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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Empty deodorant cans on the bonfire. The poor man's firecracker. Or full ones
> for proper fireballs. Don't forget to stand behind something solid!
Dude, are you tired of living or something?
Heh, and I thought *I* was crazy for using Al + KMnO4...
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> Bill Pragnell wrote:
>
> > Empty deodorant cans on the bonfire. The poor man's firecracker. Or full ones
> > for proper fireballs. Don't forget to stand behind something solid!
>
> Dude, are you tired of living or something?
It can be dangerous, true enough, best not to do it anywhere near habitation.
Wooded areas are good, plenty of cover. Actually there's no real shrapnel... for
the regular two-piece can, the base usually blows off and one of the two pieces
will go flying. For one-piece cans like lynx, the entire can usually stays in
the fire. Usually :-\ Best to set them upright so the valve doesn't melt, which
can relieve the pressure non-explosively, so in a crevice between logs or
something. This also directs any flying debris upwards, making it (a little!)
safer. Can take up to 30 seconds to blow, even on a hot fire, plenty of time to
retreat.
:-)
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> Can take up to 30 seconds to blow, even on a hot fire, plenty of time to
> retreat.
The worst is when after 2 or 3 minutes it still hasn't blown, what to do?
Another interesting one is to put baking soda and vinegar into a bottle and
put the lid on quick (or use some cunning method to delay the mixing of
vinegar/soda). 500 ml soft drink bottles can take a huge pressure before
exploding!
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scott wrote:
> 500 ml soft drink bottles can take a huge pressure before exploding!
I guess this is where I recount the tale my sister told me...
They're in a physics lab, doing some experiment to measure the latent
heat of nitrogen or something like that. Anyway, the experiment involves
liquid nitrogen.
One stupid decides that this nitrogen stuff is "really cool", so let's
take some home to play with. So he pours some of the liquid out of the
reinforced steel container into a small coke bottle, puts the lid on, and...
...well, the way my sister described it, there was a small bang followed
by a blood-curdling scream. All the staff rushed to the source, and
shortly afterwards a student was seen leaving the lab with shards of
plastic sticking out of the back of his hands.
I'm not sure what's more worrying - the fact that this was a PHYSICS
UNDERGRADUATE, or the fact that he attempted to deny putting the lid on
the bottle. (The lab officer gave him a kind of look like "so, what, it
just decided to explode BY MAGIC?")
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"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > Can take up to 30 seconds to blow, even on a hot fire, plenty of time to
> > retreat.
>
> The worst is when after 2 or 3 minutes it still hasn't blown, what to do?
I've never seen *nothing* happen... if the valve melts you usually get a whistle
or a woosh, then you have to decide whether to go back and knock it out and into
the undergrowth, or wait to see if it still goes up (can happen).
What to do... I recommend a riot shield! Or failing that, sturdy sunglasses, a
dustbin lid and a Long Stick.
> Another interesting one is to put baking soda and vinegar into a bottle and
> put the lid on quick (or use some cunning method to delay the mixing of
> vinegar/soda).
Hmm, how much of the ingredients do you need? Some vinegar first, hold the
bottle on its side, pack the cap with soda and screw it on, shake and throw?
Or, you could contrive some kind of floating separator like a small piece of
clingfilm, pour in the soda, screw on cap, shake and throw?
I think shake and throw will be the modus operandi for this endeavour,
regardless!
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> I've never seen *nothing* happen...
Maybe we just didn't make our fires big enough first :-)
> Hmm, how much of the ingredients do you need? Some vinegar first, hold the
> bottle on its side, pack the cap with soda and screw it on, shake and
> throw?
My friend had these small plastic bags that dissolved in water after a
minute or two (I think he used them for fishing somehow). We filled those
with the baking soda (a good few big spoons worth) and poked them through
the neck into a bottle half full with vinegar. Screw the lid on then throw
:-)
> Or, you could contrive some kind of floating separator like a small piece
> of
> clingfilm, pour in the soda, screw on cap, shake and throw?
Hehe, yes it was one of the big important engineering puzzles we worked on!
We tried just wrapping the baking soda in clingfilm, but it was hard to wrap
it just the right amount so it mixed only after being thrown. That was when
we had the idea to use the disposable bags.
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scott wrote:
> 500 ml soft drink bottles can take a huge pressure
> before exploding!
I've seen that done with dry ice and water.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > I've never seen *nothing* happen...
> Maybe we just didn't make our fires big enough first :-)
We put a large squirty-cream can inside a stripped turkey carcass after one
gathering... there were bits of bone landing 100 yards away :-)
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I think the best we ever did was drill holes in logs, stuff an M-80 tightly
into each hole, and toss it on the fire. It was pretty.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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>> 500 ml soft drink bottles can take a huge pressure before exploding!
>
> I've seen that done with dry ice and water.
What surprised me was that the ridges, the inverted base and all the other
features in the plastic got pushed outwards, the outside of the bottle
became really smooth, and *rock* solid to touch (it felt like it was full of
concrete). We chucked it about a bit but it still didn't pop, so we put it
on the fire!
Yes I know this was ridiculously dangerous looking back!
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