Extraction safety- accidents and close calls

too much iso + wand hash = bottle explosion

Just thought I'd report what happened this weekend with my bottle of iso reclaim.

It was as dark brown glass bottle, filled to the brim with dark iso rich with reclaim from weeks of cleaning my oil rigs as well as a deep clean of 6-8 months worth of wand hash. The iso was saturated with oil and viscous. So I dropped in about a gram of old wand hash that I'd found in my draw. The bottle was full already, and adding this caused some to overflow, sticking to my hands and making the bottle sticky. I ignored this and re-screwed on the lid whilst I let the wand hash dissolve. Big mistake.

I glanced out of the window and saw glimpse of a bird of prey, so I moved to the window for a better look. I had been standing there for maybe a minute watching the buzzards when all of a sudden the glass bottle in my hand exploded, firing shards of glass and spilling my dark oil laden iso everywhere- on the window, the windowsill, down the wall and in a puddle on the floor, as well as splattering all down the front of my clothing. A sticky mess.

Not sure exactly what happened. I expect that the wand hash was dissolving in the iso and perhaps also releasing some gas. Or maybe thermal expansion due to the heat in my hand? but this latter suggestion seems unlikely- the change to my palm temperature is not great and would have taken longer, and I doubt it could have caused the pressure build up required. Or wand hash is of much greater volume as a liquid than as a solid lump. I don't know.

Gutted that I lost a lot of reclaim- I fully expected to have 3-5g or more after evaporation- but lucky that none of the glass found its way through my skin.

So I think that the moral of the story for me is to leave a significant air gap at the top of any bottle in which I'm conducting such procedures, and to leave off the lid until it's all dissolved. Now upon reflection I expect it's standard procedure when bottling things to always leave an air gap rather than filling right to the brim. I didn't really know that, though it's obvious.

bet you had fun cleaning that up

thanks for sharing, will keep this in mind next time I work with iso. It's hard to imagine iso building up that much pressure.

Damn Wat!

Are you sure you weren't just excited by seeing a hawk swoop in for the kill and, forgetting yourself, you squeezed your palms tight in anticipation of the strike - and BOOM - glass and goop everywhere!?!

Something to do with tight fists comes to mind

thanks for sharing your story man that is good to know idd!

sorry to hear about it happening though.

Im not exaclty sure what happen in your case, but when i used to fill little dram containers with oil, if i filled it more then 3/4, it would eventually overflow, it was weird.

Hmm, I just started using a new reclaim container yesterday and I filled it to the brim almost, I better take some out then. Thanks for the tip, I hope it wasn't to much of a mess to clean up!

thanks for sharing and glad you ok.

Thanks for sharing. These tragic stories stand as a testimate to the bravery of hash makers everywhere and the risks they take to provide medicine and bliss to the public everyday. God bless you sir, and bless all those who risk their lives to make ear wax, budder, honey oil, amber glass...

Ok, so this weekend past I had yet another pressure explosion!

This time it was my Borosilicate BHO extraction tube.

Again, I don't know what happened. I was pressing the can in the top hole, about 1/3 of a can had ran through and I was nearly done when... BOOM!

A big pop/bang and bud went flying everywhere and a 1" chunk of the glass went flying off at great speed. Not sure exactly where it went (I found it on the ground some distance away after) but I know I was lucky it didn't hit my face. I wasn't wearing safety glasses- in the past I've admittedly sometimes been too lazy to use them if they're not handy, as I'm sure many of us might occasionally do. You see, with the BHO run in a 4mm boro tube I had only really 'risk assessed' for a blow out from the filter end, and figured my eyes weren't directly in the firing line with the tube pointed downward. I had never ever expected my thick boro tube to break like this. I can only guess that there was a weakness in the glass and it just couldn't take the pressure and cold.

Lesson this time: DO ALWAYS WEAR SAFETY GLASSES.

I'm sure most do already, but I'm sure there are many like me who will also occasionally take the short cut.



The only good news is that I had nearly finished the run, and managed to get perhaps 80% of the bud out of the oil. Still lost a good bit though.

Someone else now post some of their near miss lessons as they happen in this thread for us all to learn from, so I don't look like quite such a dangerous or accident prone numpty.

Well big credit to Hydroponics Nation on ebay who sold me the extractor. I emailed them to say what happened, hoping maybe for just a discount on a new tube as it was well over 3 months ago that I purchased it, and they sent me a brand new replacement tube free of charge, all the way across the Atlantic. It arrived today. Exemplary service IMO.

I did get to thinking however that I don't think I will be trusting a standard thin glass turkey baster as an extraction tube after this experience.

Always be careful with glassware you've used one too many times. Invisible stress slowly accumulate on the glass and one day it'll just shatter in your hands without warning. Extraction tube wise this is why I still always use stainless steel, and you are guaranteed that thing won't break and will pretty much last forever.

My close call was evaporating off the iso from my reclaim oil, I had about 50ml in the beaker, double boiler setup over the stove, when the iso fume caught fire and produced a little flame at the mouth of the beaker. It was no big deal really, except my instinct to try to blow it out just produced a flare up, then I turned the stove, took a dish towel and just tossed over the beaker and that was it. Always be take care with flammables, never turn your back on them and respect them.

glass always freezes in CO when extracting, i wouldnt use anything non-boro, or even thin boro for that matter.

i heated a non-boro jar once that had some oil residue in it, i was trying to melt it down, with the cap of the jar off i thought i was good, POP jar fucking exploded, glass and hot oil went everywhere, including my face, lesson learned.