*--* Qmodem Session Capture File *--* *--* Qmodem Capture File 03/15/91 21:42:36 *--* NAPALM ------ A good, cheap, and easy way to make napalm is to dilute rubber cement with alcohol. Get it to the point where it's pretty liquid. The stuff will evaporate over time if left uncovered. It may also seperate, depending on what kind of alcohol you use. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUGAR CHLORATE -------------- Sugar chlorate is my own name for a mixture of sugar and sodium chlorate (3 to 4 or whatever looks right). When ignited, and it ignites EASILY, it will burn with a hot, yellow flame. It it a staple igniter for tough to ignite mixtures, like thermite. The best part about it is that it can be made cheaply in large amounts, and it will incinerate just about anything not made out of metal. One of my favorite demonstrations is to put about 3/4 inch of the stuff in the bottom of an empty wine bottle, and the drop a match in. Get back. The flame shoots out the nozzle until the heat gets so intense that it cracks the bottle. CAUTION: Sugar chlorate can produce a lot of pressure if confined, a lot like a rocket engine. It produces a lot of hot gases that have to go somewhere. I once put 1 1/2 inches in a empty detergent box with a 1x2 opening. It built up so much pressure that it exploded. And loud. I would know. Iwas standing 3 feet away thinking "It will never explode." I was wrong. Fortunatly I escaped unharmed, but I learned never underestimate anything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EXPLOSIVE FORMULAS ------------------ The best, and by far the easist contact explosive is a mixture of supher, sodium chlorate, and course sand (2 to 2 to 1). Mix it and roll hit it with a hammer, or tape to a rock and throw. 1. A film canister in a roll of gasoline soaked toilet paper makes a BIG boom. 2. 1 pt. gasoline to 16 pts ammonium nitrate is a VERY effective high explosive, easily set off by a triangle firecracker. 3. A film canister buried in 2 ft. of dirt does very little. 4. Whistling bottle rockets work just fine under water. 5. Very little is left of a watermelon when an ammonium nitrate charge is put inside of it. 6. A film canister placed under a bleach bottle filled with gasoline makes a VERY big fireball (and a LOT of smoke). 7. Putting a can of hairspray in the middle of a bonfire, then shooting it makes a big fireball/explosion. 8. A film canister thrown in 1 ft of water sends a column of water 30 ft into the air. We got ammonium nitrate to work as a high explosive. We got it to work by taking ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which comes in little beads, and grinding it up into a fine power. Then we mixed 16 parts by volume of the powdered ammonium nitrate with on e part by volume of gasoline and mixing it well. It is barely even moist, but you can smell the gasoline in it. We set it off by using a BIG triangle made with shopping bag paper. It held about 2 grams of low explosive powder, and apparently was enough to detonate the ammonium nitrate. We put the ammonium nitrate-gasoline mix onto a big piece of aluminum foil and wrapped the whole thing up around the triangle, using plenty of fuse! Both of the charges that we made were about the size of a baseball. We stuck the first one inside of an old clock radio that C.C. donated. It was blown to bits. It sent pieces of the plastic housing flying 50 into the air, landing over a 100' radius. All of the buttons and knobs were gone and we never found any of them. We did find smashed printed circuit boards, a dented transformer, loose capacitors, the radio dial, and some twisted metal. The second one destroyed a watermellon. The pieces that we found didn't add up. Apparently, a good portion of the watermellon was vaporized, turned into mist. Anyway, now that we have the exact mixture, it seems to work. Here is the exact mixture again: powdered ammonium nitrate 16 pts. by volume gasoline or fuel oil 1 part set it off with a large low explosive charge. Have fun!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ FUSES ----- There are 2 kinds of fuse: cannon and improvised. Cannon fuse can be bought for about $2.50 for 5 ft. It can be purchaced at gun shows (most common) or at some gun stores (expensive). It has a burn rate of aprox. 30 sec. per foot. It is generally warer proof (to a point). There are many kinds of improvised fuse, regular and chemical. A good, cheap source of regular fuse is to make some sugar chlorate and pour it into warm water until you have a saturated solution. Dunk some yarn in and let sit for a minite. Take it out and let it dry thouroughly. A cigarette makes a good fuse, but you will have to experment with burn time. A good chemical igniter/fuse involves a strong acid (above 85%-90%), and sugar chlorate. When the former hits the latter (not soaks, though), it will ignite, and can then be used to ignite your charge. Other good fuses: a candle, string (cotton. Plain string will smolder slowly); straw filled with gunpowder (quickmatch); etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ BURST CHARGES ------------- Burst charges are little things that you light, throw in the air, and go POOF with a shower of sparks. They are made by mixing Al powder and NaClOsb3 1-1 and putting in aluminum foil Adding small pieces of magnesium ribbon into burst charges will make more white sparks. Burst charges produce white sparks because the flashpowder mixture (magnesium powder and sodium chlorate , equal parts by volume) ignites the aluminum foil wrapping, which burns white hot as it falls through the air. The magnesium ribbon pieces will also produce white sparks, but they will be dazzlingly bright, far far brighter than the aluminum foil sparks. You can also add small amounts of pulled out, fluffed up steel wool. It will produce small, dim, gold colored sparks. If you make a large burst charge including magnesium and steel wool (and whatever else comes to mind) and get it to flash while it's in the air, it is very spectacular. By the way, to get it to burst in mid air, light the fuse, hold on to the charge, and throw into a high arc when the fuse burns down a ways. Just don't hold on to it too long... Try lighting off a burst charge on top of an empty Coke can to find out why.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LOW EXPLOSIVES - FLASHPOWDER - GUN POWDER ----------------------------------------- Low explosives are made by simply mixing a powerfully combustible solid (usually granular) with an oxidizer such as soduim chlorate (see earlier message in this area), potassium chlorate (better), or potassium nitrate (less violent (yes, this property can be useful)). There are all kinds of formulas for low explosives that can be made, but some are much better than others. Also, some mixtures can work too well or too soon, with subsequent detriment to the adventuresome pyrotechnician's carrer. One miture mentionned in a previous message is flashpowder, a mixture of magnesium powder and sodium chlorate. This will cause a bright flash and explosion if confined in something. One mixture that should never be made is a mixture of red phosphorus and potassium or sodium chlorate. This is the stuff used in caps for cap guns. The problem is that it can explode whenever it feels like it, and it gets angry at you if you disturb it... I have read several stories of someone mixing up 1 1/2 ounces of this stuff and having it explode. It blew the skin off the bones of their hands. One of the best low explosive mixtures I have used is as follows: 2 parts by mass Potassium Chlorate 1 " Aluminum powder 1 " Sulfur powder This can be approximated by using parts by volume. A little less Chlorate, a little less Aluminum, and a little extra sulfur. If you can, use a balance or scale and use the mass proportions. This, like flashpowder, will explode if confined. However, it explodes much bigger than flashpowder (I don't know why). Out in the open, it will just burn, albeit white hot. Another simple low explosive, similar to flashpowder is a mixture of equal parts of sodium chlorate and aluminum powder. It burns white hot out in the open and explodes, throwing sparks, when confined. It, however, is nowhere near as good as the more complicated mixture shown above. The above mixture should be used whenever possible. more... Make some of the low explosive mixture made with potassium chlorate, aluminum powder, and sulfur. Scoop out a TINY amount of it onto a small piece of aluminum foil about 2" square. Wrap the foil up around the powder and compress it into a small ball. Take it outside and put it down on a hard surface. Hit it with a hammer. These little suckers are trivial to make and are really loud. They're great if you just want to make noise. Also, if someone complains and calls the cops, you can just say that you were smashing toy caps with the hammer (Not far from the truth). A word of warning. Whatever you do, don't set these off in an enclosed area of any kind. It is DEAFENING. This mixture is incredibly bright. It is a dry mixture of equal volumes of. sodium chlorate 1 part magnesium powder 1 part This mixture makes an flash easily seen in daylight. I'm sure it's what they use in magic tricks (or something very similar). It makes a whooomp sound and a cloud of white smoke. Be careful with it. It burns at probably well over 5000 degrees and it can explode. If it is confined in or by anything except aluminum foil, it will explode, especially if a large amount is used. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ FILM CANNISTER BOMB - HIGH EXPLOSIVES An ENORMOUS explosion can be made using one of those plastic cylindrical containers that 35mm film comes in. These are heavy duty, and should not be taken lightly. We once threw one of these out onto a school football field and it was heard at least one mile away! All you have to do is fill the film canister up with low explosive like the one mentionned in an earlier message. Punch a hole in the center of the lid and run cannon fuse through it. Use plenty of fuse! put the lid with the fuse running through it onto the canniser full of explosive and wrap duct tape up all around the whole thing. Light fuse and get away. Do not hold in hand.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHEMICALS - SUPPLIES Chem Lab is where my friends and me get our supplies. They sell everything that I mention in this message area unless otherwise noted. They have the best prices of any similar chemical supply house that I know of, but the chemicals they sell are often Reagent grade, which is very pure and very expensive. The experiments in this message area do not require ultrapure ingredients, so if you can find these chemicals at the grocery store, farm supply store, or hardware store, they will often be less expensive there, but not always. For instance, Chem Lab sells sucrose for $3 a pound, but you should simply buy granulated sugar at the grocery store (for a lot less $$). Chem Lab officially will sell only to people over age 18, but if you are not, you can sometimes get away with it anyway, depending on who waits on you. If you become a regular customer, they will often do little favors for you and give small price breaks. For instance, I one got a huge catalog from them for free. I think they will give you their catalog for free if you ask for it. Chem Lab's phone number is (714) 630-7902. They are open during typical business hours, on weekdays. Chem Lab is located in a business district at 1060 Ortega Way, Placentia, CA. Many of the chemicals needed for these experiments are designated clearly as pryothechnic grade, so to be safe, don't buy a whole stockpile of pyrotechnic chemicals at once. They might get suspicious. However, I have never had any problem buying things from them. Just don't push your luck. Chem Lab is a good place with reasonable prices on most of the chemicals you will need for these experiments. It will serve you well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRIANGLES - LOW EXPLOSIVES PACKAGING Well, since you now know how to make all sorts of low explosives, it might help to know how to package these so that they explode rather than simply burn. Film cannisters (see earier message) are an easy way, but they are so huge that you can't se t them off often. (If you have tried one you will know what I mean!!) These triangles are smaller explosive charges, suitable for "light and throw" use. You can make them big or small. The larger ones could be considered small bombs rather than firecr ackers. The procedure for making triangles is hard to describe over the modem because I can only use text; no pictures and no demonstrations. I will do the best I can to describe the procedure. If you have any questions, leave a reply to this message, and I wi ll answer you. To make triangles, take a 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper and fold it in half 3 times so that the creases define 8 strips of paper about one inch wide and 11 inches long. Cut along the creases so that you get these 8 strips of paper. Take a strip of paper, lay it down on the table, and look at it horizontally. Take the left end and fold about an inch and a half of it back over the strip. This is tough to describe. Fold it down and to the right at a 60 degree angle. If you visualiz e the hidden edge of paper you will notice that this fold sort of defines a triangle. (This is definitely one of those cases where a picture would be worth a thousand words!) Try to make this an equilateral triangle. Leave a little less than a half in ch of overlap. Turn the folded strip of paper over and fold the overlapping length along the edge of the strip against the back side of the strip. Tape this into place. Now turn the strip back over and you will see a triangular shaped "pocket" made by the folds, ready to accept some low explosives... If you made it this far in the intructions, you have made it past the hardest part to describe. Lay this triangular pocket down on the table with the opening of the pocket facing away from you, with the rest of the strip extending up and to the right. Cut off a 3" length of fuse and place it inside the pocket along the pocket's left edge, angled up and to the left. Fill the pocket up with a low explosive (see earlier messages) and then fold the extending strip of paper down and to the right, closing off the pocket. Now wrap the paper around and around the triangle, giving the strip of paper some tension so that this makes a strong, compact casing. When you get to the end of the strip, tape it down with some good, sticky Scotch tape. You don't want the whole thing to unravel. YOUR'E DONE!!!! Your first triangles will probably look pretty messy, and may not be tight enough to give the low explosive enough confinement to explode properly. But you will get the hang of it. Practice makes less imperfect. Your results will speak loudly for themselves. You can make all kinds of variations with trianges. You can use various low explosive mixtures, though the 3 component mixture that I described in an earlier message is the best that I know of. You can also vary the amount of explosive powder that you put into the triangle. If you fill the triangle full to capacity, it will hold about one gram of explosive. That may not sound like much, but just try one and listen. Don't be suprised if it blows up nearby objects. This is a hell of a demonstration o f the amount of energy that's in some things. If you want something smaller, just don't fill the triangle all the way up. For instance, if you just put in a little scoup (about an eighth of a teaspoon), it will make a little goody that makes a nice ban g, and is small enough to throw around casually. While I say casually, don't be stupid!! Don't EVER throw these at people, animals, or valuable objects and don't ever use them inside. The most dangerous aspect of these is the sound. They are very loud , especially indoors or in enclosed outdoor areas. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SMOKE BOMBS ----------- A very efective smoke mixture can be made by mixing 2 pts. Hexachloroethane (whew!) with 1 pt. Zinc dust. Add a little Sodium Chlorate, and use a hot fuse (cannon fuse) or place a Sugar Chlorate charge in the middle to insure lighting. The smoke is thick and plentiful, but tends to rise too fast. It is ideal for enclosed spaces. The smoke is non-toxic as far as I know, but is unpleasant to breathe. Another cheap smoke mixture is sugar Chlorate in large quantities. About a pound. A marginally good, but very inexpensive smoke mixture can be made by mixing sugar and potassium nitrate in equal volumes. You can get potassium nitrate in a 50 lb. bag at Orange County Farm Supply in Orange. It costs about $16 for that amount, and sugar isn't very expensive (as chemicals go), so you can make lots of this mixure for negligible cost. It is also good for generally incinerating thi ngs, but not as good as sugar chlorate (nothing else is). This mixture can be greatly improved by adding this mixture to a small volume of water (enough to dissolve it at high temperature). Don't use too much water, or the process will take all year. Heat the solution up to boiling point and boil away the water, stirring it occasionnaly. When there is only a little water left, the solution will thicken and form a gel or mush. Stop heating the soluti on when it gells and scoup it out onto aluminum foil and let it dry. Divide it into small pieces to make it dry faster. Don't dry it in the oven, with a hair dryer, on a hot surface, or in the microwave. There is a distinct possibility that it will ignite and fill your house with smoke. The gelled mixture will burn much faster, leave less residue, and produce a lot more smoke. However, for serious smoke, use the hexachloroethane - zinc powder smoke mixture (cf). Here's another smoke mixture. It makes a cloud of really black smoke. It tends to dissipate quickly though. It would be great inside... Crush up mothballs into powder. They must be the kind of mothballs that are made of napthalene. Make sure of this. If they are the type made of para-dichlorobenzene, this mixture won't work. Mix the napthalene powder with sodium chlorate in equal volumes. Mix it up real good, and you're done. This stuff is hard to ignite. You must use an sugar-chlorate igniter or take a blowtorch to it. When it ignites, it will burn very hot and pour off thick black smoke. It also gives off little wisps of carbon that float around all over the place. The smoke mixture presented earlier in this area is extremely good - I would dare say even better than those smoke-pots you can but at the fireworks stand. All you need is 2 parts by volume of Hexachloroethane, 1 part by volume of Zinc dust, and about 3 /4 part by volume of Sodium Chlorate. Mix it together well, wrap about a tablespoon full in a small sheet of aluminum foil with a fuse running to it, light, and watch the fun. If the wind is not that strong, it will produce a smoke cloud of considerable size drifting up, or if the wind is blowing slightly, may even cover your whole yard. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DETONATORS - PRIMARY EXPLOSIVES - CHARGES ----------------------------------------- Detonators are small high explosive charges used to set off big high explosive charges using explosives such as dynamite, TNT, ammonium nitrate, nitromethane, etc. They are made by filling up a small casing such as an empty brass cartridge from a round of ammunition (for those of you who know nothing about guns, that's what's left after you fire off a bullet) with about one gram of a booster explosive and about one gram of primary explosive. It is loaded and set up so that the fuse goes in and contacts the primary explosive. The booster explosive is put underneath the primary explosive. When the fuse reaches the primary explosive, the primary explosive goes off with tremendous shock power to everything nearby. It also sets off the booster explosive, which is more powerful and adds considerably to the power of the detonator. The bo oster explosive is not sensitive enough to be set off by the fuse; it needs the explosion of the primary explosive. These are technically called compound detonators because they have two stages, the primary explosive and the booster explosive. These detonators are powerful enough to set off just about anything. They are also pretty impressive by themselves. Since they are very powerful and shattering, and use a sensitive primary explosive, be damn carefull with them/ The primary explosives that I know how to make are acetone peroxide, mercury fulminate, HMTD, and lead azide. The booster explosives that I know how to make are picric acid and RDX. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BLASTING CAPS Blasting caps are simpler versions of detonators. They use no booster explosive. They are easy to make. Just take an empty bullet cartridge, a small length of thin copper tubing or something similar and fill it up with about one gram of primary explosive of your choice. Put a fuse into it and plug up the open end with kleenex and then carefully crimp the metal casing around the fuse so that the stuff inside won't fall out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPACT BOMB - EXPLOSIVES ------------------------ You need a large piece of aluminum foil, about 1 foot square, and a solid steel object such as a pipe cap. Lay out the aluminum foil and put a quantity of the 3 part low explosive mixture in the center of it. A 1 to 1 mixture of sulfur and sodium chlorate can be used, but it will not work NEARLY as well. Put the metal object down on top of the mound of low explosive powder. Wrap the aluminum foil up tight around the metal object and crumple and draw out the excess into a "tail," at least 6" long. This stabilizes the charge in the air so that it lands powder down with the metal object behind it. It works just like the plastic netting on a badmitton birdie. When flying fast enough thru the air, one end will always go first. If you have seen cap grenades, this works just like they do. Take the impact bomb out into the street. Throw it high into the air so that it will hit hard on the street or other hard surface. When it hits, it will explode. You can of course vary th e amount of explosive to use. In big charges, you may have trouble finding the metal object so that you can use it again, because a large charge of powder will often send the metal object flying. For example, some friends and I were playing around with magnesium powder and sodium chlorate, mixing them together and wrapping it in newspaper. We tried putting a bunch of it into an empty Coke can and putting a long fuse into it. We lit it, and it made an explosion that we felt 75' away and made a white flash of fire 15' in diameter. That was our first homemade bomb. We found a few charred pieces of the can around the yard. As for those Mexican "corn kernels", I just saw some people at school throwing those. It was the first time I'd ever seen those. I have no idea what's on them. I do know how to make a few things that explode when thrown...... DRANO BOMB ---------- Ever put draino in a ping pong ball? Cover the hole with duct tape and stick it in a car gas tank. When the gas eats through the ball... BOOM!!!! Car and all. Anyone have access to the POOR MAN'S JAMES BOND? That is just full of Pyrotechnics that can be made with household stuff. Next time: NAPALM It works. I have never tried it, but I have friends that have. The Sodium Hydroxide reacts with gas and causes it to explode. What actually happens is the NaH(I think that's right) ignites the gas. How? I have no idea. You can also put the NaH in one of those orange medicine prescription bottles. I also have the formula to make plastic explosive that you mold according to how lethal you want it. It goes something like: You need: Styrofoam Motor Oil Melt styrofoam and mix with with oil. Let set til hardens. Will be somewhat moldable. Not sure how to ignite. Blasting caps or a small electrical charge will do it. Have Fun! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ELECTRIC DETONATORS ------------------- C.C. and I have been experimenting with setting off bombs electrically. It's worked fairly well. We got a whole bunch of 36 ohm resistors from our school electronics lab. These are low value resistors. When subjected to a powerful enough power source, they will dissipate lots of heat energy. If it's enough power, the resistor will burn up, often catching on fire. We've been using a 24 volt power supply and it's worked OK. We put the resistor inside of a bomb casing and have the resistor in contact with the explosive powder, and sealing up openings, being careful not to short out the wires. Don't use aluminum foil! I can't tell exactly how to do this. You will have to improvise something using materials that you have. Improvising is what this area is all about. Next, we are going to try this by using the 120 volt AC line. That should cause the resistor to dissipate 450 watts! That should really work well as long as we don't get a major short circuit. Well, the Mad Bomber tried out the deal with subjecting a 36 ohm resistor to 120 VAC and boy, what a show! When it encountered the current, it went up in a puff of smoke accompanied by a bright flash of light VERY QUICKLY. This should prove useful for detonations that need to be performed quickly, but for normal use the 14 VDC works just fine - plus, it is MUCH safer than its 120 volt counterpart. We use 36 ohm resistors because they are the best that we've found for ignition purposes, but you can always try different values for both the resistors and the ignition voltage. Next, we are going to try to make our own improvised solar ignitors out of copper wire and match heads. That ought to be interesting ... You could also try reverse-biasing an electrolytic capacitor to make a small bang, if shock (not heat) is what you need. If you need heat, nichrome wire will get quite hot before melting or oxidizing, but will need a lot of current to get it hot in normally available guages. This should work well at 120VAC though. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NO POWER - POWER OUTTAGE - TOTAL ANARCHY ---------------------------------------- I heard a great story about a stunt that someone crazier than me did. He got one of those long aluminum poles that are used to sweep out swimming pools and went out to an area where some high voltage power lines were close to the ground. These are the ones that have a 100,000 volt potential on them. He threw the pole horizontally up at the wires. It took him a few tries, but eventually he got it close enough to the wires. The pole, though still a few feet away from the wires, bridged the gap between them. The electricity jumped off one wire, went through the pole, and arced back to the other wire. This put on a hell of a lighting show and vaporized the pole in a shower of white hot sparks. I wouldn't recommend doing this because I estimated that a stunt like that could release something like 10 megawatts of power, enough to power a small city like Villa Park and certainly enough to destroy you and everything nearby. It also could cause a major short circuit that could blow out power over a huge area. You'd be in deep yogurt if you got caught... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DRANO ----- Ever put draino in a ping pong ball? Cover the hole with duct tape and stick it in a car gas tank. When the gas eats through the ball... BOOM!!!! Car and all. Anyone have access to the POOR MAN'S JAMES BOND? That is just full of Pyrotechnics that can be made with household stuff. Next time: NAPALM It works. I have never tried it, but I have friends that have. The Sodium Hydroxide reacts with gas and causes it to explode. What actually happens is the NaH(I think that's right) ignites the gas. How? I have no idea. You can also put the NaH in one of those orange medicine prescription bottles. I also have the formula to make plastic explosive that you mold according to how lethal you want it. It goes something like: You need: Styrofoam Motor Oil Melt styrofoam and mix with with oil. Let set til hardens. Will be somewhat moldable. Not sure how to ignite. Blasting caps or a small electrical charge will do it. Have Fun! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PYRO.001 PYRO.002 PYRO.003 Condensed version. Call SYNTAX the Board at 714-754-0228 We Have more Anarchy Files, Sex Text, Jokes, and General Text Files... 2400, 24hr/day!