This post is dedicated to Armory and all of the fine work that they have done in explosives. I hate to admit it, but I just took the pyro purity test and scored a measely 70%.
Back when I was a dorkey kid (now I'm a dorkey old guy -- some things can't be changed), I "elected" to take high school chemistry in summer school. There was reason for this (in my young mind). I didn't want to take chemistry at all and I figured that, in summer school, the pain wouldn't last as long.
It actually went far better than I had hoped. My full attention was
attained when the teacher filled a balloon with hydrogen, tied it on
the end of a stick, then held it over a bunsen burner.
It did not disappoint. We did a little analysis (I used to think
that borax was only good for washing my hands after my father had me
'help' him lube the car) and burned a bit of magnesium ribbon.
The lectures actually made some sense -- until he got to gram-moles.
What the hell is an avocado number and why would I care how many atoms
were in a liter bottle of Coke?[1]
Suddenly I was completely, totally lost.
I tried to understand. I tried for about a week.
While I was trying to make sense of the guacamole of chemistry, the
teacher was moving smartly on ("It's summer school. We can't
dawdle on details. We have to get through all of this material in
6 weeks.")
I was DOA in the H2O.
Given that we were only about half way through the course, I had to
find some way to get through the rest of the classes without going
further out of my mind.
I just started leafing through the chemistry book during class --
just to see if I could make sense out of anything. (Warning to
parents: NEVER let your kid just look through a chemistry book,
unsupervised. You have been warned.)
The first thing that I discovered was that I should, theoretically,
be able to make sulphuric acid by burning sulphur in the presence of
hydrogen peroxide.
One of my friends, Larry Lawrence[2], and I decided to try this on
the side yard of my house. Midday -- nobody around to smell the
evidence.
It worked ... sort of. There *was* sulphuric acid. It was so weak,
though, that it took a couple of weeks to corrode a can. I never
bothered to notice that the hydrogen peroxide was something like .5%.
[3]
It was, though, enough success to keep me looking through the
chemistry book.
The next thing that I found to be of interest was a little graphic
about the components of explosives. It was only 3 simple, rather
common ingredients. Somehow I found out that they could all be
found in common household items: Sugar, carbon and saltpeter. (At
that time, Santa Clara valley was still notably agricultural)
We went to our side yard lab and mixed it up. We set a pile in the
dirt and lit the pile.
Wow! It worked!
This was so exciting that it kept my interest through the rest of
chemistry class. Each day I was anxious to get home and burn some
more.
At the end of the course, though, I got an F. The teacher said that
he would give me a D, though, so that I could have credit for the
course.[4]
This was *not* the end of my life with explosives, though.
After about a week of mixing up batches and watching them burn (all
too quickly, but with no real effect), I decided to do something
different. On my own, now, as Larry got bored with this.
I found about a foot long piece of tubing. I hammered one end
closed. My plan was to fill the tube with our mix, take it down to
the creek, pour some new mix into a pile, lay the closed filled tube
on the pile, light the pile and Run Like Hell(tm).
First problem is that I had run out of saltpeter. Rather than going
all the way to the pharmacy and get some more, I decided to look
around for something else that had a lot of nitrates.
A neighbor had a swimming pool. They had drums of all kinds of kool
chemicals that they used in the pool. I read the labels and found a
likely suspect. Not being sure, I added twice the normal amount to
the mix.[5]
Then I carefully poured half of the mix into a Coke bottle (This
would be my fuse) and the rest into the tube.
I took my hammer and pounded the other end of the tube closed. I
picked up both the Coke bottle and the tube and stepped out into the
sun.
BAM!!!!!
Whoa -- what was that ringing in my ears?
I looked around. No sign of either the Coke bottle or the tube[6].
I looked at my hand, only beginning to realize what had happened.
Good news: it was still there. It was quite crusted with carbon,
though. It was also quite tingly.
I went over to the garden hose to wash off the black -- *very*
carefully -- I didn't want to chance exposing inner skin, mussle or
bone (I wasn't sure how much of my hand I was going to be allowed to
keep).
Then Dear Old Mom came out. She wanted to know WHAT THE HELL WAS
GOING ON?!!!!
I explained that I was trying to complete a project for chemistry
class -- for extra credit.
She looked at my hand and said "It serves you right!", clearly not
buying my story.
Dear Old Mom has always been big on modern medicine. At a young
age, I learned not to even mention hangnails because, if I did, she
would rush me to the nearest surgeon and insist on an emergency
surgery. You know -- they paid for insurance and they were *gonna*
get their moneys worth.
This time, though, she wasn't going to do anything to alleviate the
pain. "It'll teach you a lesson!"
A few hours later, though, things changed.
The first thing that I noticed changing was that I could start to
feel my hand. NOT good!
The other thing that changed was Mom's attitude. Part of the cause
for this second change may have been that she realized that my
father was due home, soon. Being his first born, I was always his
favorite.[7]
She called the doctor and he called in some kind of anesthetic spray.
It seemed to help.
As I look at my hand, now, I don't think that I can see any traces
of the burn scar. I was, though, *very* sensitive to loud noises
for about the next 10 years. That all seems so long ago.
Anybody got any saltpeter?
[1] Years later, our middle daughter took chemistry in high
school. She had trouble understanding gram-moles, too.
Between the two of us, we figured it out -- without explosives.
[2] Later, during the next school year, I was playing basketball
with Larry. I went up for a shot and when I came down, my right
foot glanced off of his foot and I broke my ankle. I was 15 1/2
-- this put off getting my learners permit for 6 weeks. This
scared my childhood and seriously set back my Quest for Sex. I
never played basketball again.
[3] Now this would have been cause to understand gram-moles.
[4] He lied. Just before I graduated from high school, I found out
that he did not give me a D. My grade showed an F in a course that
I needed in order to graduate. I had to go beg him for a D. Turns
out that the begging was good training for married life.
[5] Yet another time when understanding gram-moles would have come
in handy.
[6] This was about 1964. I wonder if I should have gotten some
credit for being an early part of the Space Program.
[7] You don't want to know what he did to the rooster that attacked
me when I was just learning to walk.