I have a copy of the book right here and armed with a degree in chemistry … er … well I’m not going to say anything. I’ve tried several of more mundane (i.e. smoke bombs for our bottle rocket wars) concoctions and they seem to work. There was this one I never quite got right though. You gotta’ mix this thing and that thing and measure it with this other thing and mix it all up in a big thing. Yeah, now you’ve got it. The tennis ball trick will do nothing more than produce a loud report.
Cabbage:
Ask your mom. Anyone who has ever cleaned anything knows not to mix those two chemicals. Serious problems can result. No, the gas is not explosive, just very, very poisonous.
I’d like to get my hands on the Alchemist’s Handbook. Does anyone know where I can get it? E-mail it to me.
So it was powerful enough to make a pothole? I wish I could tell we were talking about the same deivce. And you’re right - that’s why I never wanted to try to make one myself because it looked like a lot of work and a lot of time were involved. It seemed a little dangerous, especially if you were to drop the device during it’s construction. (or if you have a curious labrabdor retriever who likes to munch on tennis balls)
Ok screw the regs - here’s how to make an exploding tennis ball:
Take a tennis ball
Get your car
Run over the ball with your car. (New balls work better, btw)
Not true, else why would gunpowders be rated as “fast burning” and “slow burning”? Gunpowder and all propellants deflagrate, they don’t detonate. A high explosive can’t be used in a gun because it would simply blow the barrel to bits. There is a common misconception caused by the terms “explosion” and “explosive”, an explosion is the violent and sudden release of energy, usually associated with a loud noise. An explosive is a substance that explodes when ignited. If you put a pea-sized piece of C4 on a table and ignite it you will have a hole in the table, if you do the same with a tablespoon of gunpowder you will have a bright flash, no explosion. I not only built “bombs” in my younger days, I now write computer simulations of explosions for the military. If you think I’m full of it check this page: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0,5716,114764+2+108418,00.html
An interesting fact from the article: an explosive can generate pressures of 280,000 ATM, about 4 million ppi.
That said, you can cause explosions with gunpowder if you contain it in a suitable container. You can also cause explosions with steam, ice, compressed air, and vinegar and baking soda. ( hope this isn’t too controversial, you can find this info in any science book for children)
“Ask your mom. Anyone who has ever cleaned anything knows not to mix those two chemicals. Serious problems can result. No, the gas is not explosive, just very, very poisonous.”
Then tell MY mother that! Her approach to cleaning a toilet is to pour in bleach and let it sit for a few hours before scrubbing. Which would be fine except that she doesn’t bother to tell anyone that there’s bleach in the toilet.
The result, not infrequently, is someone bolting out of the bathroom with their pants around their ankles, coughing and croaking out “Are you @%$#& trying to kill me or something?”
frolix8: This is from quite a while back, but I recall the 1969 edition of Collier’s Encyclopedia including ammonium nitrate as a low-powered explosive. (-it also explained how to make fireworks- ahh, I loved those books-) The article noted that when used for industrial blasting, a high-power igniting charge was used to start and pre-compress it. As for the percentage, I thinks the difference in ignition rate of low powered stuff is (uh, , ) ~22,000 meters/sec and high-powered stuff is ~26,000 meters/sec. So, any low-powered explosive is about 84% as “powerful” as any high-powered explosive; however the type of damage they do is quite different. It’s evident even in small demonstrations.(wink)
johnnyharvard: it is true that gunpowder does not explode “all at once”, and further, it’s not supposed to. The larger the gun/cannon you have, the slower the propellant needs to burn. -and you can’t accommodate by simply putting in less powder; the extra volume of gas exposed to the (lower) amount of powder still causes the powder to burn too fast. You cannot substitute a fast-burning propellant for a slow-burning one in a gun or cannon. If you browse a bullet reloading manual, you will see that for every caliber listed, there are two or three brands/speeds of powder listed for each caliber & bullet weight combination, and the correct amount of each propellant, for that combo. Ignore this info at your peril. - MC
Hey MC, thanks for the support. Another cool fact about anfo:
When filled with ANFO, a blasthole 400 millimetres in diameter and 7.5 metres deep can develop about one billion horsepower.
Needless to say, that’s for a very short period, but it shows why explosives are so dangerous. Anfo is used in mining precisely because it is slow, hard to ignite, and liquid. It does its job without turning the rock into powder, and does it safely and conveniently. I don’t know if I’d want to drive the anfo truck though.
Anybody know what the substance is in those little “poppers” covered in tissue that pop when you throw them against something? It looks like a mineral, but I don’t know what mineral. Just curious.
I imagine the chemicals being referred to are ammonia and household bleach. Censorship always sucks, but in this case, it is also manifestly self-defeating. It is in the interest of public health that the following information be disseminated: combining household ammonia (ammonium hydroxide, NH[sub]4[/sub]OH) with household bleach (sodium- or calcium hypochlorite, NaOCl or CaOCl) generates a highly toxic gas (chloramine, H[sub]2[/sub]NCl). manhattan should understand that this combination does not produce an explosion and is hard to concieve as a surreptitious, intentional means of harming others.
A sampling of agencies which understand the importance of making this information widely known:
I would assume that Cabbage was talking about bleach making chlorine gas. Anyone who took high school chemistry would know how that reaction works. Why edit the post?
Fear of getting sued, of course. Either that, or fear of undue attentions from Janet Reno (enough to make anyone shudder).
I abso-fucking-lutely am standing on the surface of the fucking moon. I am talking to you from the goddamned fucking moon. Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket.–Neil Armstrong
Yea, I knew I should have explained that one a little better. The post contained not chemicals as I said, but rather two brand named household cleaners, one of which I had never used or seen used. My guess was that the mixture would produce only chlorine (and maybe another gas or two) and not the predicted explosion, but since I didn’t know what other chemicals might have been lurking in the unfamiliar brand, and because I was taking a conservative tack with regards to recipes, I edited the post in the pursuit of consistency.
I’m going to leave the references above because a) the point is correct that it is in the interest of public health to let people know that mixing ammonia and bleach is a Bad Thing and b) without brand names attached to the particular chemicals, it is impossible to produce a reaction other then the creation of chlorine.
Sorry - didn’t think this was gonna give you such a workout when I posted. But thanks for doing a great job. I will reiterate, this is not about recipies that will be censored but more about the political and social ramifications of the book. To that end I have recieved excellent posts. But please do not pass along this board specific ways to blow stuff up. None of us wants (I hope) another Oklahoma City (God rest their souls), and the SDMB certainly doesn’t want to be a vessel to that end. Thanks all.
Been there, done that. It’s a contact explosive dissolved onto common sand. The sand doesn’t play any chemical part in the thing; it’s just something that the producer can put small, relatively measureable amounts of the explosive stuff onto. ! ! ! The funny part about this one is, my jr. high school science teacher showed me & the whole class how to do it: there’s only two ingredients. He mixed two liquids, and poured that mixture through a piece of filter paper. When the filter paper dries, it sensitizes. This stuff is of a type of compound which destabilizes over time, so you have to make small amounts, and “use” it (or rather, play with it) immediately - you never, never, never try to save any of it for another day. - MC
My friend and i were making the red bomb from that book and now i only have four fingers on my right hand. DONT TRY IT AT HOME. Or anywher for that matter.
handy -
I made the same stuff also. I won’t say how to make it (no thanks needed manny). Scared the shit out of me. I really don’t think it was the same as snap-n-pops, too unstable and a lot stronger. I made it in Jr. High 25 yrs ago. Those were the days …
