This week I need to make a commitment, to not blowing myself up! I've started working with gas, which is fun, lots of fire. But I've not really stuffed around much with it before, my only tuition with fire coming from Stringer, Davros and Chigby. So, I'm learning the hard way that gas appliances need injectors.

The first episode was harmless towards everything, except my fragile ego. I followed my instructions diligently and had a gas feed pipe fabricated. At no stage was there a direction that a gas injector needed to be incorporated in this design. But, finally I realised, no injector - no flame. Or worse, BIG flame! I duly (re)designed the feed pipe, with a fully adjustable injector. Fully sic bro! All the gas staff had a discreet chuckle at my expense.

Designing another prototype, I included an injector and assembled it for testing. The flame pattern was massive, and entirely outside the desired window. The lesson here was that I needed to put the right sized injector in the appliance. I knew this, and I thought the injector I had was the right one. I now know better.

And the ultimate episode was with our other prototype. All ready to test, gas happily flowing, pilot happily sparking. But no flame. Is the spark not strong enough? Has the gas not purged the air yet? Better put the "flaming ignition wand"TM in the flue. BOOOOM!

Hehehe, yeah pilot feed pipes need injectors too. This last one literally put me on my arse with quite the bang. I was reminded that the smell of singed hair doesn't really wash off. I also recalled that pure gas won't light, it needs air too. The right mix took a while to load up, and then unload. Gee, I'm glad I'm not in charge, of either the lab, or OHS. At least I still have my eyebrows...