Warning, welding or heating on a tire mounted wheel

Fascinating that even a tire that's not seated on the bead will still explode. Given his explanation, it makes sense.

This summer my cousin's hired hand hit a powerline with the sprayer boom (and didn't realize it), and a couple of hours later a tire exploded. Actually damaged all the tires. Having watched this video I now know why the tire exploded, and they are lucky the other three didn't explode later (perhaps while the tire crew was working on them).

Good post NF. I knew it was never a good idea to heat up a seated tire. I always thought pulling the valve core would be enough. I am curious to how much of a gap they had on the bead broken tire.

The reason I got thinking about this tire explosion issue as the simplified way of putting it, a couple of days ago I saw a neighbour getting some custom combining done by the local colony and I was curious what his canola was testing so went down the trail to the field and saw they had a flat on the rear tire of one of the colony's combines and they were lining up a picker truck to lift the rear of the combine and hoping to reseat the tire. Apparently those rims have an issue with cracking and this one had been welded on already and had cracked by the weld. They lifted up the end of the axle and then packed in the murphy soap on both sides and then here is where they diverted from what I tire shop would NEVER do and that is use starting fluid to reseat the tire. Of course its out in a stubble field and it is dry so there is that .... besides the concept of starting fluid and assume some potential dangers. They used most of the can in their efforts as initially there were flames but no bang and then its still on fire as they are attempting to spray more of it past the bead of the tire where they wiped the soap away, finally on a second try with the propane torch ( keep in mind the torch was almost blowing out as it was so windy ) the BANG happened and that tire seated all right and actually lifted the combine as it slammed back onto the rim with force. Two guys kneeling down beside the tire doing this you see and both of them got spattered with the soap all over their shirts and of course the young guy had sunglasses perched on top of his hat. I made sure to stand back a ways and facing the tire tread side out of harms way. I don't know if its possible for the starting fluid to have a chance in starting this internal tire issue or not and I realize this trick has been done many a time by some but I doubt its an ideal practice. I don't expect its in any of the tire mounting manuals you posted up AB ! LOL.

I had hooked a power line with a boom years ago. Distracted while unfolding. While trying to get off the line ( I was under the power, hung up on he ground line) the boom touched the power while still on the ground line. The farmer said that sparks were arcing from all four tires to the ground. Apparently, when my boom shorted the two lines it blew the transformer or a fuse or something a Atco had to come out and do some repairs. They never did find out why the power went down. While i had seem the video NF posted MANY times (have showed it to many people) it never occurred to me that the power line incident MIGHT have had a similar result. I was concerned about racing through bearings and such and was expecting some failures somewhere ij my machine from the electricity going through it  but, about 500,000 acres later, no ill effects. Got lucky. Another former farmer come custom applicator from Eaglesham (NF probably knows him) hooked a power line with his new Nitro and it was a write off. 

I know that is true for split rims. I think most have been destroyed, I have never seen one in the flesh, but are you also including split rings as a  "multi piece" rim?. If so, I was not aware that they too are illegal. I've heard that most shops won't touch them but have not heard that they were illegal like the split rims.

Def the ether thing works under some circumstances and there is a bit of a trick to get to work proper. I have done it myself numerous times but it is not something I like to rely on nor recommend to others. There are a few factors that come into play with doing it. Firstly, the ether today is not the ether we had 20 plus years ago, it like so many other things has been water down. Some brands are worse than others. Also the nozzles on the cans do not all atomize the fluid, many simply spray a stream of liquid. Believe it or not, much of this is due to it being misused, its a safety and liability thing, because of stupid people it has changed lol. You want to lite it from off to the side, I generally use a small propane torch or rolled up newspaper. You want to try to spread the ether out inside the tire, and not just spray it onto the rim or tire itself. Generally after a couple of tries, its best to purge the inside of the tire with air and start over. Its an emergency thing more than anything, much better ways to do it.
In the past I've had tires come off the ground when they went whump, usually most try to use too much. Also if being done on a vehicle or such, the tire needs to be centered on the rim for it to work, same with using a blaster, you can't have the tire just hanging there. Like on a truck, I'll run the other tire up on a block, then slide a thinner block under the flat tie to position it at the right height. Bit of effort in the beginning makes things happen a lot faster in the end.
Myself I only use it in a rare or special situation anymore. I built myself a bead blaster out of a 20 pounder propane bottle years ago and thats the best route. They have come down in price big time, well worth having if you have tubeless tires, especially on trucks and trailers.

Like with NF and his Huts combine tire, I was impressed they had the Murphy soap out LOL, that stuff is a tire's best friend. However it sounds like the tire was not making decent contact with the beads to seat it. One way to over come this is to contract the center of the tire inwards, this causes the beads to push outwards. Due to friction of the rubber on the treads, you either need a special tool or what I use, and that is multiple ratchet straps, coupled together with the ratchets evenly spaced around the outside of the tire, then work your way around tightening each one little at a time. If you try to use too few you will end up with egg shaped bulges in the sidewalls and it makes sealing the tire virtually impossible. But when done as I explained, now you connect your air supply and hit it with the blaster and you should have things in place.
Two things on air supply. Remove the core, you want as high of volume as possible. Secondly, have the air flowing PRIOR to using the blaster.
But in the situation where you used a mechanical means to compress the tire, once you get a few pounds air into the tire, you need to release that external pressure quickly or things can get dangerous for as you add more air, the pressure on those straps goes higher, and much like in NF's first vid, boom, your straps will become projectiles.

There are tricks to make things work better. Like for example, I have a simple bit of rigging that makes life easy...instead of a a chuck to fit on the valve stem, its a few fittings and short piece of high pressure fuel line that goes on the end of the air supply. Some applications I have to clamp it onto the stem, others it holds by simply friction, but now you have unrestricted air flow and you don't have to monkey around trying to get a locking chuck to hold, and often unless pressed on completely, they don't open all the way either.
And yea, of course, the more air you got the better. When I get into the big stuff, I break out the big gun, it will hold its own pushing over 100 PSI on a 3/8 line wide open, now things are happening lol.

And multi piece rims are just that, rims that are made up of two or more pieces. Vast majority are tube type. There are numerous types, everything from the bolted two piece British wheels to the multi piece tubeless rims still used on construction equipment today. In the automotive world, most tire shops will not touch any kind of multi piece rims anymore. They were rated with a life span of 25 years. Each rim is stamped with the date manufactured. It is in the regulations and in the books what the industry rules are. That don't mean there aren't shops who will work them, but those are very few and far between. Most people today don't know about them and that makes them even more dangerous than before. A good example of this is dealing the DOTs and the rims IH used in the 50s and 60s, the main part of the rim was split at the slot for the valve all the way  thru the lock ring side, they were made this way by Firestone for IH, and its so they are easier to dismount the tire after use. Well they see that split and think its a crack and thus begins the history lesson lol.
I'll address it simply based on safety, but I believe the wheels being asked about are a "true" split rim, otherwise known as widowmakers, made much like the bolted British rims, the rim is in two halves. Again they have not been made in a long time and they are without question the most dangerous of them all and even myself will not mess with those. I own some, but have also acquired enough of the newer style to replace them as needed and always recommend others do the same. Biggest issue with them is they rust between the two halves and the edges which lock them together are destroyed. I have had them actually let go bolted on a truck just sitting. They were only used on trucks up to about three ton, incredible amount of school buses used to run them too. Only will ever see them in a Budd mount, usually 5, 6 or 10 studd. Most popular with Ford and GM vehicles. As yet it is not illegal to operate a vehicle with them, but given no one will work on them, they pretty much have been removed from use by elimination. Anyone using an old wagon ect with them on it, becareful guys, they are a ticking time bomb really. I only have one truck with them still, little '67 GM 950 two ton, my old water truck. but I do have the newer style to put on it if I ever use it again.