Carbide Cannons in the Netherlands

It took me a while to figure this out, now I've got it. I kept thinking

Jon

This reminds me of my youth in Holland, where I grew up.

Boer Lozeman who had his farm near Putten, would do the following each December 31 around midnight. He and his sons would take a regular old Dutch steel "milk can" (the kind in which they would put the milk after milking their cows). These cans were about 2 1/2 feet tall and about

They would place the can in the middle of a field without any cows in the vicinity. Then they would fill the bottom of the can with a few handfuls of carbide, then pour in water. They'd push the lid on. Then they ran for cover. After about half a minute they would hear a very loud bang accompanied with a bright flash, as the lid was blasted off the can.

The following day, they would all go into the field to look for the lid.

Abrasha

Ah, a romantic life of simple pleasures. Did they ever find the lid?

-- Ed Huntress

Yes they did. In fact, as the can in question was no longer suitable for milk collection, they used the same can and lid every year for many years.

I have very fond memories of "Boer Lozeman". During WWII he hid my mother, then a young girl, from the Germans. My mother told me a number of stories about that experience. My brother and I spent several summers on his farm as young boys.

My wife and I visited him and his wife on one trip back home, some 15 years ago. Since none of his children were interested in farming, his oldest son had become an international trucker, as he was just getting much to old for the hard life of farming, he had sold the farm, lock, stock and barrel, to some doctor from Amsterdam. The land, the buildings, the furniture, all the fabulous old Dutch antiques, everything. He bought himself a small modern brick house, rather ugly if you ask me.

The sad part was, that the new house was about a stone's throw from the old farm. You could see the old house from his new property. It was probably just sad for me, with my romantic notions of farming. He was probably just very happy to get rid of it all, and enjoy the last years of his life with his wife, in peace and quiet, without having to get up every morning at 3 AM to go out and milk those damned cows, and/or bring in the harvest, etc.

Happy Holidays to all on the ng, and the best for 2006.

You too Gunner! :)

Abrasha

An example of how unstable acetylene is over a certain pressure? You don't mention an igniter, so I'm assuming it was spontaneous. This is giving me ideas. 8-) Bob

Not to diminish the interesting story you related after that paragraph, but I'm struck by the idea of the traditional Dutch "Blowing Up of the Milkcans," in which you blow the lid off of one of those suckers with a big charge of carbide. I imagine the milk cans being passed down from generation to generation...everyone gets out their ancestral wooden shoes to prevent sparks...the charge is laid while cherub-faced, cherry-cheeked Dutch boys run laughing, clop, clop, clop...the charge goes off; the light from the explosion reveals plowed fields, distant, contented cows in their barns, a "mooo-oo" is heard from the distance...and the lid comes down somewhere with a "clang." The boys prick up their ears, trying to determine where the lid has landed, so that, tomorrow morning, before the adults are out of bed, the boys are out combing the fields, playfully tossing cow pies at each other while trying to be the first to find the milk can lid...a challenge for the prize, unspecified, unknown to outsiders, mysterious...but motivation for generations of cherubic Dutch boys who aspire to nothing so much as being the First to Find the Lid...

Carry on. And Merry Christmas.

-- Ed Huntress