kid blows hand off with cannon

[faw3]

Ive been in the hospital and got out last night but caught on the local news some bright kid in school shop with a teacher was makeing a cannon,ect, somehow he set it off when the teach wasnt around and lost a hand , part of the "cannon" went 65 yards thru the wall of shop ect, I'll try and get a newspaper for a better story but this is how "lets ban BP or BP cannons" start. this is Smith County Tex I think it happend in....all I can say is DUCK!....Fred :hatsoff:

 

[robinghewitt]

He loaded it in the shop :shocked2:

 

[rifleshooter2]

Here is the article looks like a pipe bomb more than a cannon both ends were pluged :nono: [url] http://www.tylerpaper.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16655249&BRD=1994&PAG=461&dept_id=226369&rfi=6[/url]

Andy

 

[Bob Riegl]

:youcrazy: We have some considerably more culpable adults here, who probably are currently looking for a new line of employment. The I.A. teacher and the Science teacher should be fired immediately regardless of tenure, for negligence. I am hard on teachers like this as I spent 41 years teaching chemistry at two East coast colleges---and though I had lab assistants do lab work---I never had a student injured because of my T.A.'s negligence, because they (T.A.) new they were history within 10 seconds of an such recurrence. This down and outright negligence and gross stupidity. That student did not deserve to be mutiliated by the lack of intelligence of the teachers involved. :cursing:

 

[faw3]

If you can pull up the Friday paper, what was a teacher showing kids how to make BP for anyway??, this isnt the first thing like this from around here about 2 years ago someone was setting off something that the pape wouldnt even say what it was it was really blowing things up for a few weeks, I dont guess you could of called this a cannon after all, thats how it was reported by the "we know nothing" 18 year olds that run that paper now. Still it goes to show you'll find a nut about anyplace I guess. Fred :hatsoff:

 

[robinghewitt]

I think I see a piece of conduit, plugged or crimped at the top and a stilson being used to screw it in to an end cap at the bottom. The cap being held in the vise.

Something that got caught in the screw thread and detonated? Well it sure wasn't gunpowder. Do we guess chlorate and sugar? I think the shrapnel has been exagerated.

Somehow I survived my early experiments with blowing things up so I can't say he was wrong, just unlucky to be steadying the wrench with his left while turning with his right.

I reckon this was an unrelated experiment, there is no cannon, just a kid's game that went horribly wrong.

 

Alexander said the cannon resembled a pipe bomb, but said it was a science project.

He said the pipe was 2 to 3 inches in length and had a ¾-inch diameter. He added that the pipe had caps on both ends, was filled with homemade gunpowder and had a green fuse.

Caps on both ends, does not a cannon make! This was a pipe bomb, pure and simple!

The explosion blew several holes through the building, sending shrapnel 65 yards from the building over two large fuel tanks for the school district's buses. Throughout the shop, metal fragments were embedded in the metal walls.

Alexander said that although the project appeared to be an isolated project that only Strength was working on, students had manufactured gunpowder in the physics lab.

Something that got caught in the screw thread and detonated? Well it sure wasn't gunpowder. Do we guess chlorate and sugar? I think the shrapnel has been exagerated.

Who knows what else they may have cooked up in that lab. From what I'm getting from the newspaper account, with a lab at their disposal, and what looks to be a pressure detonation, I suspect the so-called gunpowder may have been mercuric formulate. Although, homebrewed gunpowder can cover a lot of territory. And unglazed blackpowder has more umph to it.

I, also, suspect that besides the missing top cap and half the pipe itself, that another wrench may account for the extensive sharpnel damage. But, it still remains that was a pipe bomb and not a cannon, homemade or otherwise! Who knows what this kid was up to?
CP

 

[robinghewitt]

If he was using another spanner wouldn't the stilson be the other way round and his left hand clear of the bang?

Kids rarely do things the hard way, if he found a piece of conduit threaded at both ends and had end caps he'd use them. Failing that he'd just close the end with the vise :thumbsup:

 

[John Taylor]

I'm surprised that I didn't kill myself growing up when I did stupid things like this at home. I did blow a hole through a friends garage door with a small canon, using matches for powder.
It's a hard way to learn a lesson when a young fellow looses a hand. I do believe the teacher needs to be involved in what his students are doing. When I was in the 6th grade the teacher was teaching about action and reaction. We made rockets using CO2 cartriges taped to a wooden dowl and set them off by holding a nail to the cartrige with clay and hitting it with a stick. They would go about 200 yards. One of the janitors made a lanching pad that we could adjust the angle on. It had a piece of 1/2" pipe that the dowl would slide into. The teacher was there the whole time and no one got hurt.

 

Looks to me the kid is darned lucky he lost just his hand. That's a heck of a hole in the wall there. Teachers need to stay awake in class.

 

[faw3]

Still Cooner what kind of teacher shows how to make BP? From what I got on the late news 12:30 am Saturday ATF has said it was a cannon not a pipe bomb,and home made BP, we know they couldnt be wrong.....as far as how far parts went they showed good size holes in prefab rooms at a good 60 yards. And ya I remember the day as my kid calls it when I was young and made rockets that went thru walls a 100 yards away fueled by the powder from a pair of the old "cherry bombs" it's a wonder many of us are still here. Fred :hatsoff:

 

Yeah, making gunpowder in a school class is extreme. I missed that part :shake: What was the instructor thinking? No guns or knives in schools nowdays but.... hey guys, lets make some black powder and build us a cannon. :youcrazy:

 

[robinghewitt]

what kind of teacher shows how to make BP?

Only the best durned teacher in the whole of Texas :thumbsup:

Why didn't I get teachers like that?

 

[Chuck Thom]

I agree with claypipe it was a pipe bomb the excuse was to cover his butt

 

If he was using another spanner wouldn't the stilson be the other way round and his left hand clear of the bang?

Kids rarely do things the hard way, if he found a piece of conduit threaded at both ends and had end caps he'd use them. Failing that he'd just close the end with the vise :thumbsup:

I'll agree that I was wrong about a second spanner.

But look at the top of the device. Its twisted, and the middle of the pipe not covered by the first spanner is gone. If the top was open, then the pipe would have split like a banana. The top twisted after the middle let go, and the student was probably steading the device with his left hand, which was possibly removed by the end cap. He's damn lucky that the pieces from the middle didn't cut through his chest. My opinion is, still, that this definitely was a pipe bomb.

CP

 

[GreyWhiskers]

My shop teacher let me turn a foot long 12 bore cannon on the lathe in high school. I still have it. I figured those days were long gone from school.

 

[Old Ironsights]

what kind of teacher shows how to make BP?

Only the best durned teacher in the whole of Texas :thumbsup:

Why didn't I get teachers like that?

I did... though my HS chem teacher also tought us how to (properly) make fulminates, Thermite, Nitrocellulose (gun cotton), Nitroglycerine, properly mixed ANFO and, if necessary, Picric Acid. :shocked2:

Then again, this was central Wyoming in the early Eighties and half the guys in town worked for the Iron Mine as pyros... and many of us did Blasting out on one Ranch or another.

Not only that, if you had any testosterone in your system growing up, you were "spelunking" in old gold mine shafts... looking for old crates of dynamite. Nothing better than flinging a spoonful of that oily, silvery goo at a rock wall when you want to wake up a buddy... :shocked2: :youcrazy: :rotf:

 

[Old Ironsights]

My shop teacher let me turn a foot long 12 bore cannon on the lathe in high school. I still have it. I figured those days were long gone from school.

Along with taking rifles to school because you are a Letterman on the HS Small Bore Rifle Team.