Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
Hair dryers on low setting unlikely to damage paint. On a high setting, probably pretty safe too, but most people run a hair dryer on high for less than a minute or two, much longer than that and the hair dryer might over heat.
I don't know whether a hair dryer can overheat. It's working mechanism is to an extent self cooling.
I've waxed some of my fjällräven jackets with a hair dryer. It took quite some time and then at least it was fine.
I wanted to get the penetrating oil into my bottom bracket shell threads so I could remove the rusty bottom bracket, set a hair dryer aimed on the bottom bracket shell on low for quite a few minutes to get things quite warm, it helped with no damage to paint.
Many metal bikes do use powder coat, which is baked on at 200 Celsius (around 400 fahrenheit), but if the bike has clear coat, it could be damaged by too much heat. But I doubt a hair dryer could achieve that. With a hot air gun though...
With carbon bikes I'd be extra careful if I was using a hot air gun.
And again, hot air guns aren't really relevant in terms of touring. I tried looking for small ones, but even the small pen type models are surprisingly heavy.
I would never use a flame on a lubed chain for any reason. But I might be overly cautious, I spent a couple years early in my career doing fire protection research and safety research, I read thousands of accident reports where people made some pretty stupid very expensive mistakes.
I understand the sentiment. On should be cautious with flames. But if one isn't going out of their way to actually set their chain on fire and is paying at least some attention to the process, just having a flame present shouldn't increase the risks measurably. Waxes and oils need to evaporate/aerosolize in order to catch fire (read: candles/diesel engines). For chain wax to evaporate enough to catch fire would take significant roasting. But even if a section did catch fire, I don't think it'd be able to heat the chain next to it enough to create a chain reaction event (pun totally intended). There also isn't a lot of fuel on a chain so any burning even wouldn't take long.
Needless to say, if one were to heat up their chain with a gas stove etc., all the typical precautions still need to be taken, ie. doing it on a inflammable ground surface, having extinguishing devices nearby (water's fine), not wearing flammable textiles while doing it etc.
It is like the saying goes: fire is a good servant but a bad master. It needs to be respected.
I once tested how well motor oil burned by placing a small metal can of it inside an old oil barrel we were using as a fire pit for parties. The barrel had holes in the bottom so the fire inside likely reached temperatures way above 1000 celsius. Hot enough to blow up asbestos...
I wasn't able to burn off the oil. It probably burned at some point but went out immediately when there wasn't enough external heat.