Childhood DIY experiments

[Reentrant]

Cyanates are pretty harmless. We would often leave the Kipps Apparatus on at school thinking how funny the rotten eggs smell was. Only found out years later that hydrogen sulphide is nearly as toxic as hydrogen cyanide. We also used benzene to clean up glassware after organic chemistry, and handled mercury (literally) when making a barometer. It was handed out in open beakers.

I knocked myself out once with home-made chloroform (carbon tetrachloride solvent + bleach I think).

The best schoolboy explosive was nitrogen triiodide - easy to make, unbelievably sensitive and a nice purple cloud when it goes off.

[Jon Fairbairn]

We had an understanding chemistry teacher and an after school chemistry club, but I never did get to see NI?. We were promised it, but although on numerous occasions a wet filter paper of it we left to dry in a cupboard with the door ajar, it had always detonated when we came back to it. We eventually discovered that the cleaner had been getting increasingly annoyed at having the cupboard go bang when she closed the door.

We did make silver acetylide, though. That really does make a bang.

[Mr Benn]

I made my own firework that ended up burning half the skin off my hand. Not recommended!

[John Rumm]

Yup it was NI3 - I thought that is what we were talking about - did not see the ref to NCl3....

Iodine crystals soaked in a beaker of ammonia for a bit, and then dumped into a funnel with a filter paper to reclaim the ammonia.

[jgharston]

My Collins Gem says: e=B7lec=B7tro=B7cute (-lktr-kyt) tr.v. e=B7lec=B7tro=B7cut=B7ed, e=B7lec=B7tro=B7cut=B7ing, e=B7lec=B7tro=B7= cutes To kill with electricity

A person can't report their own electrocution in the past tense without a medium.

-- JGH

[Mr Benn]

Yes, that brings back the memories. I also made that. Great fun!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Or telling a lie.

[Pete Verdon]

Yep. I've had success with "Elfin Safety says you can't do that" jobsworths in the past by asking to see the risk assessment that says so.

(Yes, I know assessments don't always have to be written, but they didn't.)

Pete

[Pete Verdon]

We made hydrogen and chlorine by electrolysis of brine. I do remember people trying to gas the class nerd with the chlorine, although they didn't seem to have enough to do any serious harm.

In the same lab, I also remember getting in trouble, most unfairly I thought, for starting a small fire. It wasn't deliberate; some reprobate next to me on the bench made a small "camp fire" with some splints, and thinking I was doing the right thing I poured my beaker of soap solution onto it to put it out. The teacher hadn't told us that the soap solution was in ethanol, and quite flammable.

Pete

[Graham.]

As much as %insert_contemporary scientist's_name% hated Edison?

[PeterC]

With some one else playing an air guitar - actually, that's a better choice than an electric guitar in that situation.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "ARWadsworth" saying something like:

I blame Blue Peter. On telly I saw a recipe for home-made ginger beer and copied it down as fast as I could. Unfortunately I didn't quite catch the bit about releasing the pressure in the bottles.

Cue exploding screw-top bottles in the kitchen, as the first one to go set off the others in a chain reaction, and bits of glass embedded in the walls and cupboard doors. Thank f*ck nobody was in there at the time.

[nightjar]

I have several memories of fermenting products blowing up - mostly things made by my mother. The most spectacular was the marrow she wired shut to make marrow wine inside. Fortunately, they always seemed to go at night.

Colin Bignell

[damduck-egg]

That reminds me of my Mothers statement "I think there is something wrong with the Cat". Observing the animal through the window revealed that what was usually a clean white animal was a somewhat disheveled brown coloured beast frothing at the mouth. It made progress slowly down the yard back legs pushing while the front ones were just bent under the body while it slid on its chin. Showing the different ways in which Males and Females think Mother uttered concerns about Rabies while Father remembered he had last seen the cat near his bottles of homebrew . The Cat had jumped up knocking a bottle which set off the same scenario as mentioned above. Silly Bugger then lapped a good proportion up.

G.Harman

[The Medway Handyman]

During the fuel shortages of 2000 a woman was spotted trying to use a vac to suck petrol from a car tank. She was a teacher as well.

[Chris J Dixon]

During the petrol shortage in the early 70s, I ran a small motorcycle, and thought it was worth siphoning a little out of the tank to put on one side as a buffer stock.

Whilst I was in the garage doing this, with a manual siphon pump, the connecting door to the house slid open, as my (then) wife thrust the loudly whirring upright Hoover into the doorway.

My vociferous response was deemed to be "overreaction" :-(

Chris

[John Rumm]

That just brought to memory the occasion where the chap next to me lit a Bunsen burner only to have flames spew out over the whole desk (the gas was from propane tanks and hence heavy). He got much ribbing from the physics teacher for attempting to stub out the fire using the only thing that came to hand which was a king size box of matches! Someone did have the presence of mind to just turn the gas tap off in the end. It turned out that the hose had been sabotaged with multiple fine partial cuts through it with a scalpel.

[Tim S]

John Rumm coughed up some electrons that declared:

I've always wanted to do that - but AFAIK you need fairly strong ammonia which I don't have easy access to...

[Tim S]

Mr Benn coughed up some electrons that declared:

I used to take fireworks to bits and ignite small piles of powder.

Until I nearly took my eyebrows off!

[geoff]

In message , Tim S writes

I have some ammonia 880 in the loft ...

need you ask why I bought it ?