Hindenburg Recreation Experiment

An interesting thing to try would be to fill about 20 ballons with Hydrogen and then put them into a big plastic trash bag. Let the whole bag float up and ignite. The individual balloons could be coated with something to cause a delay in burning.

Reply to
Normen Strobel
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depending on the size of the colony, you could blow up your whole back yard.

Reply to
Normen Strobel

Ok you sparked my interest. Now I have to go burn one of my ping pong balls. What does it do?

Reply to
Normen Strobel

Everything but the ignitor...

Reply to
John Alt

Reply to
S. Boucher

This thread has me laughing to tears. I am so very glad *I* am not the only crazy here!

I found that an M-80 buried in the dirt would 'launch' the 4 inch covering asphalt 10 to 12 feet in the air. Decided to get serious and started building a launch vehicle. Got me in lots and lots of trouble when my partner in crime's younger brother lit off my fuel supply. Also led to being caught breaking up shotgun shells for the powder. Found out about primers real fast that evening too!

I used to use gasoline on the ant colonies and it did not blow up my yard! But I did notice that the grass did not grow back the next year...

Jim Branaum AMA 1428

Six_O'clock_High Target snipped-for-privacy@Guns.com

Reply to
Six_O'Clock_High

I'll tell you one that I did about two years ago. I'm always looking for ways to save money, so I taught myself how to rebuild saxophones. I had taken my antique alto sax to a shop to be adjusted and put into playing condition and it ended up costing me $200. I figured that I would be better of on the receiving end of that amount of money, so I decided to learn to do it myself. So I bought an antique baritone sax on ebay and started my reconditioning project. One thing that saxophone repairmen use a lot is an alcohol lamp. It's used for melting the adhesive that holds the pads in the cups. An alcohol flame is not extremely hot compared to other fuels, and it leaves no soot on the keys. You will see home made alcohol lamps in any shop where there are woodwind repairmen working, and they're usually made from old peanut butter jars and such. You just make a hole in the lid, put a threaded tube through it (from the lamp parts section of the hardware store, I think it's called a ferrule), and then fasten it in place with a nut on the inside of the lid and one on the outside. Then you roll a wide lamp wick into a spiral and stuff it through the tube, leaving the end to hang in the alcohol. Just the very tip of it will be at the top of the tube. Fill the jar with alcohol and you get a nice little flame about a half inch tall at the top.

I decided to make one of these, but I hadn't closely studied the ones that I had seen. I simply cut a slot in the lid and pulled the wick through. I put about two inches of alcohol in the jar, lit the wick and it instantly exploded. The problem was that the wick was just loose enough in the slot to allow the flame to travel into the jar. This was a very bad thing. The jar exploded in my hand, causing glass to fly everywhere, and flaming alcohol fell on my leg and ran out the bottom of my pants where it burned off of my ankle.

Now here's the worst part. I remember the early brainwashing that I received in school over 25 years ago. When you're on fire, you are supposed to roll on the ground, right? So I ran up the half-stairs to the door from the basement to the yard. But it was locked. (Incidentally, my mother-in-law just a week before had told me not to keep it locked, in case of fire. I actually laughed at her.) I spent a moment or two thinking of what to do while my leg continued burning, and then it suddenly occurred to me that the best thing to do would be to get in the shower, which I did. That put the fire out instantly. Then I went back to the basement and realized that the alcohol had set a box of balsa scraps under the table on fire, and the flames had spread to my stereo speakers. We were able to put the fire out very quickly, and the only loss was a set of venetian blinds, a box of scraps, and the speakers.

I suffered third degree burns on my ankle (in my own estimation. I never went to a doctor.) It hurt a lot for about a month, but I took really good care of it and it healed nicely. I learned something important, though. Always be sure to try new things outdoors if they involve flammable materials. I know that this story probably makes me sound like a reckless maniac, but this is the only really risky thing I have done. I'm actually a very careful person. You may recall that whenever the discussion turns to propeller accidents, I'm always the most outspoken advocate of simple safety measures. I know for sure that

6 ounces of flaming alcohol will make you really careful!

Epilogue: I made a $400 profit on the baritone sax, and now I rebuild and repair saxophones part time for a local store for some extra cash. I was able to salvage one woofer from my stereo speakers, which I used in a tube powered homebuilt Fender replica guitar amplifier. Last summer when I bought all of Tom Runge's RC stuff, Donna Runge gave me a nice set of speakers, which I now use. And I totally eliminated the outside door from the basement and put a half bathroom on the main floor in place of the stairway. Now if I catch on fire I'll go to the shower first!

Reply to
Robbie and Laura Reynolds

That's a good one. But where do you get calcium carbide?

My nephew who works in a restaurant told me what you can do with dry ice from the delivery guy. You put some chunks of it in a plastic 2 liter soda bottle and screw the lid on. When the pressure gets high enough it explodes loudly. He also put some in a sink, added hot water, and then stirred in some liquid soap. He said he had a column of smoky suds coming out of there like a volcano. He had to keep scooping them onto the floor with a piece of cardboard to keep them from oozing all over the bar!

Reply to
Robbie and Laura Reynolds

Yeah, those are pretty entertaining. They would be even better if any of them were true.

Reply to
Robbie and Laura Reynolds

Careful! I've played with them before and they can be very dangerous. One of those will vaporise a scale Hindenburg is a flash.

Reply to
The Raven

and/or your neighbors........

Reply to
The Raven

tel me about it.

I found this thing in amongst my fathers stuff. Couldn't work out what it was, thought it was just a bullet, but I couldn't see why it had a brass end on it, so I put it in the vice and hacksawed the end off....

...you've guessed it. It was a live .22 round! the bang deafened me for a few hours.

..another time I decided to make a rocket out of weedkiller and sugar so I epoxied some washers on to an Al tuibe to make a nozzle, filled it up, sealed the other end, and put it on a ramp or maybe hung it on the washing line, stick some jetex fuse in teh end and lit it.

Its fizzed a bit, shuddered and then detonated with an almighty bang.

I found (what was left) of the tube months later when fall came, right down the other end of the yard, all twisted and crumpled. Thank god it didn't 'bang' in my direction.

Nother time a friend built a caonnon out of steel wall tube and a little

5mm ball bearing, mounted on a bit of wood for sighting. We used powder from a firecracker - only a small one, and found a seclude place by some tennis courts to play with it. We aimed it carefully at the tennis court makers cast plaque about 30m away, and set it off.

We had expected a bit of a recoil and a bang..and were dissapointed until we went up to this 1/4" casting and saw a 5mm hole punched clean through.

My friend went all quiet and said 'I think thats probably enough really isn't it?' I agreed. :-)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

ROFLOL!

Previously you indicated South Texas. You weren't my neighbor around '60 in San Antonio, were you?

If not, I think I am glad. We would have been dangerous.

I don't want to write about all the nifty things I 'played' with because many might believe it to be the intro to some real trouble making these days. Explosives, incendiaries, smoke generators, and other noxious things.

Reply to
Six_O'Clock_High

My high school chemistry teacher had a very small brass cannon in class. He used to pack black powder in it and shoot rubber stoppers across the room. He said he had a bigger one at home that would shoot green oranges several hundred feet. He had another one that would shoot beer cans filled with concrete.

This was the same guy who told us about plastic bags filled with methane. We actually made some in class. He used to use drycleaning bags with the end ironed shut. I added the modern innovation of cheap garbage sacks sealed with tape, and sparklers for fuses. But this guy was nuts. He said that the principal used to come up to his room to see what was going on, but finally gave up. By the time I was in his class, the principal knew he should just stay away.

Reply to
Robbie and Laura Reynolds

No, I grew up in McAllen, born in 1968, gaduated in 1986 with a class full of crazy people who liked to blow things up, and then I moved away in 1991. I actually learned about the ping pong ball from a guy at Texas Tech in Lubbock.

The kid with the .45 round on the end of a BB gun was Chad Garcia, a classmate of mine. He also had a propane tank in his garage, like the ones you put on a gas grill. I don't know where it came from, but it had a hose on it with a super flame thrower nozzle on the end. The opening was about 4 inches across, and it would shoot a flame about 2 feet long and 6 inches in diameter at its thickest point. We used it to melt light bulbs and anything else we could find.

Chad and some friends actually got pulled out of class and arrested during our senior year. They had heard some stuff from the crazy chemistry teacher of course, and tried to make pipe bombs. They sealed liquid detergent and brake fluid into PVC pipes. The story was that if you freeze the bomb then it would explode when it thawed. But after they ran their mouths too much, and the bomb squad was sent from San Antonio, and they were arrested, the chemistry teacher mentioned that they would never blow up anyway. He had left out a key ingredient, because he knew these goofballs would try to build one.

Another thing that Chad did was steal a chunk of potassium from the chemistry lab. He and a friend were planning to throw the metal into the municipal swimming pool after school to watch it burn. So they took the potassium from its jar of protective oil, cut two pieces off, wrapped them in brown paper towels, and put it in their pockets. Next period in study hall, Chad's potassium started burning. He ended up running down the hall screaming because his leg was on fire. The school nurse wanted to throw water on him, but he had to convince her not to. He was in the hospital for a month.

I'm sure Chad would have liked the exploding man hole covers.

Reply to
Robbie and Laura Reynolds

I go down to Amish Country to the local store. It's used in old miner's lamps, so that's why I believe the Amish stock it. Calcium Carbide makes a great stink bomb as well. I brought a piece into school one day and we didn't have any water at the time so my buddy spit on it. It's not till you set it off in a confined area that your realize that the acetalyn gas it gives off smells like Garlic, in a matter of minutes the whole room evacuated gagging. My father used to use it for fishing when he was a kid. He'd drop a piece in a beer bottle with a rubber stopper cap and toss it into the river. The fish would come up to to see what it is and then kaboom. The shockwave would either kill them or knock em unconcious. I tried it with a bottle of Grolsh beer, but the glass bottles today are a lot thicker and can handle the pressure. After a few minutes the gas started to escape around the rubber stopper and proppelled the bottle through the watter at about 20mph all the while making this cool whistling sound. A friend of mine told me a different 2 liter bottle method, he drank about a quarter of the coke out of the bottle and then pour in some salt. The salt would cause the CO2 to bubble out of control and blow up the bottle.

Reply to
Normen Strobel

Do you have any proof that they are not. :) I prefer to believe that they are true.

Reply to
Normen Strobel

I used to cast metal toy soldiers as a kid, one of the molds was of an old mortar style cannon. about half an inch in diameter and 2 inches long, including cannon balls. One fourth of July I got the idea of making it a functioning cannon. I drilled a hole down the center of the barrel big enough to fit the cannon balls. Then I drill a small whole for a wick. I used the gun powerder out of 4 lady fingers and packed it in with wadding made out of the wrappers. I put a canon ball in and lit it. Those little wicks go fast, and in the basement the bang is pretty loud. I thought I was deaf for a few minutes. Since nothing was holding the cannon it when flying backward to one side of the basement. It took me a few minutes to find the cannon ball, because it was pressed almost completely flat against the cinder block wall. I could fire the cannon about three times before it became so deformed that I had to cast a new one.

Reply to
Normen Strobel

I think Courtney wins the most replied to thread in a single day award. Didn't realize there were so many crazy's like me either. I guess we are all the ones who narrowly escaped winning the Darwinian award.

Reply to
Normen Strobel

Our similar experiment resulted in a screwdriver blowing a hole through my buddy's garage roof and permanently embedding cigarette filter (packing) into the web of skin between his thumb and hand. We decided it was time to quit right about then. Hell the hell I managed to hang on to all ten fingers, both eyes, and my hearing as I was growing up is a mystery.

Reply to
Fubar of The HillPeople

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