A bit of excitement (not entirely OT)

I was doing an experiment to see how well staples held in kiln-dried beech at different moisture levels. After testing different samples I wanted something drier so put a block in the office microwave. In just a couple of minutes the stench that filled the office was nothing like burning wood, it was horrible and lingered for days. The wood block started to char very quickly even though the moisture was only 7%.
Did the smell seem normal? (for a flaming microwave stuffed with paper)

Don Foreman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
[snip amusing tale -- especially "face cheeks"]
Hmmmm. How does one go about doing that?

I keep spray bottles filled with water in the kitchen and basement, nominally to clean up spills and dewrinkle line-dried laundry. The other day one was handy when ashes dumped on the compost pile began to smoulder.
My quick-reaction outdoor fire extinguishers in warmer weather are garden pump sprayers with the hose and nozzle replaced with sink sprays, meant for showering with kettle-heated water. 3/8" copper tubing replaces the skinny dip tube. A little leakage at the gland nut isn't a problem, it's only water.
Previously I had old department-store pressurized water extinguishers scattered around. The one time I needed them the old man across the street started a brush fire cutting up scrap metal and fell when he jumped back. He had no running water, but I heard him yell, saw him lying next to the flames, raced over with water extinguishers and put it out. Their narrow high-pressure stream isn't as efficient on burning leaves as the wider, less wasteful sink spray pattern, and the garden sprayer can be left unpressurized so it won't leak empty.
I don't understand why so many people freeze into shocked inaction when a fire breaks out unexpectedly. I've grabbed a kid's Coke bottle, held it upside down and controlled the spray with my thumb to put out a small wall fire over a stove pipe while the rest of the group stood like statues. Then the kid was mad about his Coke, nevermind that I saved his cabin. -jsw

One does a web search on the term "MOT spot welder" . I got a mile of results (5280) in .016 seconds .

When -anything- happens at all! Car wreck, tree branch fall, finger amputation or cut, fire, burst water line, gas leak, you name it. I think it somehow ties to their lack of knowledge about how things work; being bereft of any inkling of physics.
I think the group here, as a whole, is made up of troubleshooters and problem solvers. We would, as a default, diagnose the problem and then instantly begin to solve it. Like the kid whose shoulder I put back into the socket: I had never done that before but the first thing that came to my mind was to help him out of severe pain. My left arm was the fulcrum and his right arm the lever. I "pried" just high enough to slide the ball back into the socket and he was instantly out of 90% of the pain. He said he'd never use a doctor to put it back again because they caused a whole lot more damage/pain.
I've successfully used my (flammable) Sunday paper to put out a grease fire in a pan which I forgot on the stove. Plop, and it's out, with no mess to clean up other than the pan. I love my bacon burnt, but that lot was a bit too far gone, if you can imagine.
Relative worth to a kid defies logic.

How could anybody forget bacon? Besides you should bake bacon in the oven at 400 and start checking at 20 minutes.

More than likely, it was the ink.
Books get printer with a linseed oil based ink that gets dry, usually with an additional heating step.
Newspaper ink, because of high speed printing requirements and little expectation of longevity, are printed with petro or soy based inks that never dry but get absorbed by the paper.
The oil can get a lot hotter in the microwave than water, certainly higher than 451f. Add in carbon black and it is a recipe for disaster.
Paul K. Dickman

Always good to read stuff you wrote.
But reconsider the Christmas tip. Put it in an envelope with a note saying you almost did not give him a tip this year. And enclose a copy of your post with it. If he does not try harder , then next year an envelope with a note but no tip.
Dan

If you just close the microwave door, you deny the fire oxygen and it dies out pretty quickly.
(As I know, from experience and instruction from my then 12 year old niece, during an incident involving a microwave and a bag of pop corn. She still dredges up the "Uncle Tim then opened the microwave and started the fire back up" story -- but hey, I was curious to see what would happen).

Love reading your posts, Don. Keep the coming!
Actually the steam will continue to get hotter and hotter from the microwaves. They operate on the water molecule and don't care where the molecule is. Microwaves have fans to remove some of the steam, but are pretty small.
when I was in college, a Korean fellow was in an advanced class and was trying to determine how much electricity could be generated by heating a magnet, I think, and then quickly cooling it. He used a bunsen burner and a copper tube to make steam. The experiment wouldn't work because he couldn't get the steam beyond 212F.
I showed him how to super heat the steam by coiling the copper tube into several turns and applying the gas flame to all the coils. That worked because of the additional heat in the steam. Worked much better, but not practical.
Paul

Unplug

Actually, not quite true. Ice is far less lossy than liquid water, because freezing pins the molecules in place. In the vapor the molecules are free to rotate, but the density is about 1/800 as much as for the liquid.
The dielectric constant of ice is about 3.2, of water is about 80, and of steam at atmospheric pressure is about unity.
Joe Gwinn

When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.
I gave up bacon for turkey bacon and never looked back. Done in the microwave between single sheets of paper towel on a paper plate, they come out perfectly crispy, just a tiny bit burnt (as requested), nearly fat free, and oh-so tasty. They're ta live for.
Pork bacon is fried quickly to reduce the fat content and brown the chit out of it. If it ain't crispy, it ain't bacon, sir.

Thanks, Don. 'Twas a fun romp.
Oops! 15 seconds, tops, please.
Microwave "whumps" are always very dark and doomy to hear. BTDT.
Y'think?
--snip-- Try some white vinegar instead. Half a cup for a minute should do it. (That's for when your next mwave gets stinky.)
I brought a dead mwave home the other day with that same thought. I now have 3, hoping for a matched pair of xfmrs out of it. Did you read Bob Englehart's MOTS pdf the other week?

That makes a lot more sense than the "recycled paper" opinion, Paul. Newspapers do smell like oil, and anyone who has ever folded papers for a paper route knows how black one's hands can get from that.

I did think about that, Dan. It's a reasonable suggestion and a reasonable approach. But I can't do it. I'll do without the damned paper before I'll try to "motivate" someone that lazy and inconsiderate. I delivered papers and two of my kids delivered papers. Our customers expected their papers to be delivered at their doors in good condition.
I've told the people in the circulation department that if their carrier is unable or unwilling to deliver my newspaper to my front porch then I don't want it at all. The guy did better for about a week and now he's reverting to form, getting a little further from the porch each day.
I won't renew my subscription when it next comes up in a few weeks.

I don't have pork bacon often like you. But, next time try the oven method, it'll be perfect for your taste.

Huh? I have it often? I thought I'd been buying turkey bacon for the past 20 years or so.
What's the method, again?

Hmm ... another approach is if you have a good vacuum pump, and a housing large enough to hold the paper, to just pump it dry.
This is used for recovering collectible books after water damage, with the addition of first freezing it in liquid nitrogen, which forms ice crystals which separate the pages, then the vacuum sublimes the ice directly to vapor.
[ ... ]
Hmm ... I would also have not expected it to get that hot. Glad to be warned.
Good Luck, DoN.