in the early 70's, my first m-l was a caplock CVA mtn rifle..took it to our range to sight it in..used the roof of my car as a rest...had an accidental discharge, and had a black streak across the roof...the rifle was lying upside down at the time as I was screwing around with the trigger adjustment...Hank
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Dumbest thing I ever did.
- Thread starter Joe Yanta
- Start date
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This reminds me of the old Hydrogen experiment.
As a foolish kid, I found that mixing a (in those days) common household chemical with water and dumping in some wadded up aluminum foil produces hydrogen.
Armed with this knowledge I went into my bedroom where I placed the ingrediants into a empty Skippy Peanut Butter jar and screwed on the lid. (I had the foresight to pound a hole in the lid with a small nail before I started.)
After a minute of foaming and bubbleing, I lit the jet of pure hydrogen, which made a wondrous almost invisible flame about 6 inches tall! :grin:
The next night, my buddy Bob came over and I couldn't wait to show him my wondrous invention.
Mixing up a new batch and screwing on the lid I rapidly held a match over the hole. BOOOOOOOOMMMM!
Not only was the roar deafening but glass shards from the jar and "the solution" was blown all over the room.
The amazing thing was I didn't get a scratch or a drop of the solution on my skin.
The solution did proceed to eat a few holes in my cloths :shocked2: and it stripped all of the paint off of my old desk.
As a foolish kid, I found that mixing a (in those days) common household chemical with water and dumping in some wadded up aluminum foil produces hydrogen.
Armed with this knowledge I went into my bedroom where I placed the ingrediants into a empty Skippy Peanut Butter jar and screwed on the lid. (I had the foresight to pound a hole in the lid with a small nail before I started.)
After a minute of foaming and bubbleing, I lit the jet of pure hydrogen, which made a wondrous almost invisible flame about 6 inches tall! :grin:
The next night, my buddy Bob came over and I couldn't wait to show him my wondrous invention.
Mixing up a new batch and screwing on the lid I rapidly held a match over the hole. BOOOOOOOOMMMM!
Not only was the roar deafening but glass shards from the jar and "the solution" was blown all over the room.
The amazing thing was I didn't get a scratch or a drop of the solution on my skin.
The solution did proceed to eat a few holes in my cloths :shocked2: and it stripped all of the paint off of my old desk.
Guest
:hmm: I wonder if that would work for strippin' gun stocks. :grin:
rods said:
Nay, we are all just sharing some of our better highlights from our past...
Now for good clean fun, take a large foam rubber cushion out of a chair or couch slip cover and cut them to the same size as a brick...
Next, make a goodly amount of mud and then dip the foam rubber cut-outs into it, coat all sides and set in the sun to dry...
Once dry, they'll look for the most part, like a brick, oh the fun you'll have as you bounce one off your friends head as passing cars watch in horror and report the crime they just witnessed... :winking: :haha:
Guest
Though this wasn't me. There was the time in 10th grade chemistry class that a subsitute teacher wanted to dump a pound (roughly a little over 453 grams) of pure sodium into a 500ml beaker of water!
These will give you an idea of what could have happened
[url] http://www.pc.chemie.uni-siegen.de/pci/versuche/english/v44-1-1.html[/url]
[url] http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/011.2/[/url]
[url] http://www.allatoms.com/SodiumWaterExpt/NaExp.htm[/url]
CP
These will give you an idea of what could have happened
[url] http://www.pc.chemie.uni-siegen.de/pci/versuche/english/v44-1-1.html[/url]
[url] http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/011.2/[/url]
[url] http://www.allatoms.com/SodiumWaterExpt/NaExp.htm[/url]
CP
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Old Ironsights
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Claypipe said:
We would just flush Sodium, Lithium or Potassium metal, muchly wrapped in TP. The trick was to get it to explode about one or two yards outside the buiding. The best effect was to force all of the toilets in that wing to "reverse flush". This was to be done at the point of maximum Girls Restroom Attendance.
Nice wayto earn a break from school - whether you get caught or not... :winking:
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pathfinderifh
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When I was twelve, my brother bet me I could'nt hold the blades of the blender still while he turned it on. 24 stitches proved I could'nt :redface:
Where do I begin? The time a friend brought his brand new Colt Officer's Model to show me. I asked if a 7 round magazine would fit. To find out, I gave him the loaded one from my Gold Cup. It fit fine, just protruded a bit from the grip. As he pulled the slide back, I started to say "Is that a good i..." and bang, the round went through 4 walls and the sofa my wife had been sitting in a few seconds before.
The time a friend of mine, during deer season tossed his Winchester 94 in the back seat of my car. He forgot a round was chambered. Duct tape covered the hole nicely, and was even waterproof.
And my favorite. My uncle, on the way home from Christmas shopping kills a deer out of season. Because he was in a rush, he just throws what he thought was a dead doe in the trunk, along with the presents he had bought. Not being totally mindless, he covered the gifts up with a blanket. Yeah, you guessed it. It wasn't dead, and kicked the manure out of everything in the trunk. What wasn't destroyed by the deer was ruined by the blood after my uncle cut its throat with his pocket knife.
The time a friend of mine, during deer season tossed his Winchester 94 in the back seat of my car. He forgot a round was chambered. Duct tape covered the hole nicely, and was even waterproof.
And my favorite. My uncle, on the way home from Christmas shopping kills a deer out of season. Because he was in a rush, he just throws what he thought was a dead doe in the trunk, along with the presents he had bought. Not being totally mindless, he covered the gifts up with a blanket. Yeah, you guessed it. It wasn't dead, and kicked the manure out of everything in the trunk. What wasn't destroyed by the deer was ruined by the blood after my uncle cut its throat with his pocket knife.
GreyWhiskers
69 Cal.
At about age 11 or 12 I made my first "muzzleloader." I took a piece of 1/2" black pipe from my Dad's selection of plumbing odds and ends. I drove a piece of hardwood dowel into one end to serve as a breech plug then drilled a hole just in front of it. I would buy paper matches in matchbook form and cut off the heads for powder. About three matchbooks made a good load. Then toilet paper (wad) and then a marble.(roundball) More toilet paper. The head of a wooden match was stuck into the flash hole and I used the striker from one of the matchbooks to light it. Talk about delayed ignition!
Well all was good for a while. Even my Dad was impressed. Then an older neighbor kid got the idea to screw another 12" nipple onto the end of my barrel and make it twice as long. About the 3rd or 4th time we loaded it the matchheads got stuck at the seam of the 2 pieces. Then the ramrod got stuck in the barrel. The other kid raised the gun over his head and drove the ramrod into the concrete floor. The thing went off while we were inside his covered patio and the breech plug went thru the ceiling. We couldn't hear over the ringing in our ears for a couple days. We did hear his Mother screeming though. :yakyak:
Well all was good for a while. Even my Dad was impressed. Then an older neighbor kid got the idea to screw another 12" nipple onto the end of my barrel and make it twice as long. About the 3rd or 4th time we loaded it the matchheads got stuck at the seam of the 2 pieces. Then the ramrod got stuck in the barrel. The other kid raised the gun over his head and drove the ramrod into the concrete floor. The thing went off while we were inside his covered patio and the breech plug went thru the ceiling. We couldn't hear over the ringing in our ears for a couple days. We did hear his Mother screeming though. :yakyak:
We used to handle 25 lb lead bricks regularly at work (shielding - nuclear physics stuff). Some were wrapped in vinyl tape, so we cut a block of styrofoam the same size and taped it up and initiated the new guys by heaving it at them, acting like it was heavy. Always worked. Big eyes, fast action.
OMG! I did the same thing except it featured a conical flask with a rubber bung with a bend glass tube sticking out of the top. Thought I would make a gas torch! Yeah, that worked...NOT. The bung blew out at the touch of the match, hit the cieling and shattered the glass tube. Scared me senseless and just as well my folks were out :shocked2:
On the side of the container of powder found around some Arizona homes is a warning about it being an oxidizer.
My friend and I discovered this stuff would burn, sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently.
On the way home from school, we discovered the steel shell of a Thermos bottle so we took it to his house and packed it half full of this powder.
We then took it to a vacant lot and dropped a lighted match down the hole.
Nothing seemed to be happening, so I looked down the hole and sure enough, the surface of the material was just bubbling and smoking but that was all.
As I stood there looking down the hole, my friends hand blocked my vision as he dumped another handfull down the hole.
I landed about 8 feet from where I had been and my friend landed along side of me.
We never found that Thermos bottle but we did find the bottom of it buried 1/2 inch into the rocklike dry dirt Arizona is known for.
I swear, some guardian angel followed me around when I was a kid.
My friend and I discovered this stuff would burn, sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently.
On the way home from school, we discovered the steel shell of a Thermos bottle so we took it to his house and packed it half full of this powder.
We then took it to a vacant lot and dropped a lighted match down the hole.
Nothing seemed to be happening, so I looked down the hole and sure enough, the surface of the material was just bubbling and smoking but that was all.
As I stood there looking down the hole, my friends hand blocked my vision as he dumped another handfull down the hole.
I landed about 8 feet from where I had been and my friend landed along side of me.
We never found that Thermos bottle but we did find the bottom of it buried 1/2 inch into the rocklike dry dirt Arizona is known for.
I swear, some guardian angel followed me around when I was a kid.
rabbit03
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Excellent story Joe. Not sure if I can top it (don't want to) but I can tell you for starters never ever hit a small rifle primer with a hammer on a concrete floor in a closed room. That said let me tell you about one particular day when I was a young lad of 15.
We had torn down the old milking barn and piled the wood in the adjacent creek. We were waiting for a good day to burn, a good day being one that had little wind and lots of humidity. Well the day finally arrived, it had been slightly misting rain and there was no wind. So I did what I thought was the valient thing to do and headed over to the pile of wood with the gas can and the matches. At 15 years old a little bit is good but alot is always better. My gas can contained 5 gallons of gas and as before I decided to put it all on the wood. I did it right too, got right on top of the huge pile and made sure it got all down in the tangled wood. Then making sure I moved the gas can away from the source of the impending fire I stood next to the pile and threw a match. Now for those of you who are not sure what happend next I can tell you that you do not need to try it. I got up about 20 feet or so from the pile of wood. My Levis jacket was smoldering, I smelled like burnt hair and I did remember a big orange ball of fire just before I picked myself up. I ran to the house looking for of all things a mirror to see the damage. Not really from vanity as much as it was the wonderment of the source of the smell of burning hair and curiosity. My face felt like it was on fire and when I finally found the mirror I kind of knew why it felt like that. I looked like Al Jolsen without hair. No eyebrows, most of the hair on my head was gone and no eyelashes either. Well to make the story shorter the hospital people were great folks and they applied some kind of white thick cream that was called sulfamilan or something like that, this was in the early 70's. It was a new lard looking substance that I had to keep on my face neck and hands for what seemed like forever but the results were no scarring at all. I was to say the least very lucky that I wasn't blinded I guess.
Oh yeah and never ever shoot any racoons in the attic of the house with a .357, that is also not a good idea,
rabbit03
We had torn down the old milking barn and piled the wood in the adjacent creek. We were waiting for a good day to burn, a good day being one that had little wind and lots of humidity. Well the day finally arrived, it had been slightly misting rain and there was no wind. So I did what I thought was the valient thing to do and headed over to the pile of wood with the gas can and the matches. At 15 years old a little bit is good but alot is always better. My gas can contained 5 gallons of gas and as before I decided to put it all on the wood. I did it right too, got right on top of the huge pile and made sure it got all down in the tangled wood. Then making sure I moved the gas can away from the source of the impending fire I stood next to the pile and threw a match. Now for those of you who are not sure what happend next I can tell you that you do not need to try it. I got up about 20 feet or so from the pile of wood. My Levis jacket was smoldering, I smelled like burnt hair and I did remember a big orange ball of fire just before I picked myself up. I ran to the house looking for of all things a mirror to see the damage. Not really from vanity as much as it was the wonderment of the source of the smell of burning hair and curiosity. My face felt like it was on fire and when I finally found the mirror I kind of knew why it felt like that. I looked like Al Jolsen without hair. No eyebrows, most of the hair on my head was gone and no eyelashes either. Well to make the story shorter the hospital people were great folks and they applied some kind of white thick cream that was called sulfamilan or something like that, this was in the early 70's. It was a new lard looking substance that I had to keep on my face neck and hands for what seemed like forever but the results were no scarring at all. I was to say the least very lucky that I wasn't blinded I guess.
Oh yeah and never ever shoot any racoons in the attic of the house with a .357, that is also not a good idea,
rabbit03
Swamp Buck
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Back when I was an early teenager, having experimented with model rocketry (the proper way)for several years, I always wondered how much power an Estes "D" rocket motor had.
The various sizes will lift a rocket quite high in the air, but the "D" size is one of the largest available in a regular hobby shop.
Anyway, to test out the power in a scientific manner, I used a set of vice-grips to hold on to the rocket motor and used a cannon fuse to ignite it.
Well, I can definitly attest to the power of the "D" sized rocket motor. The motor was ripped out of my hands and began spinning on its center of mass. Fortunatly, the only damage sustained in this experiment was a large burn hole to my new goose down ski jacket "lab coat". :redface:
The various sizes will lift a rocket quite high in the air, but the "D" size is one of the largest available in a regular hobby shop.
Anyway, to test out the power in a scientific manner, I used a set of vice-grips to hold on to the rocket motor and used a cannon fuse to ignite it.
Well, I can definitly attest to the power of the "D" sized rocket motor. The motor was ripped out of my hands and began spinning on its center of mass. Fortunatly, the only damage sustained in this experiment was a large burn hole to my new goose down ski jacket "lab coat". :redface:
***Sean***
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Here is good one. Sometimes I wonder how some of survived are childhood :shake: I was around 10 when this happened to a good friend of mine. He had his girl friend over and he was showing off. He had a BB gun and some .22 cal. bullets. I was living in Michigan then. He was putting the .22's in a snow bank and shooting them with his BB gun. One went off and the shell hit him right in the eye. He had a glass eye after that. He liked to take it out and show it to everyone. :shake:
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