shop vac kept for that purpose.

[Shiloh]

I do. Never had a problem.

That is, minor spills. I have set off a primer once with the sweeper type vacuum though. It sounds like you are speaking of a small amount.

Shiloh :castmine:

[redneckdan]

I set a vacuum on fire once.....[smilie=1:

[ace1001]

Tell me more about the fire. Was it right away or after it cooked a while. BP or smokeless?

[trooperdan]

Second that on the primers; I've set off a couple when vacumeing them up. I that powder ( a LITTLE powder) would be safe.

I'm reminded that Glock had a range fire on their indoor range about two years ago. It was from unburned powder from test firing; the flash fire killed an employee.

[grumpy one]

As I understand it no vacuum cleaner allows the crud it sucks up to go through the blower portion, if everything is there and working properly. However if you do something non-standard, such as run a bag cleaner without a bag in it or with a non-genuine bag, or a leaky or perforated bag, crud goes through the fan and out the exhaust port. I really wouldn't want to see anyone putting any kind of explosive through the fan, even as dust sucked off the powder granules. Putting powder or primers through a sweeping-type cleaner seems equally undesirable, since the broom part is right at the beginning of the process. Vacuum cleaners also run very hot, and heat up the air passing through them. Combining all this with the strange informal practices that some of us engage in at times, a blanket "it's OK" or "it's not OK" doesn't seem practical to me. You'd have to look at the cleaner very closely and think about it. I wouldn't use my home vacuum cleaner, because it's about a zillion watts and blows hot air out, so powder could get pretty vigorously treated even going into the bag.

[68 couper]

It is between the boards of my woon floor. Will the motor ignite it?:roll: Ace

It is not recommended. Depending on how isolated the brushes are would make the diffrence. I,ve watched them spark as they run...Get a can of the compressed air for cleaning computers or low pressure from an air compressor would be much safer. Then broom it.

Couper

[Flinchrock]

I keep getting a mental image of a rocket propelled vacuum cleaner, can I come over and watch when you do it?:mrgreen:

[georgeld]

Grumpy:
Apparently you have no experience with a Kirby vac.

Everything goes thru the fan on those.
IF it sucked a primer in, I'd bet on it popping.
Trouble is with something popping off is that dust of many kinds is
very explosive. I wouldn't worry about the powder at all. But, I would
be concerned about primers.

Dust explosions is what blows up/down silo's and grain storage elevators.

When I was a kid the folks were building a house with hardwood floors. We'd
burned trash in the ashpit earlier in the day and it was out except hot ashes.

The floor installer dumped his sanding machines bag in the top inlet hole and the
explosion blew the side out of the brick ashpit that was about 4' high, 5' square.

I was close by watching and talking to the guy when it happened. Believe I was 8y.o.
I still remember that.

[DLCTEX]

Shop Vac makes bags for use inside their vacs to contain dust. There are standard and a high efficiency types available. I would have no qualms about cleaning up gunpowder using a high efficiency bag, as it retains even fine drywall dust. Dale

[Mallard57]

I believe a vacuum cleaner produces a certain amount of static electricity with the moving air, not a good thing. I remember a post on another forum about the same issue and someone used a sock over the vacuum hose opening, this kept the powder from being sucked into the vacuum and the powder is contained in the sock. It worked for me.
Jeff

[PatMarlin]

I think you could suck TnT through a Kirby and the explosion wouldn't phase it.. :mrgreen:

Speaking of dust grain silos and sawdust, we were just talking about a "Brown Powder" wood dust gunpowder over here:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=19684&page=4

[schutzen]

I clean up spilled powder with a wet/dry shop vac, but I start with a quart of water in the tub. I've been told static build up is the issue, but I've never seen wet powder burn or explode.

PS for PATMARLIN, a .22LR will detonate in a Kirby. It results in a cracked housing and a a very mad wife. Personal experience talking here.

[Ricochet]

I used to have a hilarious story about a drunk who knocked some embers out of his fireplace, vacuumed them up and set the lint in the bag on fire, and threw the blazing vacuum off the porch. I'll have to try to find that again.

[biggome]

30 or so years ago a friend of mine once used a (running) Craftsman shopvac as a muffler for his two-stroke dirtbike to keep his parents and neighbors from being disturbed by it's obnoxiously loud "ring ding ding ding-ring ding ding ding" exhaust note at a late hour.

After only a few seconds of near silent operation ("hey! this was a good idea!") the resulting explosion, (he said it sounded like a power tranformer had exploded) sent the steel lid and motor combo so far up in the air it took several seconds for it to come crashing back to earth and the cardboard tank portion was nearly consumed.

When his parents came out of the house he told them "I was cleaning up a mess and the damn thing just blew up!"

Moral of the story: Well there was probably not much morality involved in it anyway.

Anytime I do any cleanup in the loading room I put the cleaning equipment under "observation" for quite a while just incase of a delayed reaction of some kind.

Paul

[Mk42gunner]

I spent twenty years as a Gunner's Mate in the Navy. We were always told not to vacuum up spilled powder; but to use a broom and dust pan. The theory is that static electricity may ignite the powder.

Of course we had steel decks, not wooden floors.

By the way a powder granule for a 5"/54 is about 5/16"diameter by 1/2" in length.


Robert

[wiljen]

I spent twenty years as a Gunner's Mate in the Navy. We were always told not to vacuum up spilled powder; but to use a broom and dust pan. The theory is that static electricity may ignite the powder.

Of course we had steel decks, not wooden floors.

By the way a powder granule for a 5"/54 is about 5/16"diameter by 1/2" in length.


Robert

Sounds like we know what they rebadge and call Triple 7 Pellets :kidding:

[Larry Gibson]

I've vacuumed it up for years with a shop vac and a Oreck.

Larry Gibson

[Winger Ed.]

A buddy had a incident when he was a kid back in the 50's.
Him and another buddy took several cartridges apart to get the powder out.
A fair amount spilled off into the rug.
Both his parents worked, so they had a maid come in once a week.

A few days later, he comes in- just in time to hear the maid on the telephone,
"Mrs. Hot'man, Mrs. Hot'man!! Da vac-cam' cleanah done BLOWED UP"!

.

[Freightman]

Sounds like a broom and dust pan are in order. Or the water in the bottom of a shop vac seems like a reasonable solution.
Spilled a 8mm case full on my wifes wood floor, she was not a happy camper by the time she swept it all up. I swept the noticable ones up the rest were under my recliner out of sight out of mind. She didn't look at it this way narrow minded, and no sence of humor.

[Newtire]

Compressed air and sweep it up is the safe way I'm thinking. It's those unfired primers that get vacuumed up I'd worry most about though. A friend of mine had one set off the dust and blew off the top of his shop vac.