Explosive gases

A extremely energetic one. Hugely, lethally risky. Ever seen a toy carbide cannon go bang? Imagine that multiplied by orders of magnitude.

What's one of those?

I have filled 30gal trashbags with acet+ox, most impressive explosion with no 'containment' around it. It seems like it would be a bit much- you'll get much more than a little dirt geyser, you'll likely get a trench.

Dave

A guy was killed in our neighborhood about ten years ago doing just that. He was placing the bags inside a garbage can and filling them before lighting them off. One when off from static spark while he was leaning over to fill it and it took him out.

Sounds like a fun neighborhood.

Maybe this helps in the decision:

Nick

Why did you light it? The propane displaced the oxygen in the hole so that if you had simply kicked some dirt over the top the little buggers would have asphyxiated. You could probably throw some dry ice down the holes and cover them for a similar effect.

Propane is oderless to people. Dunno about gophers but I doubt that many have had the hazardous atmosphere training needed to recognize the hazard and evacuate.

There used to be a sort of gas grenade sold for killing burrowing animals. These were chemical balls with a wick. You'd light one, throw it down the hole and cover it. ISTR they produced cyanide gas.

According to my brother, he once knocked the flame off his torch and then filled a balloon with the ox-acet mixture. He then taped it to the shop door and pushed a lit cigarette into it. The explosion knocked him across the shop and on his ass. The door was blown off the hinges too. As he is quite an accomplished BS artist he may have embellished this tale a bit.

Art

I was in the local tech college workshop when there as an almighty bang, the lecturer ran in to see what had happened. It seemed some trainee machinist had filled his lunch bag with OA mix and lit it resulting in the bang. The trainee was stunned but OK and his hearing was not great for awhile. The lecturer didn't even bollock him as he thought he had learned his lesson and come out OK and wouldn't be stupid enough to do it again.

Roughly Stoichiometric mixtures of oxygen+acetylene will produce a HUGE explosion. The risk of something going wrong seems too high. Even stoichiometric propane+air is a powerful bang. Remember, those mole tunnels go WAY underground, and hold many liters of gas.

Some gases have very wide explosive mixture ranges, some are much narrower.

Some idiot friends of mine filled a dry cleaning bag with oxygen+acetylene and DROVE it to behind the local high school, while some of them were SMOKING!!!! Amazingly, they didn't turn themselves into the next edition of the Darwin awards, and set the thing up with a model rocket igniter. When it went off, they couldn't hear anything for a couple hours, and blew out windows for blocks. This was all over 40 years ago. I'm not sure it was a very big bag, either!

Jon

Quart bag went off in my hands, no gloves, but with eye protection. No injury, but did spend some time picking plastic bits out of my hair.

Dave

Our shots were always filled by remote, ignited by remote, and always placed out in the open, away from anything that could fly. All it did was flatten the grass a bit.

I have to imagine that result could be changed dramatically by just a small amount of confinement.

Filled via surgical tubing, torch head removed prior to firing, ignition provided by 3 strands from a lamp-cord taped to the bag prior to filling. The wire was clamped in some 'gator clips attached to an extension cord. Plug that sucker in, and the white-hot copper, plus the arc, guaranteed ignition.

Dave

What about propane/air mix from a non-burning Wal-Mart propane torch. (open gas, but do not ignite). It should be explosive enough, to blow out gophers, right?

I once trapped a skunk in a live trap. I put a box over the trap and tossed in one of those cyanide gopher bombs. Twenty minute later I lifted the box off and greeted a very pissed off skunk covered in a yellow residue. I had to resort to plan 'B'.

"Jon Elson" wrote: (clip) When it went off, they couldn't hear anything for a couple hours, and blew out windows for blocks. This was all over 40 years ago. (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ About that same time I inflated a balloon from an acetyene torch, and set it off in my shop with a match taped to the end of a yardstick. My ears are still ringing (literally.) I was so impressed with what I had done, that I did it again in my back yard for my kids to see. This time I weighted the balloon with a rock, and used a long string to drag it toward a candle. (I don't always make the same mistake again right away.) Neighbors came to the windows, saying, "What was that?"

I have watched the video as well. Dirt flies everywhere. What the video does not show is the mess it makes. They must only use it in farmer fields. Once you learn how trapping works very well and cheaply.

Sounds like a great way for a terrorist to blow up a building. Rent an apartment in a high rise, rent O/A bottles, turn off all electricity, fill the apartment with O/A, and strike a match. A scary thought.

Biggest home-made explosion I ever saw was a 55 gallon plastic drum, stoichiometric o/a mix, model rocket engine and electric ignitor hooked to a timer, set afloat in the middle of a lake. Wow!!

Did you catch a lot of stunned fish afterwards?