Nothing like an inverted 40 lb. shaped charge under a 55 gallon drum of jellied gasoline, or a nuclear weapons simulator in the wrong place to get public attention. :D

TR

Holy SH*T Sir.

Hydrogen !!!
 

Early to mid 1960's South of Houston. Put one large roll of Dry Cleaner's plastic bag material, a continuous "tube" of the plastic material that dry cleaners use to cover clothes, with 2 LARGE rolls of commercial grade aluminum foil and several kids that have way too much time on their hands. We added several 5 gallon glass water bottles, a fair quantity of lye and some H2O.

We were attempting, with the "Prototype", to fill a small sized envelope with the Hydrogen, that was generated in a Bottle from strips of the foil, lye and H2O when the WHOLE GARAGE WENT BANG !!!! Luckily, it didn't set fire to the house, but it blew all of the windows in the garage out. After we replaced all of the glass, we held some very long "Think Sessions" to prevent this from happening again.

(You must keep in mind that this took place in the immediate vicinity of the Houston NASA facility and several of the participant's parents worked there .)

Once we got the Hydrogen generation system worked out, we assembled a VERY long/tall balloon from the "Laundry Bag" material. Inside of the envelope were the 2 rolls of Aluminum Foil (Radar Reflectors), attached to the top and unrolled inside the tube. We filled the tube with enough Hydrogen to lift it, attached ballast weights to keep it vertical and then attached a chemical delay ignition system, of my design, to it and let her fly !!!

It was at about 2200 when we released it and it went way the hell up, and then it ignited!! Huge fireball and then LOTS of Jets flying all over the place.

There were rumors of UFOs etc, but it has been a mystery..... until now.

I think Mr. Harsey has some experience with hydrogen. :D

TR

ok, since this thread has deviated somewhat, and since, yes, it can be said that I am a deviant, I will jump in.

when I was young, I used to hide out in Seattle around 1st Avenue. One of the clubs I used to patronize was called Club Vogue. It was pretty snooty, in a way, but I liked the music, and I liked the snotty girls that went there. Anyway, one night, I closed the place down, then went down the street and across to a grimy little diner and had a burger. When I came out, I saw that Seattle's finest had attached a parking barrel to the right rear tire of my Toyota Landcruiser. Wrong answer.

I was tired, drunk, it was fucking raining (it was Seattle, remember), I already had a million parking tickets, (which is why they affixed the barrel), I was broke, and I just wanted to go home.

I rooted around inside my truck (anyone who owned one of those old-style Landcruisers knows why I call it a truck) and found a bit of det cord, some time fuse, a non-electrical M6 special and one of those old spring-powered initiators. Cannot remember the nomenclature. I just happened to have everything that I needed in a claymore bag, along with some black electrical tape. So I sat down on the curb with my demo knife and made up my train, and wrapped the det cord, three wraps, around the cable running from the barrel. I figured that would be enough. I was guesstimating.

I pulled the ring, walked back into the shadows, and jumped out of my ass when it went off. That shit was LOUD. It echoed all over downtown. The barrel went rolling off down the street, smoking. I looked left, then right, it was drizzling, and deserted, so I checked out the truck, (I was afraid that I blew the axel off it, or damaged the tire, I probably used too many wraps), got in, fired her up, and drove home, stereo cranked the whole way to keep me awake.

It was another time, another era.

I thank the Big Ranger in the Sky that I survived it, and did not end up in jail. I figure that I committed at least three or four major felonies with that little escapade. In my mind, I was just going home.

Phew.

!!!

Holy smokes Sir Jack & Magician !!! :eek:

And I thought I was a maladjusted delinquent.

We did an experiment in basic chemistry involving flamable gasses mixed with O2 or burned alone. I took that lesson home with me :)

We had a hang out place that we called "The Bomb Shelter" because it as basically a concrete blockhouse buried into a hill with a skylight and the front door exposed. I bought a dozen butane cylinders for refilling lighters, I grabbed some oven cleaner, tin foil, some newspaper, and a couple of packs of matches.

I used the ket ingredients to construct a nice chemical fuze, then started pulling the valves out of the butane cylinders and pitching them into the bomb shelter.

Just add some water to the fuze, pitch it into the room, run like hell to the next hill over and watch the show.

It knocked the whole front wall out, and dropped half of the roof. Of course we didn't SEE it all happen, because those pussies I was with took off like a shot as soon as fire started shooting out of the roof. :D

That would be the standard M-60 Fuze Igniter, unless I misunderstand.

P for Plenty! Well done, Sir.

TR

Now this is why so many people want to be SF engineers.

So the M-60 fuse igniter is the old stuff now?? What is being used these days?

LOL-That's a typical SF engineer solution for you!! :D

M60 fuse igniter. That was it.

Do not know what has been wrong with me lately...memory has been funny...cannot remember shit. Some things...are clear as a bell. Like the number of wraps that I used. On the other hand, I could not remember the word arthritis on Monday. Can you BELIEVE that shit?

I think that a more proportional solution would have been to tape a two-inch length of det cord to the steel cable. Three wraps was, in retrospect, way too much. Yes, I was drunk on my ass. Yes, it was o' dark thirty on a rainy night in the middle of downtown Seattle. But it was too much. That shit was really, really loud. It echoed all over the city.

I hauled ass out of there.

It is a miracle that I survived my youth.

If nothing else makes you believe in a higher power, or in the concept of faith, or in the idea of karma, just this one anecdote should. I should, by rights, be in jail.

The fact that I am not, convinces me that I am being saved for something. Maybe that "something" is nothing more than inadvertently stepping on an ant on some inscrutable day in the unknowable future.

Who the fuck knows.

But I know that I heard my heart beating in my ears that night, as I looked up and down the streets, and that barrel rolled down the street, clanging and smoking.