I have one of those wonderful lamps from Jo-Ann Fabrics that has a daylight and a large magnifying glass attached to it, perfect when I'm doing something on the machine. It sits next to the machine of course. My sewing room faces South and is very bright when the sun beams in during the day. In fact if I'm sewing I have to draw the blind behind the machine to keep from blinding myself. THAT is what happened. The sun was beaming in and reflecting off that huge magnifying glass and actually had burned 2 little holes in the cover I put over my machine--which I put over it to protect it from the sun.
I like the fact that the sun beams in because it heats the room which might be a bit cold to work in otherwise but wow, I never gave it a thought when I placed that lamp near the machine. Imagine if I had left already, my house might have burned. My expensive embroidery machine could have been toast. I'm horrified with the thought.
Luckily the magnifying glass can be removed so I took it off the stand and put it in a cupboard so that its handy when I want to use it but not burning holes in my stuff when I don't want to use it.
Lesson learned, I hope if anyone reading this has one of those magnifying glass/lamps you learn from what happened to mine and we can all avoid the awful consequences.
2 comments:
I actually know of a similar case of an overhead projector being left facing the window in an empty classroom. One afternoon, the sun lined up just right to shine through the lenses and started a fire. Fortunately, that was also caught before major damage was done! I'm glad you caught it.
So glad you were alert to the situation. When I was a child the flooring in our porch was scorched by the sun shining through a large glass jug of white vinegar which had a curved bottom. Any curved glass can have the same effect, even a drinking glass. I'm sure fires would happen more frequently except that the sun moves and the length of time it would be focused through the curved object is limited.
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