Steel wool is bare ferrous metal and prone to instant rusting under the right conditions. I've opened new packages of steel wool in the past and found a slight hint of an oil residue on it. I'm guessing that this is to prevent rusting by the time the consumer buys it in the event it remains on a store shelf for a long time somewhere humid. I would speculate the wool you had may have had an excess amount of protective oil. The sparks got it going. Weird! Rob Goodale, RPT Las Vegas, NV Today I had a fresh roll of 0000 steel wool catch fire from grinder sparks. Just 5 seconds of low level flame (like alcohol flames) and another 5 second of glowing strands until it went out. Of course it went out -- steel is not a combustible material!! I was using an angle grinder (hand held, and this wasn't piano work). The sparks were shooting about 3 feet across my bench where the roll of steel wool was. If it had been resting on something like paper towel, that might have been more serious. Watch your sparks! John Baird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070829/5418bd40/attachment.html
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