"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:471b7099$1@news.povray.org...
> Michael Raiford wrote:
>> school campus heard the resulting bang.
>
> I had friends who worked at a science museum (the Franklin Institute) 
> giving lectures and such. One day Tony filled a 3-foot weather balloon 
> with hydrogen and oxygen, and put it on a long thread so it floated near 
> the top of the lecture hall. (Picture a stadium-seating huge room like you 
> see college lectures being given in in movies.) Then he points the 
> parabolic heat lamp at it and turns off all the switches.
>
> Kurt goes in, turns on all the lights, starts his lecture on liquid air. I 
> walk in, and Tony is in the back of the room, going "SHhh! Shhh!"
>
> About five minutes into the lecture, there's a kaBOOM that literally 
> cracks some of the windows.  Kurt jumps about three feet, looks around, 
> waves to Tony, and goes back to lecturing.
>
> (This is the same Tony that couldn't figure out where the cardboard 
> canister he'd stuffed home-made high explosives into went after he touched 
> it off and blew a 3-foot deep crater in the dirt.)

Two of my favourite things were tins of sodium hydroxide and rolls of 
aluminium foil.  Put together in water, they produced plenty of hydrogen, 
which I and a mate filled many balloons and garbage bags with.  Had to be 
careful, as it is highly exothermic and the mix can easily boil.  We used to 
tie sparklers to the necks, light them, and float them off.  The balloon 
would explode just as the sparkler got near the end of its burn.  Looked 
good at night.

I also used to make bangs with two large bolts, one large hexagonal nut and 
a lot of match-heads.  Half-screw one bolt into the nut, scrape the 
phosphorous from several matches into the well, screw in the other bolt, 
then throw it at a concrete surface or hit it end-on with a hammer.  Four or 
five heads was enough to make a bang.  Twenty matches was enough to make an 
air-splitting gunshot explosion.  On that occasion, one bolt completely 
stripped out of the thread and went so far from the point of impact that we 
never found it.

We were smart enough to duck behind a pile of rocks while it was still in 
midair.

And one strange thing:  Back when the flints on the sides of matchboxes were 
made more substantially than they are today.  Peel them off the sides of the 
matchbox.  Strip as much cardboard off their backs as you can, to get the 
brown flint/phosphor patch on the thinnest paper layer possible.  Place it 
face-down on a cold tin lid.  Burn it.  It fizzes a bit like a match head, 
but the flame is smoky and smelly.  Blow off any ash. You find an orangeish 
semi-liquid condensate on the lid.  Dip a forefinger tip in it, then rub 
your thumb and forefinger together.  White smoke rises from your fingers. 
In the dark, it glows when you do this.

-- 
Brian

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