Speak Out: Bad boys, bad boys

Replies (13)

• This is going to far IMO. We were taught in a junior high science class how to do this exact same thing. Some windex and tin foil, shake it up and watch it expand. I would hardly call it a bomb. If I had grew up in that town in this day and time I may be on death row if this is what they consider a crime worthy of felony charges.

  -- Posted by Joe Dirte on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 12:50 PM

• the acetylene trick was always a favorite of mine. We would put a couple rocks in the baloon, fill it and toss it toward the lit trash barrell. The neighbor kid filled one a little to much, blew the barrell up and rung his bell(;

  -- Posted by Joe Dirte on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 1:06 PM

• Oh and Rick, you are correct. I believe it was drain-o that was used in class instead of windex.

  -- Posted by Joe Dirte on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 1:10 PM

• Considering the fact that many of my neighbors use their family farms for make-shift trailer parks these days, leaving my place as one of the few operational farms, it doesnt sound like to good of a idea. On the other hand....no better not(:

  -- Posted by Joe Dirte on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 2:41 PM

• Agree. This case will be thrown out. It will end up as a disturbing the peace violation probably.

  Dry ice, water and soda bottle also work on the same principle.

  -- Posted by lumbrgfktr on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 3:04 PM

• We used to by cans of gunpowder and make bombs all the time. Some of them left pretty big holes. But nowadays with all the bad parenting it is no longer OK for kids to have access to boom boom powder.

  -- Posted by We Regret To Inform U on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 4:24 PM

• I also remember CO2 cartridges. I made a car once that used one. I wonder if that would be legal.

  -- Posted by lumbrgfktr on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 4:27 PM

• Wonder what they would do to you for throwing a couple of M-80s in the local swimming hole on fourth of July. [not that I ever was involved in any of that mischief]

  My father in law told me that when he was a youngster anyone could buy dynamite at the local hardware store. I had some stumps near the house I was digging out and he said if I could get him some he could take those stumps out and never crack a window.

  He was about 80 at the time and I believed him. Dang old woman wouldn't let him and I had no way of getting any dynamite.

  -- Posted by Old John on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 10:26 PM

• Anyone used a "potato gun" lately?

  -- Posted by not_sorry on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 11:33 PM

• Rick, The old man started handling dynamite when he 17 and did so for years on Trailback. I figure he could back up what he claimed.

  A friend uses explosives to clean the soot out smoke stacks of power plants and such. They flew their small plane with the all the stuff [as they always do] to do a job in New York state on 9-11. Took a lot of explaining.

  -- Posted by Old John on Wed, Sep 28, 2011, at 11:34 PM

• Dug,

  My son is of the age now he has heard the legend of the tater gun and is itchin to build one.

  Another good one was taking a bunch of old magnesium based sparklers and grinding all the powder of the wire. Pack all the powder tightly into a container and light it up. Makes a he11 of a boom.

  -- Posted by Joe Dirte on Thu, Sep 29, 2011, at 8:32 AM

• Years ago when I was young and real fireworks were legal we would use a length of cistern pipe and a tennis ball (don't know where it came from) to make a cannon. Worked almost as well as a potato gun.

  -- Posted by Robert* on Thu, Sep 29, 2011, at 11:04 AM

• We used to shoot things called 'Polish Cannons', which were akin to the potato gun, but used tennis balls for ammo, and were fueled by lighter fluid (although I've heard of some using gasoline as a propellant in lieu of lighter fluid).

  They were fabricated using beer cans, duct-taped end-to end. We made a lot of them at my parents house, because we had an electric can-opener that cut the tops cleanly, leaving no burrs to catch the tennis balls. Many can-openers, even electric ones, left a jagged edge that hampered the trajectory of the tennis ball.

  One can had to opened with a P-38 or Church Key, so that a jagged 'lip' remained to contain the tennis ball. The accuracy of the cannon was determined by the smoothness of the bore and the depth at which the tennis ball rested.

  There were experiments with additional sizes of cans and types of projectile, but we generally found the beer can/tennis ball to be the best combination.

  I recall someone once using a steel pipe and basketball combination that worked well, but I only saw it fired once.

  -- Posted by Shapley Hunter on Thu, Sep 29, 2011, at 11:24 AM