Great homemade volcano recipe

Ignoramus9349 fired this volley in news:8Kednbu6qeE9pKzRnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Always interested! Please do.

This was the first year in ten that I did not personally have to haul off to another state to shoot two or three shows. It was really... um... _strange_ feeling.

We actually had barbeque, and watched others shoot fireworks! (Is this how "the other half lives"?)

LLoyd

This is my own invention of this year.

The active ingredients are sugar and thermite. The inactive ingredient is sand and CLAY flowerpot. Thermite is sold on eBay (though per whatever regulations, it is sold as two powders that the user is supposed to mix; a wise idea).

I did it the following way: I filled a small plastic drink bottle (like a small plastic Coke bottle) with sugar.

I cut off the top of a Campbell tomato juice container (a 2 liter pop bottle would also work). I placed the bottle with sugar inside the larger bottle, and filled the space between the bottles with thermite. So, thermite was surrounding the sugar bottle. Of course, none of the bottles had any sort of caps.

Then I placed this compound device inside a CLAY flowerpot filled with sand. (I would recommend a dry sand or at least not too wet sand, as was my case).

I would say, make the amount of sand below the thermite, at least the diameter of the larger bottle, or maybe a bit more. Similarly, the flowerpot must be big enough to be 3 times the diameter of the larger bottle, to allow for plenty of sand to surround the thermite.

I used large sparklers (two just in case) as igniters.

The result exceeded all my expectation. Burning thermite, white hot, heated the sugar almost instantly, and a big stream of hot, expanding sugar shot upwards. This was so hot that it immediately ignited upon contact with air. So, it made a big fountain of fire, I would say 10 feet. The fountain was pretty vertical and contained in space, but tall. The molten sand made lava and the "volcano" ended up as a large hole in sand, glowing white hot.

It really looked like a volcano eruption. It lasted for, perhaps, 5-8 seconds. The white hot pool of lava inside glowed for perhaps 3 minutes.

The kids were very impressed and a girl asked me later what kind of scientist I was.

I kept the kids appx. 30 feet away.

So you didn't shoot video of this???

"Pete C." fired this volley in news:4c317ece$0$11878 $ snipped-for-privacy@unlimited.usenetmonster.com:

In the artistic side of our business - fireworks display competitions - we have a saying, "If there's no video, it never happened."

LLoyd

Ignoramus9349 fired this volley in news:XIadndrd8r-U1qzRnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

This, at least, was pretty dangerous, Iggy. Thermites _often_ cause large steam explosions when used on/in damp soil.

I'm glad you all were safe, but this was sort of tickling the dragon's tail.

LLoyd

Mad, of course.

On Sun, 04 Jul 2010 22:01:29 -0500, Ignoramus9349 wrote the following:

Cool. Too bad it lasted for only a few seconds.

I hope you told her "Mad!"

Bueno, boss.

-- It's also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that's sitting right here right now, with its aches and its pleasures, is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive. -- Pema Chodron

I did not, someone did and it did not work. :-(

On Mon, 05 Jul 2010 08:38:47 -0500, Ignoramus12110 wrote the following:

That means you'll have to do it again next week and have lots of people video-tape it, ensuring that it gets on YouTube for us to enjoy. ;)

-- It's also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that's sitting right here right now, with its aches and its pleasures, is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive. -- Pema Chodron