Oh yes, that was fun. I clamped one in the vice in my fathers garage and whacked the cap with a hammer and punch. That made a bit of a mess of the corrugated sheeting that the garage was made of. Unfortunately, my father was exceedingly violent and he was under the impression that he had the only key to his garage, I had made myself one. Luckily the garage was piled high with tools and bits so I used his panel beating gear to get the wall back to a reasonable shape and carefully rearranged the crap heap.
Short length of copper pipe with one end folded over and hammered flat, contents of a couple or three (or were there more?) bangers poured into it, a marble popped in on top. Lay on top of a small heap of banger powder with a short trail, apply match and watch as window in porch at top of street is hit by marble...
When bangers were out of season we had to make do with weedkiller and sugar.
That reminds me - my some amazing chance, our home back door key was very similar to the main master key pattern at school. I took one of our copies, filed it down a bit further and ended up with a key that was more 'powerful' than most of the staff. Sure learned quite a bit about locks.
Moving an AC electromagnet slowly away from a TV will degauss it quite reasonably. Much easier than power cycling it - especially as some are designed not to degauss unless they've been off for a while.
I managed to prove to the others at school that my lung power was greater than mains gas pressure once. I suspect it's not as dangerous as purging requirements might suggest - I don't think a flame could get down a bunsen jet against the flow of gas.
BTW - to the balloonatics - methane is the main component of natural gas, molecular mass ~16. Air is a mix of nitrogen (~28) and oxygen (~32) so while a natural gas balloon won't fly as well as a mostly-hydrogen filled town gas one it should still work.
The Medway Handyman coughed up some electrons that declared:
Yes - red phosphorous is the striking element on the side of a box of matches. Swan Vesta "non safety" matches have the red phosphorous in the match head so they strike anywhere.
Clint Sharp coughed up some electrons that declared:
I knew a bloke who heard that ball bearing balls were "unbreakable". So he decided the best way of testing this was to stand one on a penny washer on a railway track rail next to a level crossing and hide.
Apparantly, there was an loud band then lots of descending volume bangs.
The ball bearing could be seen slightly protruding from the rail face - the washer was no where to be seen.
A few days later, he noticed that the ball had been ground flat with the rail by track workers.
I remember a science teacher agreeing to show us how to make that on the understanding that none was to leave the lab....
Anyway, some bstard pinched the 35mm film canister of it that I took out of the lab! I did however find said can abandoned later - containing only a tiny crumb left. I knocked that out onto the table tennis table a forgot about it until a few hours later I was in the same room when someone happened to wander past it and waft a bit of paper he was carrying over it. There was a bang and puff of purple smoke, and a rather surprised owner of a sheet of paper with a hole in it and a large purple stain ;-)
Ah, at my school they were too smart for that. They had a special 12VDC main in the science labs with special plugs and sockets. Needless to say, these were 'popped' on a daily basis.
When I were a lad we barely had electricity :)
When I was there (first year I think), someone in the higher years had bet
20 quid that he wouldn't swallow some Potassium Cyanide (yes, there really was that sort of stuff in the chem lab store room). Someone took the bet on. He swallowed it. He died. By the time I was doing 'interesting' chemistry there was nothing remotely dangerous left. Benzine? Oh no, cyclohexane ...
However, 20 molar acid was available for 6th form projects. Cutting a long story short, some twit spilled 20 molar nitric all over the bench, which started smoking. So he started wiping up the mess with the sleeve of his lab coat, which started smoking ... :)
Ah, the fun we had - Sodium in water (and the bowl exploded!), nylon filaments draped out of the chem lab window across the playing fields ...
Everything else was s**te of course. English? History? Nah thanks, I like breaking stuff :)
Sure he didn't make NI3 John, those being crystals - NCl3 is a liquid?
From the Wikipedia article:
"Nitrogen trichloride is a dangerous explosive, being sensitive to light, heat, and organic compounds. Pierre Louis Dulong first prepared it in 1812, and lost two fingers and an eye in two separate explosions. An explosion from NCl3 blinded Sir Humphry Davy temporarily, inducing him to hire Michael Faraday as a coworker. Belgian researchers reported a possible link between NCl3 and rising numbers of childhood asthma cases, in what they call the pool chlorine hypothesis, as an alternative to the hygiene hypothesis with a closer causal link."
We had to wait for a thunderstorm, then father would make all of us stand in a line between the roof and the TV in the living room, holding hands, except for brother Georgie, who would hold an umbrella as high as he could...
My school was so poor that we were told that *infinity* was some place in Guildford.
A few other 'schoolboy' horrors:
We (that is a bunch of Neds and I of around age 11) used to like invading the building site down the road. I once nearly got caught by the rozzers while tightrope walking across the rafters in a 3 storey building (no floors/ceilings in place). Falling would be certain death. The rozzers never caught me though :)
We (that is a bunch of Neds and I of around age 11) also used to light "camp fires" on building sites. We had (have!) a secret method of contructing the fire. Usually involved any old bottle of oil, some rags, some bricks, Swan Vesta's ...
Ah, Swan Vestas ... The deliquents delight! Can be 'struck' on anything. The head can also be wrapped in a bit of foil to make cheap bangers :) As for 'caps' ... The kiddy ones on a reel of paper or the bigboy ones in a magazine of red plastic. That really sorted the men from the boys.
Gosh. Other stuff. The nitro made by a friend. The near drowning with the home-made bridge ...
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.