Had a disconcerting experience!

[Longcruise]

 I went to my bench a few minutes ago looking for a pencil.  The bench is a huge mess from having done many little projects over the past few weeks.   I picked up the pencil you can see in the first picture and started to pull it out from underneath the accumulated mess.  Immediately my eye caught a flash and I saw that a piece of fine steel wool on top of those blue handled pliers was burning.   I'm not sure how exactly the contacts came about but that small charging plug and the pair of pliers were involved.   Had i just grabbed the pencil and walked away without noticing, . . . . Well it could have gone very badly.

Keep you bench clean and unplug things when not in use!   

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[Mad Max]

 
Glad you caught it!

[Roy from Pa]

Damn Mike glad you were there...

[Longcruise]

It happened when I jostled things around pulling on the pencil.  Could have and probably would have happened with any slight movement.   The whole thing was spring loaded to happen.

[Bowjunkie]

Geeze. Good catch. And thanks for the heads up. I have a charger laying on my messy bench and in the cabinet right above it is all my reloading supplies, including a bunch of gun powder. I'm going to unplug it as soon as I get home.

[Roy from Pa]

One time there were 2 of us sitting at the work bench talking, when all of a sudden my orbital palm sander took off running and scooting across the bench.

Scared the crap out of us both.

I guess the on/off switch wasn't completely locked in the off position and the spring tension turned it back on.

Could have been bad if no one was in the shop.

[Crooked Stic]

It certainly does not take much to set steel wool a blaze. I have used the used up pieces for fire starter.
Roy them rocker switches if under a rubber covering sometimes are not turned off good and can go on their own and make you pee a little   

[Roy from Pa]

Glad I had my depends on, Mike:)

[Bow Bender]

9V batteries with both terminals on the same end can be a big problem when shuffeled around in a junk drawer.

[Minnesota Bill]

In my younger days I placed a used 9volt in my front jeans pocket. A little while later started getting this warm feeling and well lets say learned my lesson.  Had a red mark on the front of my leg and a scorched mark on the pocket material. Must have crossed over a coin on something else in my pocket. Later worked in a security hospital and patients would use batteries with a paper clip to light cigarettes' and one had tried setting a fire.  Lesson learn there as well.  

[Shredd]

Damn..!!!   Not Good...  Thanks for the heads up...

[Mad Max]

same thing with those little pancake bat's, don't put them in your pocket to go to the store to get a new one