Don't dip your hand in boiling hot oil like this

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/23/dont-dip-your-hand-in-boiling-hot-oil-like-this.html

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This is a really freaky sensation and really kind of messes with your head after you realize what you’ve done. For me, the realization of how bad it would have been if you messed up (or gotten some under your fingernails) is what really gets you; it’s 99% mental. Especially when the difference between fine and massive burns is measured in fractional seconds…

I’ve not done it with molten metal, but I have done it with liquid nitrogen (such a weird chill) and with boiling oil (not intentionally…).

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Tell me I’m not the only one who immediately has an urge to do this.

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I still do NOT want to do this.

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If even a tiny little speck of hot oil flies up from the frying pan, it can be a real bummer. No way I’d try to dip my hand in and risk splashing it everywhere. Hot oil on clothes? Hell no!

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In my youth I worked at a Wendy’s, and while I was cleaning the fryer one night, a single drop of oil dripped off the heating element onto my forearm. The resulting blood blister was enormous.

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It never worked out like that for me.

OH yeah - that’s the worst. That’s why you should fry naked.

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I would rather try this with lead rather than the oil. Just like a drop of water in a pan of oil it can start spattering like crazy!

The older brother of a high school friend of mine used to grab french fries out of the hot oil in the fryer with his bare hands. There was a perfectly good wire scoop he could have used but of course he had to show off.

If he ever hurt himself doing this, it didn’t happen when I was over.

I’m frying naked right now!

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Nice! What could go wrong?

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I more fascinated by that brief clip of a guy putting his hand into molten metal which i’d never seen before. Holy crap…

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Same here (what else were they expecting, leaving dewars of LN2 lying around where undergrads could get hold of them?). Although I suppose it’s sort of a “reverse”-Leidenfrost effect, where it’s the nitrogen that’s boiling from the heat of your hand, which insulates you from the rest of the liquid.
I also found that you can breath in the water vapour that condenses on top, and blow ‘smoke’ rings with it.

Ah, the fun you can have when your university has a gas liquification plant out the back, and you have access to basically unlimited quantities of liquid nitrogen :wink:

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