Hello dbigkahunna, your story brings back plenty of memories of pyro-days that I shared with one of my best friends. There wasn't anything that was sacred or safe from us. It's a good thing that our "playground" was pretty much fire-proof or we would have been on the sheriff's/fire department's most wanted list. One of our favorites was a 1/2 full popcan of gas with a wick, hit it with a varmint round and it makes a heck of a fireball. I could go on, but there's always another time. Enjoyed the story/message immensely. Thanks and best regards, Allan
I'll have you know that I'm in the middle of a class where I'm teaching students to interpret welding symbols.
The students are trying to concentrate on a difficult quiz, which is hard to do with me sitting here at my desk trying hard but unsucsessfully to contain belly laughs.
You shouldn't post things that hilarious in the middle of the day!
:)
Thanks...
I would like to take credit for this, but sadly cannot. It was sent to me.
I felt sharing it with my friends on the forum would bring a smile.
If you can read this without crying, you are a tougher person than I am!
I had some interesting experiments as did some of My friends, neighbors and a cousin messing with gunpowder, flamable substances, oxidisers etc.
My friend Beardy singed His eybrows together lighting a pile of black powder. What a way to wish a "Happy Mother's Day" to His aunt Judy that He lived with...
My cousin Johnny, the one all the jokes & stories are about, made bombs using baking powder & water in an asprin bottle when He was a little kid. One that didn't go off right away blew up and cut his face 11 stiches worth when He picked it up. By the time He graduated to gunpowder, He had learned not to go up to the "duds" for a day or two.
An older kid down the road blew a hunk out of His leg carrying a chlorine based bomb that went off prematurely.
I learned that You don't need an ignition device for a mixture of gunpowder and dry chlorine [calcium hypochlorate]. It goes off by itself. I should have learned from the above mentioned neighbor.
Another neighbor blew up his bedroom making nitroglycrine. Thanks to His experience, I never tried that.
My sides are hurtin, and theres tears in me eyes. That is funny. I wish kids could grow up normal today. I remember when I thought it would be a good idea to set off a whole package of Black Cats in an old mattress behind the neighbors house. It's just gonna blow a big puff ball of stuffing out right? Wrong, and Dad didn't think it was funny either. Big smokey fires in the back yard aren't a good way to make friends with the new neighbors.
And I thought I had a "moment" at around 4.5 years seeing what the blanks my brothers had for the annual mock gun fight at the courthouse would do if I hit them with a framing hammer on the concrete driveway. Model rocket ignitors in a five gallon gas can half full with a long wire was pretty fun. Around 5, I thought it was cool to put matches on top of the firecracker and let the explosion light the match and send it sailing.....too bad I was doing that on a road in the middle of 100 acres of tall dry grass my stepdad and Mom where looking at buying (got a pretty good beating over that one).
But Mr. Stewart that story takes the cake and the pan.....funny and scary!! THX
Yes sir. Aint been in the EXACT situation, but Lord, I cant count the beating for coming close. Thanks for the grins!! And thanks for making me realize what a grip my three boys actually have. Poor kids.
Hey Blaster, not that I ever did......... but, if you did blow up a mailbox today with some M80's or something, you would possibly be brought up on federal charges and recieve between 5 to 10 in the FEDERAL penetentiary. Yes, certainly some stupid kid stuff, but unfortunately we have gone way the other direction on some of this stuff. Best regards, Allan
one of my friends youngest kids was playing with matches at school and lit a trash can on fire (a teacher carried the can out side so no damage was done) i think that the kid was a second grader. Lawyers were involved by the end of that one.
when i was about 10 i blew up my locker (M80) and i got paddled by the teacher than the Principal than my mom than my Uncle (my dad was out of town) than i got the "just wait until your dad gets home!!!" waiting for him to come home was the longest two days of my life!
I grew up in a small collage town. The Kappa Alpha fraternity fired a Civil War type black power cannon at the football games. Naturally I went down to see EXACTLY how they did this.
I pondered on this awhile.
We had what we called a firecracker pistol. It was a 1/2 pipe with a threaded cap on one end. The cap had a small hole that the fuse would stick out so it could be lit. If the right size marble could be fired a couple of hundred yards.
So I opened up about 100 Black Cat firecrackers and took the powder and wrapped it in news paper making a cartridge like the KA's. Then I rammed it down the firecracker pistol and followed it with more news paper wadding. Poked a hole through the primer hole and stuck in a fuse. It made a tremendous boom.
My father was a bit curious and wanted to see the next demo. i don't think he realized how powerful it was. Anyway, the next "shot blew the back of the cap off. Dad said it would be best if I did not do that again.
Floyd
Good story, brings back memories. Good ol' Dukes of Hazzard!
When I was 21, just out of the Marines at my Grandpa's house he tells me about when him and his brother were kids. Took his dads old side by side double barrel 10 ga. out back, loaded it and then turned it nose first into the dirt and the mud and he said they just kept on shoving the barrel's into the dirt. When the felt like they had done a good job they took the time to tie it to a log, then ran a string/rope tied to both triggers and took shelter behind another log and then pulled the string. He said this was some old gun, built like a tank. Mind you this was back in 92' when he told me the story and he was probably 70 then and somewhere around 10-12 when this happened. He chuckled and said it blew both barrels and swelled it up in the middle like a watermelon. Never heard what his dad did about that one. It's funny, hearing this story from him and the time he let me borrow his over/under shotgun he says, "whatever you do don't drop that shotgun on the stock", Ok, I said, he says, "it's worth over $500, so just don't drop it".
When I was 10 or so my cousin didn't have access to black powder but loved chemistry. So, one day I'm helping him in his room and we are burning wooden matches then crushing the remains in one of those fancy chemist type bowls with the round masher thing(sorry, not anything near scientific). Then he would mix this with sulpher bought at the drug store and seems like he would add something else, can't remember what. He had it all proportioned out to make his own black powder. The biggest one I remember him making was probably 4-5 inches long and about 2 inches in diameter made out of plaster, bought at the local drug store and meticulously filled thru the wick hole. We walked into the wood with a friend of his for miles carrying this bomb. We ended up finding an old tree, missing the bark and it had a nice little pocket that our explosive device would fit into. I think we were a bit nervous so put a 1 minute fuse in it, hobby store for model rockets, then lit it and ran. When the smoke cleared we had a once vertical tree in the horizontal position with us laughing and saying holy cow we noticed we were only about 200 feet back into the woods from a house and about 5 miles from home as a crow flies.
Beatings, always tell my kids they don't know how good they have it. I tell my kids that my folks beat me like a rented mule, didn't clean up the dog crap, got beat, got stiches in my head because the babysitter made milkshakes the night before and used all of the milk, ma was none to pleased and chucked the old style can opener at me, caught me right in the back of the head and ended up getting 10 or more stiches for that one. My kids just sit there, mouth open in amazement, can't believe that ever happened, good times, LoL!!
Now if youda had on your PPE........
More like if I had my goalie equipment on!! LOL!!
That other chemical is potassium nitrate, or salt peter. I couldn't get any when I was a kid, so I used sodium nitrate. It kind of worked but not that well.
One of the guys had metalic sodium, which has to be kept from moisture to prevent reaction. It was stored in a jar of fuel oil. He would throw a chunk in the pond where it would react violently, releasing hydrogen that would be on fire from the heat of the reaction. It was an impressive show.
Salt peter, that's it! Thanks Dave. I think he bought that at the drug store in town to. Metallic sodium, that sounds pretty cool.
Salt Peter, 3F or 4F black powder, powder laundry soap, duct tape and green canon fuse makes for some nice flash bangs
Topic Chit-Chat & Non-Welding Discussion / Off-Topic Bar and Grill / Teaching Children Skills and Discipline
Great post.
