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Posted: 7/3/2001 4:54:10 PM EDT
[#1]
i did once when i was young and stupid know im older and wiser. its amzing what u learn in 3 years
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Posted: 7/3/2001 4:54:34 PM EDT
[#2]
When I was in high school I made extremely large firecrackers. About 7 inches long and 2 inches in diameter. I haven't fooled with that stuff since. Where do you gt your chemicals?
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Posted: 7/3/2001 5:23:25 PM EDT
[#3]
[center][b][i]You'll put your eye out!
You'll put your eye out![/i][/b] [:D][/center] . [url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=33375[/url] |
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Posted: 7/3/2001 5:25:15 PM EDT
[#4]
The last time I tried this I had the ATF at my house.
Six |
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Posted: 7/3/2001 5:35:41 PM EDT
[#5]
When I was younger, my Dad and I used to pack gunpowder, copper shavings, and whatever else we could find in Estes rocket motors. Tape engine to stick, light fuse, and OOOOOOO-AAAAAAHHHH! Pretty much a giant bottle rocket. We stopped making them because the motors were too damn expensive.
Never got into the pipe-bomb type stuff- too dangerous.[grenade] I like my fingers. They work. |
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Posted: 7/3/2001 6:08:22 PM EDT
[#6]
Not since I lost my right thumb.
Seriously, when we were kids we used to buy the materials to make black powder at the local drug store and stuff about 1/2 pound of it into an appropriate container. The blasting cap was an M80 with a very, very long homemade fuse (which we timed before using). Used to put them in the center of a large park in SoCal and when it got dark, light the sucker and run like hell. Some of them were nasty little bombs. And we were in the local model rocket club, so we built exoploding rockets out of Estes and Centurian rocket kits. Using a slow hand drill, you drill a small hole into the area of the engine containing the delay charge that burns prior to the final bang to pop the parachute. You need the long delay variety, because your measurements have to be exact. If you're lucky, the homemade M80 located where the parachute should be will ignite before the final charge to pop the chute. So, you fire the sucker and a few seconds after you see the white smmoke from the delay charge, BOOM! Boy, it was fun to be a kid. |
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Posted: 7/3/2001 8:19:30 PM EDT
[#7]
mattja, yes! AMOF I never stopped making them!
And it's [u]STILL[/u] fun to be a kid! Didn't you poor ol' kids ever discover Estes C - 6 - 0, C - 7 - 0, or Ener-Ject F-13-0, H-15-0 engines (4, 6, 72, & 90 pounds of thrust respectively)? The zero means it's a booster engine (for multiple stage rockets), instead of the warm "puff" to pop the chute the Enerjects shot a 4,000 degree 8" flame to ignite the next engine. The little Estes, & Century boosters shoot a 4" spark, that's still more than enough to ignite powdered magnesium reliably. For delay use the cotton buffers, but then the [s]gunpowder[/s] I mean "payload" ignites after apogee. To blow the big Enerject rockets take one or both of the internal safety buffers out -- that'll pop 'em on the way up under power (just over 800 MPH), with a little aluminum (for orange/white, magnesium dust is nice when you can find it) they'll leave a 300 foot long streak by the time the shockwave gets back to you. I don't build any of the parts for quick changing the engine, just epoxy the engine, nose cone in solid (plain old aliphatic resin works fine too). You can double the noise by slipping one of the long engine standoffs (for full length main body tube lining), before dropping the charge in, & epoxying the nose cone permanently. You get a lot more bang for the buck by reinforcing the main tube too, it doesn't have to be anything fancy like fiberglass (although that IS LOUD!), just plain ol' gauze does just fine. FWIW, if you ever DO find the big Enerjects (E,F,G, & H), or other military grade tubes, & metallic engines - blow the damned things when they reach apogee (even with Hi-ALM "flash powder"), or they [b]will[/b] break every picture window around (They'll set off the car alarms no matter what -- even at apex). Really try it again, it's a great, safe way to make "serious" rockets sans mortar tubes, & the boosters can still found if you keep an eye out -- especially the military stuff. It's a shame more people don't know that GREAT things can still be found at any well stocked hobby shop (Find one that's been around long enough, & you might just luck out, & find real Enerject engines). It's STILL fun to be a kid! |
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Posted: 7/3/2001 8:39:05 PM EDT
[#8]
I used to make sky rockets, the REAL kind formed by pounding comp into a casing on a mandrel, not estes rockets. Also aerial shells and "firecrackers". No more now that everything is banned. Just like guns soon will be.
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Posted: 7/3/2001 9:00:48 PM EDT
[#9]
This isn't fireworks*, but I had a good friend in the Navy that prior to his enlistment would burn up (no pun intended) a Friday or Saturday night by filling a car or truck innertube with an Oxy/Acetylene torch set up of his dad's and then go out to some crossroads in the Missouri bush and tie a cigarette fuse to it.
He remarked that the "BOOM" could be hear a few miles away and that the perfect donut it blew out of the asphalt was "cool". Knowing him as I did, I did not doubt him. I still don't. * Kids, do not try this at home! |
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Posted: 7/4/2001 12:31:58 AM EDT
[#10]
Holy sh*t Wilson, all those terms like "cotton buffer" and F engines are bringing back memories! :) I loved that stuff!
We never had the F engines because the club did not allow them. They used to say they were hand-packed in China and would explode as often as they would ignite. So, to get the velocity, I used to use 3 D-size engines in the booster configuration like you mentioned. I never tried the magnesium power. That would be a blast. One time I built a space shuttle kit with three D engines and the sucker got about 20 feet high and went horizontal. By the time the second booster lit, it was hauling butt about 10 feet off the ground and nailed some poor guys camper and put a dent in the side of it. I was 11 years-old so he couldn't beat me. he he Another time, when it was still legal to fire them in city limits, our club caused a 100 acre fire in West Covina, CA up in the hills. Hell, they let us launch there so it was bound to happen. After the 3rd fire they booted us and we had to use Lucerne Dry Lake in SoCal. They still have clubs using the dry lake. Check out this guys rig. [url]www.rocstock.org/pix.sf2001.greg.html[/url] |
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