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Blackpowder accident

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I some fun with carbide!

Zonie said:
Although it wasn't black powder or match heads I had my fun with some dry swimming pool chlorine.

Seems this stuff is not only a strong oxidizer but it supports combustion (producing poisonous gasses in the process).

A friend and I, being young and foolish found a broken quart size thermos jug.

In a vacant field we placed this, open end up and filled it with about 3/4 of a pound of the granules.

Dropping a lit match down the hole we expected to see it catch fire and roar to life like a solid bottle rocket. (We had done this several times using a old clothesline T pole.

Rather than roar to life it seemed that nothing was happening so I went forward and looked down the hole.
I could see the surface of the chemical bubbling but that was all until....
My friend (?) came forward and dropped a handful of the powder down the hole.

Suddenly, there was a mighty explosion. It blew me backwards over 10 feet and I landed on my back.
My friend was likewise blown about the same distance in the opposite direction.

After regaining our senses we realized we were both uninjured (except for a few scrapes from landing on the hard Arizona dirt which by the way is so hard you have to use a pick to dig into it) so we started looking around.

With all of our looking, we never found a trace of the thermos bottle top or sides but the bottom was imbedded over 1/2 inch straight down into the hard dirt.
 
Black powder flash burns hurt... especially on the face. Pouring BP in a hollow tree, even just a little and lighting it is dumb. The Squirrel is not coming out. Or he did while I was looking the other way...
Tree burnt down.... Lucky it was Iowa not MT.
Don't try to wade a river that is neck deep if you can't swim... Current carried me though the deep hole to shallow water as I bounced off the
Don't shoot at the neighbor lady with a slingshot made of a bicycle innertube stretched across a garage window, her kids helped with that one...
Don't shoot the neighbor kids with a pellet rifle...
There are some lies, I think, my sisters tell about me too...
Little boys don't get to be little boys much anymore...
Dan
 
I can attest to that. When I was around 12 or 13, I was helping to clean out my step-grandpa's shed. We found a can of black powder in there. Fortunately, there was only a small bit left in the can. I took it out, poured it on the driveway and struck a match to it expecting it to burn like smokeless powder. It went up in a big poof and I ended up with the hair burned off my eyebrows and right arm and some badly singed hair on my head. I also had minor flash burns on my hand and forehead. Stupid? You betcha! But it wasn't a total waste, I learned how not to use black powder and how dangerous it can be when improperly handled. I now have a great respect for it and use it safely.
 
I friend was over at my house one time when I was cleaning my flintlock. He was curious about BP and somehow, we got on the subject of how in the movies, guys will make a "fuse" out of a line of BP to set off an explosion. I told him that was in the movies and that it didn't work like that.

Well”¦ He insists that we try it, so I told him he could do it. I lay out about four inches of powder, in a very, very thin line. He puts match to one end of it and of course the whole line goes off at once and he jumps about 5 feet as it explodes (no harm to him).

I asked him if he noticed how it didn't burn slowly down the line, like in the movies? He was still in shock and just looked at me. :grin:
 
I am a child of the Cold War. Back in the early to mid 60's. me a couple of good hunting buddies( all under the age of 16) decided the Russians were going to attack any day and we need to get ready for them.

I was the "chemist" of the group so I got to make our BP. To test my product, we filled 4 three pound peanut butter cans with it and put fuses in the and place one in each corner of a railroad bridge on a old mine spur. Twelve pounds of BP can lift a tressle bridge about 3 feet in the air and put large humps in the rails at each end. For some unknown reason the FBI was very interested in those humps in the rails.

This was just one of the things we tried to help defend the good ole USA.
 
I won't tell you some of the things we did as kids with blackpowder (a friend's father had a cannon and we had access to goodly amounts that may or may not have been noted missing). Suffice it to say it is astounding I have all my fingers.

We also had some fun times with calcium carbonate ("Bangsite") that releases acetalene gas when mixed with water.

When I was in high school and college I had a friend who shared an interest in fendish things. We would attach "bombs" to each other's cars or homes that had flashbulbs to register a "kill". Every so often we would have a challenge at a local pizza joint and the loser bought. (We'd have a half-dozen in the audience so it was fircely fought). If we were both "killed" it was Dutch Treat - and that was usually the case. I give high marks to bomb defusers; though most real IEDs are probably pretty simple in practice because the more complex the more likely you are to toast yourself setting it up. We had motion sensors, light sensors, multiple switches, relays that fired if the power was cut, etc. and a 10 minute timer.

A flashbulb with the bulb opened and immersed in powder is a swell ignitor. We would definately both be in confinement in today's environment.

Magicubes were percussive and we had some fun with them as well. Mousetrap snapped the trigger and fired the bulb . . . and there's all kinds of trip-wire alternatives for mousetraps.

Ah. The good old days.
 
Burnt by way of stupid, dog bit, horse kicked, Horse bit, scorpion stung, shot at, hit! (salt Rock thank god), frost bit, sun burn, ran my tank dry while diving :redface: , drank home made wine, canoed the mouth of the peace river in a rain storm, poked, cut, & banged around. . . :thumbsup: Yep I too was once a 15 year old .
 
...and it's a wonder any of us lived to be normal! :rotf:

Pal growing up whose Dad was in the army and told Jerry more than he probably should got us going on some of these things. One of our favorites was the old condom & carbide routine with town cannons. If you carefully stick a small lump of carbide in the tip and hold it up while running a bit of water into it and tying off, you can make a timer with a Camel or Lucky. Slide it into the cannon muzzle, light Camel, tie into knot and push it on down. Carbide makes gas and fills up condom till it pops and Camel ignites it. BOOM! Cannon goes off and nobody sees smoke...use the 5 minutes of burn time to get far away! Bah-ha-ha!!
 
Well, let's see Stumpy. If the following keywords in your post don't set off the NSA alarms, I don't know what will. If the Forum isn't here tomorrow, we'll know why. :haha:

Stumpkiller said:
blackpowder

calcium carbonate ("Bangsite") that releases acetalene gas when mixed with water.

attach "bombs" to each

register a "kill".

both "killed"

bomb defusers;

IEDs are probably pretty simple

motion sensors, light sensors, multiple switches, relays that fired if the power was cut,

a 10 minute timer.

a swell ignitor.

Mousetrap snapped the trigger and fired the bulb

trip-wire alternatives
 
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