When setting up a students new plane using some of his old gear from a crashed plane I, the instructor, spotted some frayed wires right at the junction of his old battery. Being a wise old man I mentioned how I wouldn't use that battery in a plane so he went and bought a new one. So far so good. I tossed the battery in my drawer and use it once in a while to set up planes or test gear, it works. Yesterday I was sifting through this drawer looking for some shrink tube and was tossing stuff around getting to the bottom of the drawer. I was finished and just about to leave my shop for the rest of the day but I decided to have a smoke and do some little stuff. A few minutes later I spotted black smoke wafting up from my bench, I right away looked at my soldering iron, nope, my smoke was in the ash tray so nope. My goodness it was staring to get thick and coming from my closed drawer!!! When I opened the drawer flames were licking up at me!! I got the flames out and spotted the battery and it was still cooking so I tossed in in the sink full of water then removed the cells from all wires. It burnt my compas and a screw driver handle plus some plastic bags full of screws. If I wasn't there I could have burnt down my whole shop, the shop is a guest house so it's not like just an old out building but part of my home. When I was moving things around in the drawer I must have bent the wires on the battery and shorted it out. So much for the wise old instructor. Today I got a crock pot to store my batteries in and if there is something wrong with any of them they will get a toss. This one little thing could have gotten very ugly very fast, leson learned!! [:@][&:] Knowledge passed on.