What has been your worst accident?

[Lil_Guppy]

We all have had an accident with various compounds/chemicals, be it a simple burn from a match, to being blinded by a homemade flashbang, to having large portions of ones body burned or removed. So what is your worst accident, and what kind of accident (aside from death) would it take for you to give up this interest?

My worst accident so far is when I was about 13 and my father showed me how to make BP. So here I was with around 150grams of really dodgy slow BP and a box of matches. I tipped some onto the ground and lit it, forgetting to remove my hand that was holding the container with the rest of the BP from the area. Of course a spark had to land in the container and ignite the remaining BP (around 100g). The burning BP melted the plastic container onto my hand. Quite painful if you ask me. Since then I learned to respect such things, from simple sparklers, to HE. As for the second question, I would probably think about giving it up if I really injured someone unintentionally.

[Trinitrotoluene]

Nothing too serious, about a little before a year ago I had nitrocellulose going off on me, as I had about 10 grams of puffy nitrocellulose cottonballs on the cement, they were all spread out, I was expecting to light one of them, and one of them burn, but all went off producing a fireball which scorched my arm, I was luckly it was something fast burning, I got away with minor burns, but still felt the pain.
Other small things that happand are when nitrating DNT into TNT, the DNT was tossed in quickly the nitrating acid splashed and some HNO3/H2SO4 landed on my hand.

[thrall]

When I was 14 years old I was making a miniature flame thrower using a metal(foil) casing of medicine eye tube (20ml) with a small nozzle shaped opening filled with gasoline using injection.
A little hole in the bottom and burnt it.It used to be be a nice show but once it droped from the tongs I was holding it with.and my left ear , left eye,and part of neck were "flamed" with burning gasoline.After that I didn't do "flame thrower" till now.But I regained my interest in explosives.
I think permanent maiming of mine will make me give up this habit.

[grandyOse]

When I was about 14 (in the days when iron men sailed wooden ships) I used to get "gopher bombs" from the local dept of agriculture guy. I'd just walk into his office and tell him gophers were eating up my potatoes and he would reach into his lower drawer and hand me a sack of them. They were about 2 inches in diameter and 3 inches long with a short visco fuse. They would burn real slow, producing lots of poisonous gas that was supposed to sink into the gopher runs and kill them. I think it was mostly potassium or sodium nitrate with some kind of solid fuel and something to make the poison. I ground this shit up and filled a CO2 cartridge and stuck in the visco. I expescted it to be a rocket engine. Well, it went out, so I hastily made a match head fuse, which also failed to ignite the engine. I eventually wound up lighting match heads right into the opening, when BAM! I couldn't hear anything for a few hours except a constant ringing. I wasn't cut by shrapnel, or burned. I never found the cartridge.

At my age, it wouldn't take much of an accident for me to pack it in.

We are talking about pyro, right? I mean, if the subject is open to ANY kind of crazy assed pranks and mistakes, well I could write a book.

friends don't let friends drive drunk when they are high on halucinogens, throwing fireworks out the window, have a loaded pistol in the glovebox and a naked girl in the backseat smoking reefer. I thought "Fear and Loathing..." was an instruction manual.

[A-BOMB]

Well if we are talking about nonpyro related a few years ago I was in the local machine shop to get a receiver drilled and taped well someone got a 3/8" drill stuck in a pipe and thought a good way to remove it was to hook if up to a blowgun and shoot it out into a can well he missed the can and put it about 2" into my leg. Then there was one time I was reloading some shells with my uncle and one of the .32acps that we were reloading went off putting a ball about a .5" into my arm.

[blindreeper]

My worst is probably when I wne t to hospital for Cl2 poisoning; mmm gotta love hospital oxygen...
Well there was that time where I lost my eyebrows, eyelashes and some of my hair because of a very short fused H2 balloon.
The thing that could have ended up the worst was that NC runaway I had a few months back...

Good times! They would have to lock me up to keep me away from this hobby!

[Cyclonite]

This isnt the worst but its kinda funny, the first spud gun I made..about 6 or 7 years ago, well it wouldnt fire once and I took off the back and sparked it....nothing. Then I looked in to see if it sparked at all. Well it did and ignited the starter fluid and bam....A nice flame came out and got my head pretty good. I was short eyebrows, lashes and some hair for awhile. Live and learn.

[xyz]

I have never had a serious accident with any pyro stuff (by serious, I mean requiring medical attention) but I have had countless small burns and singed hair. I have never had an accident involving a HE because I am always extremely careful around them.

[Skean Dhu]

when i was thirteen I saw a mole run into a hole in the wall of my garage, and I decided to burn the little bugger out, I took my dads propane torch and turned it on full blast and stuck it down the hole then waited a few seconds and then clicked an 'Aim n flame' lighter near the nozzle, I then saw a nice swirling fireball come out and engulf my hand. I had minor bunrs and some skin between the second and third knuckles on my index finger came off.


then sometime last year I was getting rid of an old batch of AP with a freind and I decided to show him the cool fireballs it made. the second pile was really huge, it was big enough to make the DDT, the ringing stayed for the better parts of 2 days. I was also struck in the forearm with a splinter from the work bench the pile was sitting on

ahhh, the memories and lapses in thought process.

[Hang-Man]

I'm in the same boat as XYZ, never done anything stupid with explosives. Worst chemistry experience would be when I lit a beaker full of acetone on fire inside, that’s what I get for not labeling things properly. Most painful would be when I was cleaning rust off a knife with HCL when I cut myself with the HCL soaked blade. Burned like hell for quite a while.

[Wozzles]

Hmm, i would have to say one of the worst accidents i had due to any type of explosives was ~1 gram or so of pressed AP going off in my hand on Saturday. We were having partial dets. for most of our charges, and the results would be a tiny bit of AP going off, having like half the AP just get blown out the casing (straw) and have the other half just be unaffected. After trying to detonate 10 grams or so underground, only about 1 or 2 grams went off. I took the straw out, and it had about 5 grams left after most the AP was scattered about. I was pouring most of it in a pile and my freind was just lighting it. I was going to pour out more, then my asshole freind light a match without knowing...the result was the AP going through DDT and exploding in my hand. Now, my ear just stopped ringing today, and I am thankfull that nothing worse than a throbbing finger came out of this. Now, I respect my explosives a whole lot more.

[0EZ0]

Same boat as some of the other guys. Thanks to many precautions and safety measures on the rare occasion that I am experimenting, I have never had anything more serious than singed hair or ringing ears. Even at those times they were at no point threatening my own or anybody else's safety in any severe way. Severe meaning any bodily harm more than a scratch, cut or small burn, chemical or otherwise.

I have always taken precautions so that in the event of an unlikely incident, any damage to nearby property is minimized or totally avoided in any such case.

I only hope it is the same for most of the other members.

[xyz]

Wozzles, was your AP wet or just REALLY impure? (or are you one of those kewls that make things up?)

It should normally only take 0.25g of detonating AP to blow your hand to shreds. It sounds like your AP was still wet from the description you gave of the partial detonations. Either that or it didn't manage to make the DDT.

[Flake2m]

Well I have lost my eyebrow and singed my hair a few times doing pyro stuff, or lighting a BBQ, though I simply managed to laugh about what happened because I would escape serious injury.
On non pyro related accidentd one quite memorable was I stacked it on my bike: I was going down this really steep hill, naturally I was trying to go as fast as possible so I managed to get to 40km/h (25miles/h) and was still accelerating when the unimaginable happened; I hit a wheelie bin by the side of the road. IT WHEELIE HURT :D , I wasn't injured too badly just grazed elbows and knees. What really broke the ice was when I called my Dad to tell him i'd be late home because I'd stacked it. The first thing he asked me was; Is the bike alright? :p .

[Tuatara]

Funny how so many of us are really careful with chemistry, then get badly mauled by ordinary stuff.

Apart from the exploding hydrogen filled water trap (fuck was that ever stupid) which only made my ears ring for 2 hours, I've wrapped dads car round a tree (16years ago), almost taken my finger nail off with a spade (aged about 6 ), had a pocket knife fold onto my finger trying to open can, been taken off my bike at speed by some fuckwit opening his car door, had numerous soldering iron burns (professional hazard:D ), had several bad electric shocks (another professional hazard) and tried to cut my finger off with a handsaw last month (pun not intended).

I'd only stop the pyro if I injured my someone in my family. I'd still go to shows though ...

[zeocrash]

hmm i havent had any accidents that require medical treatment, yet.
but among the more interesting of my accidents are the following.
spilling a cup full of burning enthanol all over myself (christ you should have seen me try to beat myself out)
Gassing myself with NO2 :(
Spilling pyrophoric H2SO4/Mn2O7 up my arm
almost getting my face burnt off when a beaker full of H2SO4/Mn2O7 decided to violently decompose and shower 98% H2SO4 and Mn2O7 everywhere.
apart from that i've had no really harmful accidents.

[Pyroboy]

Worst for me has been a good handful size of meal powder igniting right under my leg. It was between a piece of folded paper. I placed it under my leg while I was sitting on some steps so it wouldn't blow away in the wind. I was trying to test the burn rate of the meal and somehow a spark must have found it's way in. It was a stupid mistake and only happened because I got careless. I received 1st and 2nd degree burns and even a week later I could still see flesh. :( not cool and extremely painful.

[Flake2m]

It now seems we are trying to out do each other in bad accidents. Maybe we all have some form of jackass in us after all :rolleyes: .
Well just recently I was trying to make some sodium sulphide by reacting NaOH solution and S together in a small crucible. I seemed to be making some progress . So I added a small amount of HCl to the solution to find out if it'd evolve H2S gas however I made one really bad mistake - I forgot to let the mixture cool.
So I stupidly do this while the solution is boiling hot. The solution starts spitting and unreacted Sulphur is spewed out all over the place. Though I wasn't so stupid as to not wear safety glasses. I end up with sulphur all over my leavers jumper though the majority of the sulphur ended up of the walls, which I had to clean up.
Now my leavers jumper smells like a volcano and I am only just starting to get the smell out after about 5 washes. Well atleast I now have a jumper that has natural insect (and chick :( ) repellant.
Moral of the story; always let the solution cool first.

[Wozzles]

xyz, my AP was dry. I made it on a wednesday i think, filtered it last thursday, and i was using a little bit in my backyard on Halloween. Everything was working fine. The next day is when it went to shit. The AP was all dry when I was making my charges. I don't think it was contaminated at all, it was all white and just had the normal AP smell to it. I just still have no idea why I wasn;t getting full dets, and thankfully, when it was DDT'ing in my hand, i was going to drop it so it wasn't directly touching when it went off. But it was still close enough...

[mongo blongo]

A few years ago I almost got my ear drums perforated when a HE mortar shell got stuck in the tube and fell out to the side instead of being shot up high into the sky where it was supposed to detonate at a safe distance. It detonated about 15m from where my friend and myself were standing. I think it had a few g of RDX and PbN3 in it. I couldn't hear fuck all for a few hours.

I remember the night before that, we didn't have enough HE to fill up all the mortar shells I made before hand. Instead we wrote numerous insults onto the blank shells and distributed them via mortar into neighboring gardens for people to find.:D We found that highly amusing:D

[syndicate7]

well this didnt happen to me but a friend of mine, well we were making a potato cannon (stupid idea really) and we had it all put together then we sprayed the botton with deoderant, shoved the spud in and the stupid thing wouldnt light. my dickhead of a friend decided it would be agood idea to try lighting it with a match:rolleyes: . he then found the thing wouldnt light just by throwing a match down the end so, as i retreated to a safe distance, he proceede to light the match then stick his arm down the tube in an effort to light it. he lit the deoderant alright, the spud didnt move (luckily) and , ashe had his head over the mouth of the cannon, a flame shot out and burned his eyebrows righ off his face. we have decided to postpone any more spud cannons untill further notice.

[xyz]

I know it's a bit OT...

Flake2m, What ratios did you use for that Na2S Synth? What temperature did you have to heat it to?

I have been trying to find a synth for a metal sulfide (a synth that doesn't involve metal powders) for ages.

[pdb]

I have to say that I had a severe accident, years ago, at the age of 15, while making 8ml (i.e. 12gr) of NG. Difficult to know what happened exactly; most likely, there has been a kind of "hot spot" developping somewhere in the solution, after most of NG had formed, and it just exploded between my hands.

I lost one hand and one eye, and had my leg opened on 30cm. I stayed three months at the hospital, and then resumed my works...

Since then, I have made NG by preparing first two acidic solutions (H2SO4+glycerin and H2SO4+HNO3) that I cool, and then mix together. This way, most of the heat is generated and evacuated before HNO3 and glycerin enter into contact. The only drawback of this method is that NG stays longer in contact with the acids, which is said in the literature to statiscally raise the risk... In fact, most of NG appears in one hour, which does not make such a difference with the traditionnal glycerin-dropping method.

However, I haven't made NG for years now, and do not intend to make some soon.

I had a very rich life so far in terms of pyro & HE stories, quite enough to write a little book ! My accident is the only dull story, all the other ones would be actually quite funny !!

[blindreeper]

xyz, I have done the Na2S synthesis using 5g NaOH, 5g S and 1ml of distilled water. Heat this in a beaker and it will turn red. There is your sulfide

[knowledgehungry]

I've been lucky, never had any blood drawn, eyes burned or anysuch nonsense. I don't understand how people manage to hurt themselves, my guess is Kewl mentality. I have also never broken a bone in my body. I believe someone broke my nose but im not 100% sure. I got my fingers bruised when i lit about .25 g of AP with a match, expected deflagralation not detonation.

[Cricket]

When I first got to making AP, I had no fuse. So I would sprinkle a bit over the stove and watch it pop and crackle. Or I had a steel pipe about 3/8" ID that I would scoop up a small bit with and light with my lighter and it would explode without any shrapnel. I did this a couple hours a day when I was bored. One day I lost my pipe in the couch. So I got a straw and decided it would work at least one time. I was taking a crap and lighting AP in a straw and then I put just a hair too much and it shreaded the end of the straw into small long pieces. Unfortunatly one of these pieces folded in half and went into my finger. More unfortunatly, one hit me in the nuts. It didn't bleed or nothin, just some stinging. It was funny. That, aside from some Chlorine gas, is my worst accident I think. I concider myself lucky. Lesson learned, don't shit and play with HE's.

[THErAPIST]

Lets see here... Ive had extremely hot HCL/ acetone/ peroxide in my eyes before because of a run away when synthesising AP. addH2O2 too fast and fumes and the like started shooting out of the bottle so i went to run outside. the wind was blowing towards the door when I opened it and got a face full of vapor. I couldnt see for about 2 hours... I washed my eyes with water about every 2 minutes for an hour.

I've always gotten a cick out of lighting VERY small piles (.10g) of AP in my hand to confuse people (where the hell did that fireball come from?!). I put a little much in my hand before (about .40g) and got my arm hair singed off

small burns here and there... 10g pile of unconfined flash blinding me because a spark jumped from the end of the fuse to about the middle and got the pile much faster than i was expecting...

That's about it. I Try to stay pretty safe now a day... Hell I havent made anything at all in the last 3 months or so... besides one to-scale ashcan which I made because my friend begged me to make one

[Flake2m]

@xyz
I tried several methods to make metal sulphides.The first one was that I just added a few spoonfuls of sulphur and some metal filings together and then heated them up in a crucible. This worked - sorta
The other method which I had tried during the stuff up was by reacting NaOH and sulphur to get Na2S and water. I never found out if that worked though because the solution ended up everywhere.

Oh and never use sparklers as fuse to ignite exposed AP, the delay will be about 2sec because the sparks will ignite the AP and if your lucky you'll walk away with deaf ears.

[Unknown]

This one is pretty funny, after the fact, and happened about 8 months ago. I was making these "poppers" in my dad's living room on a low table in front of the couch. The poppers are similar to torpedoes, except I use HMTD instead of armstrong's mix. I take some tissue paper and form a cup with my index finger to put the HMTD into. I then put some small aquarium gravel on top of the HMTD. The final step is folding the tissue around the powder/gravel mix to form a tear drop shape, twisting the "tail", and smearing some elmers (craft) glue around the outside to hold it together.
Well, this is where it should have ended. Sitting on both sides of me was my dad and my nephew, each about 2 meters away. I got this great idea to trim some of the tail off the "popper" because it might not detonate if it landed on the tail. When I cut the tail there was this huge explosion and flash (I forgot to mention that I added some flash powder to this one around the outside with another wrapping of tissue paper). If you guys havn't made these things before, let me tell you, they are as loud as a 12 gauge shotgun and this was inside the house. My dad and nephew lept dove for cover, and the dog left the damn state! Luckily, the only thing that happened to me was that one of the pieces of gravel nicked my finger and caused it to bleed a little. Needles to say, I now leave the damn tails on those little bastards!

[0EZ0]

xyz, I assume you are after the polysulfides of Na and K. Much discussion has been had on the topic of polysulfides and their subsequent use in yellow and fulminating powder.

Na2CO3 and K2CO3 can both be heated with sulfur to produce polysulfides. Water tends to decompose polysulfides, so reactions of sulfur and metal hydroxides are less favoured.

http://www.roguesci.org/archive/200_6-27.html

(Edit: Sorry xyz, my bad. Theoretically by changing the reactant ratios used in polysulfide production, you can end up with just metal sulfides. During the bonding of the sulfur with the metal derivative (a carbonate or hydroxide in this case) and the subsequent release of CO2 or H2O you can see that as more sulfur ions attatch to the metal, the colour changes. Without the excess of sulfur, it is possible to halt the reaction just at the sulfide.

Another route to sulfides is passing H2S over the metal(powder would be better for surface area, but coarser particles should still work). It is also possible to make magnesium sulfide by passing SO2 over the metal to obtain it along with MgO. You could even try a single replacement reaction with a sulfide and a more reactive metal.

Do you have absolutely no access to metal powders?

/Edit)

Back on topic.

It really does not surprise me that so many people have had accidents that have in some way been harmful to their body. Most could easily have been avoided with a little common sense (ironically not all that common:D) and a little more knowledge on the materials that they were playing with. But there are always those accidents that are very hard to avoid and those are the ones you have to keep a constant eye out for.

Safety is one of those topics that someone can preach to you all day about. But it really does come down to your own mentality and awareness of the real risks. Unfortunately the only way most people learn is through first hand experience. Be prepared as you can for the dangers so that in the event of something nasty happening, the worst can be avoided.

[xyz]

0EZ0, No, I am after sulfides, not polysulfides.

[nitric63]

Never had any accidents that resulted in injury. I have however once spilled burning alcohol
all over the desk in my room once. Also had a PGDN runaway that ignited with a 2ft high
jet of fire that lasted for about a second come out of the beaker as it ran away.

[Bert]

Back when I was much younger-

Had a small (less than 1/4 g.) ammount of red explosive go off while carrying it. Broke a bone in my index finger and needed 6 stitches. Half a gram and I'd have been short a finger.

Had a 13 gallon garbage bag of acetylene/O2 go off about 4' away, broke both eardrums and had a lot of bruising, first degree burns on exposed skin and bleeding from the sinuses.

Both times I'd had a drink or two and decided to play with explosives. Don't.

"It is essential that persons having explosive substances under their
charge should never lose sight of the conviction that, from the facts and
general truths which have just been stated, preventive measures should
always be prescribed on the hypothesis of an explosion."

[Jacks Complete]

I was demoing an actylene bottle bomb to my cousins. I had done lots of plastic bottles, which burn like a big flare when the top melts enough to let the pressure out, but I decided to try to make it go bang!

Alas, glass bottles don't take pressure so well as plastic ones, and the caps fail. In my case, with an upside-down Lucosade bottle, it projected the bottle past my face at very high speed, soaking me with reactant. I was leaning over it, trying to light the damned matches at the time.

I stood up, white from the Calcium whatever-it-was, walked back to my cousins, who were about twenty feet away, and said, "Whoops! guess that's that, then." They asked what happened, and then, about twenty yards behind them, the bottle, presumably still intact, crashed down through a tree! It was at this point that I realised I had nearly lost my head to a glass bottle! It was, in retrospect, a damned fool thing to do, and I was also lucky that the match didn't light! Haven't done one since, and the tin of Calcium Carbide is still in the chemicals box, some ten years later!

Another time, with some Sodium metal bought from a chemical supply house (on a fake letter head) a friend of mine got a neat little chemical burn on his neck after he decided to spit on the metal AFTER it had been "sensitised" by me. It exploded, hitting me with little tiny bits of burning soduim metal, and a big chunk hit him. I guess it was still burning, cos he screamed a lot. He must have, as I was already 50 yards away, heading for the hosepipe. Yes, don't add water to sodium metal, but the reaction product of neat NaOH would burn you just as badly, so I was gone! By the time he got to the hose, it had burned a 1cm pockmark into his neck! He took my warnings a little more seriously after that!

And, last night, at the Bonfire party at my parent's and their neighbours house, we set off a load of fireworks (but they were really crap! Cheap store-bought stuff mostly...) and one of them, a multi-shot cake, flipped over and shot itself all over ther area my dad and I were lighting the stuff in. Could have been nasty, but it was cool. It was only the third firework, too! The second one like that, much later, fired most of them, then flipped over, fired one almost straight at my mom, stood back up, and fired the last two upwards again! Absolutely incredible! Went about ten feet past her and the truck where we had been keeping the fireworks covered, and exploded in the field! I haven't ever seen anything that weird in a while...

[spydamonkee]

Originally posted by Cyclonite
This isnt the worst but its kinda funny, the first spud gun I made..about 6 or 7 years ago, well it wouldnt fire once and I took off the back and sparked it....nothing. Then I looked in to see if it sparked at all. Well it did and ignited the starter fluid and bam....A nice flame came out and got my head pretty good. I was short eyebrows, lashes and some hair for awhile. Live and learn.

hehehe the same thing happened to me many years ago, we also used starter fluid as our propellant.

The only other pyro related injury I've had is a slice to the finger trying to snap some steel wool with bare hands :-( with everything else im pretty bloody carefull

[Mick]

worst accident would be 200g of AP going off on my workbench. the really really bad "OMFG!" part about it was not the 200g of AP, but the 3kg's of APAN right next to it that didn't go off(how in fuck i will never know)
got pretty chewed up from that....bits of plastic tuppaware container stuck in me everywhere, still got a small piece stuck in my face, at the side of my eye.

my second worst accident was a spud gun that jammed, and blew up, cutting my thumb off. (got it rejoined..yay!)


downside is, i am as deaf as a doorpost now...

[Bert]

Sweet Jesus. What does anyone outside of Palestine need 200g of AP for?

Feel for the hearing damage, my eardrums took several months to re-close and I have some permanent loss.

[blindreeper]

Bert how many palestine's do you know? That was pretty un-nesseccary raceist remark. Like people say muslims are evil and all but how many do you know? I have found they are very nice people personally :)

[Tuatara]

I wouldn't consider it a racist remark. Looks more like a political commentary on the number of suicide bombings in the area.

[Chade]

I've never had a serious accident, but countless near misses. I've had the workbench in front of me burst into flames many times. The most recent (and one of the stupidest) was condensing iodine. I was boiling iodine tincture under a small dish full of ice, and I thought it's be a good idea to take some butane gas from a lighter refill, pour it into the dish instead, and let it sit there boiling at just under 0 degrees C. Obviously the boiling butane vapours poured over the side, into the path of the flame, and whoomph! One table flambe. Just what I deserve for leaving butane anywhere near a naked flame.

Oh, and I prety much agree that Bert was talking about Palestine being a veritable war zone. If I was there, palestinian or not, I'd want all the ordnance I could get.

[Bert]

blindreeper-

I know several palestinians. Like people everywhere, they come good, bad and indifferent. I don't have any issues with them, or with muslims in general. As far as I know, they're not a "race", BTW. But the politics in the middle east HAVE left them with a well documented history of using substantial quantities of AP. If you wish to discuss this further, let's take it to e-mail as it has little to do with this thread.

[tingtao]

Wow, what a nice thread.
Very interesting reading everyone's differing experiences.

Mine is not that severe.
When I was a naive youngster around 14, there was the infamous Christmas tree light bulb detonator. Two bare wires got knocked together and the damn thing went off.
I was in a small room in the basement and my ears rang for at least an hour after. I managed to get small pieces of glass lodged in my face and hands, they were bleeding obviously. Gratefully small enough incisions to be able to stop the bleeding myself. Didn't want anyone to know.
I suppose it had its blessings because from then on, my respect for weapons and explosives has been built extremely high.
Thankfully it was only a whipping!
Let these testimonies be a lesson for any youngsters out there happen to be reading, to wait till they'rer older! This field is extremely dangerous as we all know and is only for educated, mature adults!

[xyz]

@tingtao, there are plenty of forum member who are not "adults" yet. I am only 15 myself but have always been very careful around explosives and have not had any serious injuries despite the fact that I have been very involved in E&W.

There are also plenty of other forum members under 18 that make valuable contributions to this forum and can handle E&W safely.

[tingtao]

xyz,
Sorry. You're right.
I failed to acknowledge the matured, educated, responsible youths.
Didn't mean to offend. Was just trying to caution the other groups of youths.
Please accept my apologies.

[Mick]

Originally posted by Bert
Sweet Jesus. What does anyone outside of Palestine need 200g of AP for?

Feel for the hearing damage, my eardrums took several months to re-close and I have some permanent loss.

i forget why i had that much AP....not surprising really, considering it blew me across the room.
i think i was going to make 3kg APAN with a 100g AP det and 3kg of ANFO with a 500g APAN det.

i remember everything about that moment, the moments leading up to it, and after it - except why i had made such a large amount.

[PyroNitrate]

I was 14 years old experimenting with various flash powders.. me and my friend had an idea to make a HUGE explosion by placeing a boulder ontop of almost 400 grams of flash powder. We had everything setup and i had 2 aligator clips i went to connect them onto a whire.. what i wasent aware of was that my friend had already plugged it in When i connected the aligator clips BOOM.. It destroyed the boulder sending fragmenting large chunks of rocks into my face arms and litterly every part of my body.. From this day i have respected my explosives with great care.
I lost one of my hands during this and vision out of my left eye and ear.

[Bert]

No one would invent an accident that they didn't have, would they?
Just wondering...

[blindreeper]

Exactly my thinking Bert.
PyroNitrate; you type suprisingly accurate for a one armed man!

[ALENGOSVIG1]

I lost one of my hands during this and vision out of my left eye and ear.

You lost vision out of your left ear? Sorry, just couldnt resist. :D

[Blackhawk]

"I lost one of my hands during this and vision out of my left eye and ear."
Wow you could see out your left ear! :O can you still see out your right or did the explosion damage that as well :P

Wow we said the same thing at the same time ! You beat me though...

[Bert]

Yeah, the "ear vision" thing got me going too- But the thing that made me somewhat doubtful is the claim that a flash charge placed under a rock SHATTERED the rock. Lifted, yes... But unless he drilled the rock for the charge, that's all flash would likely do. On the other hand, the "connected the firing system to the device not knowing my buddy had allready hooked up the power" is a classic accident scenario that's killed PLENTY of blasters who didn't bother to use a system requiring two positive steps to fire.

[pdb]

If PyroNitrate says the truth, he would strangely ressemble me: same hand, same eye. I became naturally deaf for a few days, but I did recover 90% of my hearing capabilities since.

[Anthony]

Originally posted by blindreeper
PyroNitrate; you type suprisingly accurate for a one armed man!

I have typed with one hand on a few occasions, as I'm sure most internet users have *cough PORN!*

[Jacks Complete]

Anthony,

Cough porn?

Is this another of these sick things that turns up in my email, or is it your private fetish?

:p

[PyroNitrate]

Its nothing to joke about.. so please dont.

The reason i have lost sight in that side of my face because it was half turned away from the blast. No more wise cracks please.. this was asked for everyone to share there accidents. And you don't see me ridiculing yours.

[xyz]

Get used to Anthony because you can't do anything about him.
He was actually sticking up for you in a humourous way and wasn't trying to make fun of you.

[John Ashcroft]

400g of flash under a boulder: just think about it. Of course it's going to shatter!

[Bert]

400g of flash under a boulder: just think about it. Of course it's going to shatter!

"Flash" and "boulder" both cover a large range of possible make ups and physical properties. There's no "of course" here.

Chlorate/Sulfur/Mg under a sandstone or shale boulder = shatter (maybe!).

Perchlorate/paint grade bright aluminum under a nice solid piece of granite = lifted boulder in one piece (probably!).

The average kewl is making 70:30 perchlorate/Aluminum flash, maybe with some Sulfur. Not especialy high speed, 400g under an average rock is going to just lift any but the softest rocks. If you want to debate, go try it out, then report your parameters and your results...

Flash is more destructive and lower critical weight than BP. But it isn't HE, or magic or anything-

[knowledgehungry]

Actually what would most likely make the rock shatter is water absorbed inside the rock being rapidly heated. Throw a rock from a river in a camp fire and you've got shattered rock flying at you.

[Anthony]

Considering the very short dwell time and the high thermal mass of a large rock, I don't think thge boulder would be significantly heated. IMO.

It's true, I was defending him, by pointing out that a person with one hand could type adequately, even without any practice.

[PyroNitrate]

Anthony there should have been no reason to have to defend me. But my thanks.
And for the sake of the moment i did find your comment pretty halarious.

[xyz]

Please don't start the whole "Does flash detonate or not?" argument again...

[snooib]

Back in the day starting out pyro compositions mainly for rockets, i'd been melting small amounts of potassium nitrate\Sugar (in a can above a small Burner) making small rocket motors.
a group of mates came around and thought. shit how about making about 2 kgs of the stuff and lighting it in the backyard so i decided why not it should be fun.

well i found a a large bulk jam tin mixed the stuff in and put it over the flame
now im stirring the stuff, no protection, when there is this fiZZZ i look in to see whats happening and whooooosh, no face, no hair, burnt stirring arm. the lucky thing is i wear glasses or i guess would have been no eyes.
throughthe years i learnt respect for chemistry and practise as safe as i can handeling
can say after about 4 months fully healed with no scars.

Ill be doing this stuff till i Die

[steyr]

i never had any big accident using he or fireworks. there was little accident when i was making smoke powder. when it was burning, it blew up and part of burning powder (when it was burning, it was hardening and molting) fell at my hand. the red dot from it last about half year.
some of my own fireworks blew up in my hand making me stunned and blind for a moment. i think that's all

[Sparky]

OK, here are some accidents. They're not as spectacular as some of the others here:

I twice had small magesium fires in my workshop when I was grinding up a firestarter magnesium block. Both times didn't remove the flint from the bottom of the firestarter, rather I just tried to avoid hitting it with my hacksaw. I don't use this source of magnesium any more but after this I found it is really easy to pop off the flint from the back of the firestarter. No damage was done but it sure was a strange experience. Instead of burning with a normal white light the magnesium kind of smouldered. It was sitting on a piece of wood which really carbonized but didn't burn because the magnesium was stealing all the oxygen. Instead small black pieces of carbon spread up then around my workshop. There was nothing to be done except move it outside and wait for it to burn out. I think even spraying it with the powder fire extinguisher on hand would have just spread the magnesium particles and make them burn much faster.

One time one of my friends came over and we were sitting around outside when he decided to light the corner of this big cardboard box on fire, then blow it out. I told him to make sure it was out but he said it was fine :rolleyes:. We left to go do something and came back about 10 minutes later and the box was burning quite well. The box was next to the dry woodpile which was leaning against my house :eek: . It was way too big to stomp out so we scrambled and put it out with the garden hose.

Not really an accident but still a mishap is when one time my friend made some det caps out of HMTD and didn't have any sand to transport them in, so he filled a steel pot with dirt and put them in there and fitted on the lid loosely. What he didn't think of is that the dirt was damp. The fuses all got damaged because of the humidity. The looked "mottled" which he found to be strange but hoped they would work anyways. After trying one it was found that they would burn, then hang for a long time then burn a bit more...

The same friend had a mishap the first time he made HMTD. After making it he didn't really have anything to do with it so he decided to just burn it off (it was only a few grams). He poured it out on a piece of paper and put in a piece of touch paper. He was foolishly using a cigarette lighter to light the touch paper and a spark from the lighter hit the HMTD. What's more is that he was pretty much leaning over the HMTD while lighting it. In an instant all he saw was orange. After realizing what had happened he checked all his fingers and found that no damage was done. He was surprised at how little the HMTD even warmed his hand.

Again the same guy (ya, he's a moron sometimes ;)) hand an accident which is rather common. He was making fulminating powder and decided to melt about 1/8th of a teaspoon and let it explode (in a spoon) while melted. Suffice to say his hearing was rather screwed up for the rest of the day and into the next.

[McGyver]

Well lets just say that if you overload your potato gun with hair spray and fire the potato, dont assume that all of the vapor has burned. I set the gun upright once i fired it and as my friends were talking pressed the button to make that click,(i use a taser for the gun) nothing seroius but some of the hair on my head burned.

[Stormhelm]

My accidents are more linked to my adventures in chemistry, since I'm VERY careful around explosives.

I remember the first time I made Cl2, by mixing bleach and ammonia. I remember I got disappointed, because of the modest amount of gas evolving, so I poured the crap into the bathtub. Suddenly, a wave of chlorine hit me, sending me running for air. Prolly was around 12 years old at the time. Fondly remember the first time i prepared NO2. That time I got VERY surprised of the amount of gas evolved. Large volumes of the vile, brown stuff, floating towards my neighbours houses. Inhaled quite a bit, and was scared shitless of pulmonary edema. Still here though :)

Managed to spray HCl over my entire backyard once. Was preparing H2, and the reaction got a bit outta hand...

[TheExecutioner]

Stormhelm:: i know exactly how you felt buddy, in science Labs i always used to go a bit further than what the teachers used to tell me to do me being the class comic and all, thought it would be a good idea to Add Lots of Sodium Chloride to the Electrolysis Experiment and rack up the voltage on the Power pack, not only doing this but i was very curious as to see what that gas smelt like building up inside that vile........!!
Damn the smell is undescribable and i was just smacked off my senses not to mention that Nasty headache! Never sniff that stuff!

[Jacks Complete]

I just remembered a really dumb one.

I was making Red & White (?) propellant, in the kitchen. I couldn't get it to dry, even after a week, so mom was telling me to get rid of it, etc. So I turned the electric griddle thing on, and it started to dry quite nicely.

Suddenly, a whoosh sound, and the damned stuff starts burning, from one corner, all the way across. Not too much flame, but the smoke! By the time I got the two yards to it, it had really got going. Eventually it reached a wet bit, and went out, but I lost most of it. There was just a little left, marking out the dampest bits. I just binned the rest in disgust, as if that was how it burned, it wasn't worth it! So much smoke...

[Bert]

I was making Red & White (?) propellant, in the kitchen.
Never heard of that name- What's in it???

[telecard]

My worst accident was about a tenth of a gram ot ap going off between my fingers (right index and thumb) Lost about a centimeter from each.it got caught between my fingers and i guess friction or something set it off. Sat in hospital for a week after with ringing ears(DUmB F**K am I).

Besides acid burns that left rather large scars (about 5cm long) nothing much else has realy happened, helps you appreciate the power of explosives though.

[Anthony]

AFAIK:

White Propellant: Potassium nitrate + sugar

Red Propellant: Potassium nitrate + sugar + iron oxide

[T_Pyro]

Kinda OT, but...
What is the purpose of adding the iron oxide to the "red propellant"?

[arm]

Its the iron oxide that makes it red (if its red iron oxide that you're using). The iron oxide acts as a burn rate catalyst and increases the thrust of your rocket.

[Ammonal]

I just found this thread and after reading it I thought I might add an experience from two days ago. I packed a .308 Norma Magnum shell with AP, inserted a homemade blackpowder/masking tape fuse and then placed the thing into a hole in the ground. I use a little butane blowtorch thing for lighting fuses and the like, unfortunately the flame hit the AP before the fuse and well you know BANG.
I guess my head was about a half meter from the shell when it went off and next thing I have a sored forehead above my left eye and a really sore and numb right hand. I looked at my hand and it had all these spots of blood coming from various holes and then I touched my forehead and found a sharp bit of brass embedded into the flesh. I think I lost a lot of hearing in that incident, but that was my first big thing with AP so now I make HMTD ;)
All in all I removed 7 pieces of brass from my right hand (one was touching the bone and nearly sent me through the ceiling when I touched it with tweesers) and one piece from above my eye, that and all the embedded bits of dirt that is stuck in the skin of my right hand that are just too small to cut my hand up to remove each little speck.

That was the last time I used a empty cartridge for a det or anything to do with emplosives, which looking back was really stupid- but it did make a crater the size of a large coffee mug :D

[Mike76251]

Here's a strange one,
Shot a piece of steel laying 100 meters away (at a 45 degree angle) with a 7.62 NATO round and the bullet came straight back and hit my arm just below my watch.
No real damage except a little hole but it does prove that bullets can do some strange things.

On a lighter note,
That same day I shot a large phone book with a little 9mm round and blew out 4/5ths of it.
That little round MIGHT have had the hollow point enlarged and a little black powder inserted in the hole and a small pistol primer inserted in the nose. One might crimp the copper nose over the primer to hold it in.

[tom haggen]

I to have had countless minor accidents. Never any requiring medical attention. To name one; I let off the loudest dry ice 2 liter bomb I have ever made in this guys bathroom. It was taking for ever to go off so I went in to check on it. when I went back into the bathroom it exploded. causing minor hearing damage. but my ears still work. I've had a few accidents where the fuse went out half way down. so I had to go re-light a very small fuse. I would quit if I ever lost any fingers, or my sight. or anything worse than that.

[SafetyLast]

I havent posted here in quite a while, but I still read a lot and lurk at this forum.
Here's my story (don't read if you're eating)

Like a few other people here, I have had an accident with AP.
I had a pretty bad accident last Sunday night when I was making a 1/2 gram AP cracker from a
wide McDonalds straw. I was lightly packing them with a dowel rod (yes, stupid I know) I should have made some sort of remote loading press instead of just pushing a dowel rod into the thing.
I have been working with AP for about 4 years and I have been very careful with it and I usually never packed it, just lightly tapped it into the container.

Im not sure exactly what caused the detonation, it was probably static or a large crystal, as I wasn't putting that much force into it.
When it went off I was holding it between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. At first I didn't know what had happened, then I looked at my hand.
The bones were visible and the flesh on the tips of my fingers was hanging off. I screamed a couple times and stared in utter disbelief at the mangled digits.
The pain was actually less than you would think, I believe I was in a little bit of shock.

The worst part was actually the blood and tiny bits of skin that covered the walls of my room and the front of my body from head to toe. Little droplets of blood that ruined a lot of my notebooks.
My parents cleaned up the room the next day and said they found a couple big pieces of skin and bone as well as both of my fingernails.

I was pretty coherent and got a towel to wrap around my hand and woke my dad up so he could drive me to the hospital. (the guy was 30 feet away and suprisingly didnt hear the loud bang, deep sleeper huh?) When we got to the hospital I told the lady at the front desk that I was cutting open a 12 gauge shell when it exploded, they bought it.

The doctor amputated a small bit of the bone and stitched the fingers back together. I lost up to the middle knuckle on both fingers. The middle finger sustained minimal injury. I spent 18 hours in the hospital and the whole week after that in a drug induced stupor from Percocet. My ears rang for 4 hours after the accident and I think my glasses saved my vision. (my face was covered with small cuts)

PDB, PyroNitrate, and Mick, your accidents seem fairly serious, I'm suprised you continue this hobby.
I think that I will either take a break for a couple years or just give up the Pyro/HE thing altogether. seeing that much of your own blood sprayed around your room does things to you,
makes you worry that if you keep it up, the next accident will be a lot worse.

I must go to bed now, I have a physical therapy session tomorrow. I'll try to get a picture of my stubs if anyone wants to see them.

[xyz]

OK, I am DEFINITELY making a remote pressing device now. I would be glad that it was your left hand and not your right (assuming you are right handed).

It is very unfortunate, but shit happens and it can happen to anyone :( .


I will also add a little "sort of accident" that I had. I made a small BP cannon (yes, I have several of these) out of some 10mm copper gas pipe. It was electrically ignited and about 30cm long and due to the weakness of the pipe, I did not make it for the purpose of firing projectiles.

Anyway, I put in a teaspoon of my crappy sugar propellant (65/35 KNO3/Icing Sugar with the KNO3 having been put through a coffee grinder) and set the cannon up on some bricks just outside the garage. When I pressed the button I expected a small bang and the cannon to slide backwards 30cm or so. Instead, there was an extremely loud bang and the cannon flew backwards about 6 metres. My ears were ringing for about 15 minutes and there were lots of dogs barking.

[Chade]

A spectacularly stupid manouvre performed by me recently. Whilst not paying attention, and sat at my desk, I went to pick up my glass of coke, but (and I am amazing even myself with my stupidity here) I absent mindedly picked up and drank from the container next to it.

What was in it? Freshly made AP dissolved in acetone.
I keep some activated charcoal around as an all-purpose antidote, so I took that, to be on the safe side. I haven't suffered any after effects, miraculously, but still.
You may commence ridiculing now.

[daysleeper]

Mine has nothing to do with chemicals but is still relavent I guess. Once I was taking a project out for testing, it was a m11 9mm close bolt comversion to full I had designed. Well the safety I was using was in a box of parts, and the safety I put back in the unit had been altered for a previous project,anyhow on my way outside, I placed the safety on, and pointed the unit at the floor and squeezed the trigger to insure it worked, well it did not, and I got 5 bullett holes in my kitchen for that stupid mistake, from the floor to the ceiling and even one out my window and through my cabinets, scared the shit out of me and my poor dogs. It was a hard lessoned learned for sure.

[Jome skanish]

I used to make crappy Zn+S "flash" by mixing home made Zn-shavings with sulfur. The mix burned slowly, more slow than BP (burning for like 4 secs), but it gave a bright light pretty white cloud and I thought that was it. I used to put a pile on a small 2*2cm pile of paper, and light it by match.
One day I ordered 2,5-micron zinc powder from a online webshop. I mixed my Zn+S flash using this zinc, poured a pile of ~10-15g on a 6*6cm square of paper, and lit the paper by match. Of some reason I didn't expect this mixture to burn faster than my home-made BP made from simply mixing the ingredients, measured by volume. This showed to be a grave misjudgement. The paper rolled itself up and turned black, but the Zn+S didn't burn. I lit another match, but before I could re-lit the paper the Zn+S flashed up, removed my eyebrowes and much of my hair, and burned my hands. Guess I was lucky I didn't loose my eyes or suffer permanent burns =)

[senjoronie]

I've only had one accident, and although it wasn't bad, it startled me a bit. I was distilling dichloromethane from paint remover. The remover is 91% DCM, but contains a thickener (similar to petroleum jelly) that allows it to stick to vertical surfaces. The distillation is carried out in several stages, the first of which removes the thickener, which tends to "cake" on the bottom of the flask as the DCM distills off. Well, as it does so, it traps pockets of gaseous DCM which become heated well beyond the usual boiling point, and therefore, pressurized. Eventually these pockets burst, usually causing nothing worse than some bumping and splashing. A Vigreux column keeps it from splashing over the top of the still head. Onto the accident... I guess that one time I had an unusually large gas pocket form under the caked thickener. Out of nowhere I heard a loud *POP*, and saw the thermometer adapter fly out of the still head despite being keck-clamped in. Amazingly, both adapter and thermometer survived after falling to the concrete floor and bouncing around a bit. It made a mess, got DCM and gunk all over the floor, splattered it on the ceiling too. It happened in the basement, so not a big deal, and it was easy to clean up. I had done this distillation lots of times without incident but now I pay a lot more attention to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

[Boomer]

SafetyLast, reading about that ½ gram AP going off in the straw from pressing makes me shudder. I have a press now with a 4-foot handle, but my first 2 ½ - gram AP caps were done in your way. Must have been lucky then…

My accident came later, and was not caused by AP’s sensitivity, neither did it happen during manufacture of HEs , or during assembly of caps or main charges. It was an east Europe cracker, one of those you rub on a matchbox. I used the west Europe type for 25 years as time delays, they burn exactly 7 seconds (ALWAYS!!!), and are not affected by wind like visco (lighting it in your jacket so the lighter is not blown out …).
This one looked the same, but burnt only ¼ second – i.e. it went off during the rubbing movement when my hand was just inches from the matchbox. Approx. 0.5g MHN took thumb, index finger and middle finger from my right hand. Hospital staff could partly restore the middle finger, but the bones and sinews of the upper 2 joints are gone.

MORAL: Never rely on factory made fireworks! I found a dud and took it apart later. The delay element in the tip had cracks, making the flame shoot directly into the powder. And those bastards used chlorate, sulphur and RED P instead of BP in those crackers (I analysed it)!

I think I will not stop completely, but my fingers tremble when I touch AP containers or HMTD caps for disposal now. I will probably concentrate on things without primaries and fuses, things like EBW caps containing only insensitive secondaries, where I sit at the other end of a long wire.

TO ALL: We are telling each other story after story, but hardly do we discuss the reason WHY THEY OCCURRED. Please let us learn from each other’s mistakes!
pdb: I made NG many times, like other members here, and in much bigger batches. A runaway starts with the batch heating up, then brown clouds evolve, and then flames + explosion. How could it detonate without warning?
Unknown: These poppers can go off during the tail-twisting, I saw it happen. They take no fingers, but probably fingernails and skin, and a gravel can hit your eye.
Bert: I assume the red explosive was Armstrong’s ? No soft wrapping ? Or self-lighting from acid traces?…
Mick: Why did the 200g AP go off in the first place?

[Bert]

Boomer-
Sorry to hear about your accident. The lesson I take from it is that igniting any charge's delay element with it in your hand is never to be done- We're not needing hand thrown grenades, eh? I've used plenty of those german match strike crackers, they're not designed for your adapted use, of course!

Red explosive is chlorate and Arsenic sulphide. It was in a fairly soft plastic container- One of those little "champagne bottle" confetti throwers with pull string ignition. I'd added a pinch of red explosive to one and re-assembled it, was going to fire it remotely with a long string and see if it would throw the streamers further. I probably gave it a slight squeeze while carrying it. I keep the remains of it nailed to the wall in my shop to remind me to think.

[powdermunkey]

Back in junior high school we were trying to make useable BP without wet milling. We'd make about 2 grams, test a little, and discard the rest into a styrofoam cup. After a series of tests, the cup was just about full, and we decided to mix it up and test the residue. We scooped a bit out with a metal scapula, shoved the scoop into a bunsen flame, and it worked rather well. The guy holding the styro cup grabbed the scoop and shoved it back into the cup- without letting it cool. The contents ignited and melted the cup to his hand. He had third degree burns, but recovered the use of his hand.The entire science club got 'grounded' from using the chemical labs for a month. More recently, I had a KNO3/sugar rocket explode about 30 feet above the ground. Ruined a pretty good aluminum engine casing, and shot the nozzle about six inches into the ground below. The same propellant (James Yawn's method) boiled over onto my electric hotplate and ignited, making a largish amount of flame and smoke- due to careful planning, the hotplate was outside on the ground. The closest call I've had was when I bought some Tannerite exploding targets. I had one sitting on top of a stump about 8 inch diameter by roughly a foot tall. I had shot a couple of 7.62X51 rounds through the target without setting it off, so I walked up to about 15 yards away and shot it again. KERBLAM! I felt a bunch of particles blast me in the legs and chest, but none of them penetrated the fabric. (Although the one that smacked the end of my willy was enough to get my undivided attention for a minute) The stump was reduced to a conical shaped stub, about 6 inches tall. Moral of the story- don't detonate kilogram sized charges while standing that close... If a bigger chunk of stump or a rock on the ground had come my way, I might not have had such a happy ending.

[Mendeleev]

I also posted this in the "Easy Aluminum Powder Honest" thread on pabe two. This goddamn newb named schwartzzy recommended a good source of a aluminum powder called Alumaseal. I bought some and noticed it was a liquid in which I noticed silvery aluminum powder floating. Unable to find an exact sheet of ingredients or MSDS on Alumaseal I decided to do some experimenting in boiling away the solvent to leave theoretically pure aluminum powder. As I poured it into the beaker I had to pore it back and shake up the can because there was a significant amount of sand and not aluminum powder in it. After successfuly pouring it into my beaker I put it on a hot plate which I monitored for ten minutes. Everything seeming fine I went to have a glass of water, and when I came back I noticed a very large plume of white vapors coming out of my beaker. As a precaution I went to fetch some water, and when I got back with the water which was about 25 seconds the damn thing was flaming. I dumped into the beaker a half liter of water and poof an 8 foot fire ball occured 3 feet from where I was standing engulfing me, my hot plate, stool and chair. Luckily I suspected the fire could have been a grease fire and maintained my distance. All I can say is schwartzy is a fucking asshole newb, who needs to learn to tell people a little more fucking information before you send them off on a death quest. The shit probably has to much sand in it anyway to purify, and now I have a hell of a cleaning job to do on by beaker not to mention clean up to sizzling aluminum powder shrapnel on my porch. I bet he never even used the shit yourself. What a goddamn ass... :mad:

[jackhammer]

I was firing an M2HB, and hadn't bothered to run a thorough check, despite the urgings of my assistant. There must have been some obstruction in the chamber, barrel, or breech, because when the pin hit the first round it smashed diagnally downward through the gun, tearing most of it to bits. It's a .50 caliber round,and not only did the gun shrapnel embed itself in my skin (much to the delight of my "friend"), but the bullet hit a rock sending more shrapnel in our direction. If this wasn't enough, I got a royal ass chewing (and rightly so) before even being allowed med attention. A valuable leason, and I spend a lot of time cleaning all my guns.

[Anthony]

Mendeleev, what happened was entirely your own fault. Take some responsibility for your actions, eh?

[Mendeleev]

Yeah, I overeacted a bit, but still, the guy could have given me a little more information. All he said was get alumaseal for aluminum powder, mentioned nothing else, and the company's ingredients are unavailable because it is a "secret".

[grammarless]

My accidents were caused by my stupidity, luckily they were not serious. When I was 10 or so I ripped the paper off of a model rocket engine and then lit it with a match, which gave me some nice burns on my hand. My second accident involved a propane balloon. I used to fill up a balloon to the size of my fist with butane, and then hold a lighter and let the butane out of the balloon resulting in a nice fireball. This worked well until I bought a new can of butane, held it upside-down and filled a balloon to normal size, but I forgot about the liquid butane. The liquid butane expanded and the balloon was almost the size of my head, and this point I realized that I couldn't let all of the butane out at once, so I lit my lighter and aim a little butane at it. I pinched the balloon closed and then I realized my problem; a flame was still flickering out of the balloon. Right when I noticed this the balloon erupted. I remember it being warm and hearing my hair burn. When I opened my eyes my friend came running towards and started hitting me, but I was still dazed and confused but I figured it out when he yelled "your on fire, your on fire". Luckily the fire immediately with his assistance.

[apathyboy]

Mendeleev: Even if it was pure aluminum, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to pour water on it.
When hot
2Al + 3H20 ---> Al2O3 + 3H2

That goes double for something you KNOW has a possibly flammable solvent in its mix.
Next time, use an ABC fire extinguisher, and test a small quantity of the compound first.

My worst accident would have to be when I decided that it would be a great idea to light a pile of KNO3/sugar smoke mix powder (the white stuff you get from mixing in water and boiling) with a lighter. This was a long time ago, when I shouldn't have been allowed to get within 20 feet of any fire. Anyways, I found out that flames hurt, what it's like to have a blister cover almost half your thumbprint, and to not try to pop said blister (it was a good 2 or 3 mm thick, and resisted needles)

Like boomer said, we should be learning from each others mistakes, so the lesson is: use something that puts your hand more than 1cm away from the material when lighting things that aren't wood or paper.

Everyone looks back on accidents and says "what was I thinking?". Everyone has those kind of lapses, so you have to prepare so that the worst possible scenario doesn't involve losing appendages

[fire vs. water]

these are so amuzing to read :P
anyway, I've had many small but really dumb accidents...
In my early pyro days, I was melting some saltpeter and sugar (I think it was around 2 KG of the stuff), and I left it for a second and told my friends to watch it. They didn't stirr it, and it caught fire. It burned the wall it was next to (around 1.5-2 meters high if I remember correctly), and showered me and my friends with burning particles.

Another dumb but weird accident:
I made 3 KG of BP, and wanted to test some. I took a spoon of it from the container, and dumped it 3 meters from the container. I lit it, and somehow, the 3 KG of BP went off!
I got very minor burns, but I was pissed off at myself for doing something that stupid (although it's still a mystery to me how it ignited, I was quite far away) and for loosing such an amount of BP.

[xyz]

The BP probably ignited from a tiny spark of hot charcoal. BTW, never trust parents with anything even remotely important.

[snuk5]

My worst accident was when I was making synth.coke.
(Rather ambitious and non-lucrative project –but I got it right in the end!!!!)

So there I have this 3l flask half full with oleum (20% free SO3), together with citric acid. (If you don’t know what oleum is, go do a search, I mean there is nothing much worse)

The idea is that the citric acid reacts with the acid so as to give acetone dicarboxylic acid, water and carbon monoxide.

I thought it a good idea to put the stirrer though a stopper and to put a thin PVC hose in it so as to lead the toxic CO out of the window.

Anyway, the ice bath did not do its job well and the temp got too high.

So now we have not only one molecule of CO evolving but also 2 molecules of CO2!

Serious foaming. Little tube getting blocked.

Stopper finally popping off, with the foamy acid flying into my face and all over the place. (The rotating shaft with stopper adding to the flying fun –think of it as a electrically powered rotating lawn-irrigation device –but with something less pleasant than water…….)

Thanks to glasses, immediate streaming water, and immediate application of half a kilo of bicarb, I still have eyes and a face.

I thought the beard suited me, so I kept it. Except for a few hardly noticeable patches of pigmentation I got off clean. (That is, after growing a new skin on my face, of course)

Sooo stupid. Redeemed myself a bit by developing a new, improved procedure for

O=CH-CH2-CH2-CH=O.

Ja and then there was my brother making black powder, grinding it when moist.
It took too long to dry as it was quite a lot.
So he spread it out on a large oven tray and put it into……..
The Oven -door slightly ajar to let the water vapour escape.
That was the fastest haircut he ever got in his life.

His glasses were covered with a layer of white stuff from the flash, so he thought that he was blind for a second. But that was ok when he took them off

A bit later he looked like an idiot with a practical joker for a barber, who fell asleep on the beach wearing his sunglasses, but without sun block.

My brother liked the kitchen; he also decided to repair the lawnmower there on a cold day. Lots of petrol (gas) all over the place.
So he goes and check to see if the spark plug fires.
Our mum non too pleased about the resulting little blaze on her kitchen floor.

It left an interesting pattern on the vinyl flooring.

[T_Pyro]

Quote:
"The idea is that the citric acid reacts with the acid so as to give acetone dicarboxylic acid, water and carbon monoxide."

What the hell is "acetone dicarboxylic acid"? Did you mean malonic acid (HOOCCH2COOH), or alpha-ketoglutaric acid? If it's alpha-ketoglutaric acid, how would oleum and citric acid give that? Inspiration from Kreb's cycle?

Quote:
"Redeemed myself a bit by developing a new, improved procedure for O=CH-CH2-CH2-CH=O."
"O=CH-CH2-CH2-CH=O"? That cannot, and does not exist.

And BTW, where'd you get the oleum from?

[Marvin]

Acetone dicarboxylic acid is what it sounds like, take acetone, add a carboxylic acid each side. Its beta-keto glutaric acid. Citric acid just needs to lose CO2 and water.

""O=CH-CH2-CH2-CH=O"? That cannot, and does not exist"
Interesting opinion.

snuk5, what is your improved method of making (clearly nonexistant) succinic aldehyde?

[atr]

I taped 3 sticks of dynamite , (70% forcite) together , crimped a det on 6 inches of safety fuse , inserted the det , lit the fuse and tossed it overboard . I was in a 17 foot aluminum Grumman canoe in a calm , slow little bay in the river . I figured that there was about 15 feet of water under me and i threw the bundle about 10 yards out . I had done this once before and there was a thump when the dynamite went off , the water turned color and i looked for fish . This time the blast was incredible as the water lifted along with rocks and mud and i was momentarily stunned by the shock of the blast and concussion . I sat there for what seemed like a long time trying to figure out if i was actually alive or not and how badly i was hurt . I was covered in mud and soaked with water and the right lens on my glasses was cracked . Just in front of where i was sitting was a hole in the side of the canoe about 5 inches in diameter . No hole on the opposite side so the rock must have angled upward . I was sitting in about 15 feet of water but 10 yards out where the bundle landed it was about 6 inches deep . I now fish exclusively with rod and reel .

[Sarevok]

Succinaldehyde (O=CH-CH2-CH2-CH=O) does exists. According to Rhodium (http://www.rhodium.ws/chemistry/dronefent.txt) it is made this way:

Succinaldoxime
In a 2-liter, 3-necked flask, equipped with mechanical stirrer and reflux condenser, were placed 1 liter of ethanol, 67g freshly distilled pyrrole, and 141g hydroxylamine hydrochloride. The mixture was stirred and heated to refluxing, as soon as solution was complete 106g anhydrous sodium carbonate was added, in small portions, as rapidly as possible; and the solution was then refluxed for-twenty-four hours. The hot alcoholic mixture was then filtered to remove sodium chloride, and the filtrate was evaporated to dryness under reduced pressure. The residue was taken up in the minimum of boiling water, the solution heated with decolorizing charcoal, filtered and the product allowed to crystallize in the refrigerator. Additional product could be obtained by concentrating the mother liquors. The yield of dioxime varied from 40 to 44g, 35 to 38%, and the product melted at 171-172°C.

Succinaldehyde
A twentieth mole, 5.8g, of succinaldoxime was placed in a beaker of 250 ml. capacity and 54 mL. of 10% sulfuric acid was added. The mixture was cooled to 0°C and to it was added, in small portions, 7g of sodium nitrite, keeping the temperature at 0°C. Evolution of nitrogen dioxide fumes indicates too rapid addition of the nitrite. The dioxime was now completely dissolved, and the solution was allowed to warm slowly to 20°C and effervescence to go to completion. The lemon-colored solution was then neutralized to litmus by the addition of small portions of barium carbonate, and the precipitated barium sulfate was removed, leaving the free succinaldehyde in the filtrate.

[T_Pyro]

Damn. Sorry, my mistake- I misread the "=" between the C and O. Are names such as "Acetone dicarboxylic acid" still in vogue? I would think IUPAC names are more unambiguous than common names, and help prevent misinterpretations too. Or maybe I've just not been exposed to the way chemicals are referred to in the industry.

[snuk5]

T_Pyro,

Methinks that you asked quite a bit of questions in a vein that is close to expressing disbelief.

Now I am well aware that the web is full of bullshitters and liars; but I will say this only once here on this forum: I do not lie.

That means that I although I may express myself inaccurately in certain cases, I will never deliberately post a fib with the purpose to deceive. It’s not that I want to invite all and sundry to subject me to 3rd degree cross examinations, but if anyone would catch me on a lie. I invite that person to flame me to bits and to have me removed from this forum. I despise bullshitting myself.

As for your statement / question:
“Are names such as "Acetone dicarboxylic acid" still in vogue? I would think IUPAC names are more unambiguous than common names, and help prevent misinterpretations too. Or maybe I've just not been exposed to the way chemicals are referred to in the industry.”

Firstly, the name that I gave for the acid is the widely accepted name. Your calling for the use of IUPAC names on a forum where everybody speaks about NG or ANFO is pedantic.
Apart from that you are strangely inconsistent, as you yourself use non-IUPAC names like “malonic acid or alpha-ketoglutaric acid”

I do not want to overflame you –I am but a humble newbee here- but I hope sincerely that you will do a bit of reading and thinking before you go and talk all kinds of nonsense.
I don’t know what the purpose of your postings is but in case you want to impress people with your knowledge, you run the serious risk of achieving the opposite of that objective.

I am not from India so why do you want to know the source of my chemicals?

Krebs cycle indeed!


Marvin,

I will give you a little synopsis of what I did not do to make non-existing succinnic dialdehyde and it’s hypothetical precursor dihydro,dimethoxyfuran for the purpose of making a compound that has nothing to do with cocaine.
(If you reealy want to I could dig up my notes and give you masses, times and temps, but for now I will dispense with that as they are well hidden under tons of junk! So I’ll write from memory.)

Procedure: Add to a solution of ammonium bromide in MeOH a quantity of furan.

Place the mixture in an electrolysis cell having a large bottom surface.

Employ a specially made up anode-cathode couple so as to facilitate sufficient a current to allow for a reasonable reaction rate. Anode must be of inert material; graphite of a hard variety was found to particular efficient and appeared to withstand at least 12 runs, with out signs of deteriorating. Cathode was of stainless steel mesh.

The cell was placed in the freezer compartment of ye olden fashioned fridge (one with the bare cooling element serving as the walls and bottom of said compartment, using frozen water to improve contact between the surfaces.
Keeping the temp low is vital as the process takes long and the brown goo must be minimised. If one runs, say 3 amps at about 13 V one produces 39 watt. (Hmmmm.) Dimethoxyfuran is unstable, especially with the electrolyte and elemental bromine present

Directly under the cell and cooling element a magnetic stirrer was placed.

The cell was run at 12 V and initially at ca. 3.8 Ampere and this decreased gradually.

The process was stopped at around 97% conversion as per units of Coulomb. (We are talking about a day here)

The total mass was distilled under reduced pressure.

The resulting clear liquid was hydrogenated (with some MeOH present -I recall) with Raney Ni catalyst in a specially made up 250 ml rb flask with extra heavy walls. (Make yourself some kind of motorized shaking device as shaking by hand does not cut it. Not for me at least!)

The H2 was generated with a dropping funnel with NaOH soln and 1 l flask with alu foil; then dried in a gas washing bottle with conc. H2SO4. The gas was consumed by the hydrogenation as it was generated. Totally neat set-up!

Yield of dihidro,dimethoxyfuran was as high as 84% (taken from no of moles of furan)

I expect that a theoretically impossible dihidro,dimethoxyfuran as subjected to hydrolysis with the almost unobtainable dilute sulphuric acid -made by carefully adding oleum to H2O! :)- would never give something like a solution of succinic dialdehyde. But if it were at all possible I could have made it…………….

Oh ja, do not forget to lead the H2 as generated by the cell, from your fridge through some tube or what. And a non-sparking / -arcing stirrer is a good idea.
If you don’t stick to this advice, you might come back to this page and tell us some sorry tale of an exploded fridge etc…

[T_Pyro]

snuk5,
I am what one might call a skeptic when it comes to anything related to science. Studying science for quite some time has proved that nothing can be accepted *as is*, unless proven to be consistent beyond doubt, for anything which is accepted without thorough scrutiny might be (at least) partly incorrect, and might later lead to greater problems. My sig. expresses the same fact. This skeptical attitude of mine makes me rather unpopular among professors and fellow students of science, as you can see. I'm sorry if my questioning offended you, but having read quite some intruiging stuff (go back in the thread and you'll see), I had to be sure.

Whatever I post is the truest to my belief, and when in doubt, I do not hesitate to refer to my library. In spite of that, if there are errors, I know that I'm to blame, and welcome anyone to correct me. I know that there cannot be any justification for errors made (like mine), apart from the consolation that they won't happen again.

Regarding names- When I was first introduced to organic chem, there were no common names used by us, only IUPAC. Later, when exposed to the real world, common names seemed to be used everywhere! It seemed quite a waste of time having to label each and every compound separately, rather than follow a uniform set of rules to name a compound. If given the chance, I'd still prefer IUPAC names- they might be time-consuming to frame, but once used, one can be sure that the reader will be able to visualize the molecule without any shadow of doubt.

Well, you will have to agree that oleum isn't exactly a standard reagent. However, you're free to keep the source of your chemicals undisclosed.

Regarding being a "newbee"- It doesn't matter how old or new a member is, what counts are his contributions. I myself am not even a year old here, and I thank you for not overflaming me.

[snooib]

Something recently happend to me which has steered me away from Shit THAT CAN KILL YOu, its funny though people only stop when something shit happens to them.
5 weeks ago finally got hold of some mek so whats the obvious thing to make MEKP, the problem was the only fuses i could get hold of is ones ive had to make myself now the mekp was made and its time to test.i had a 2lt coke bottle with the bottom cut out i had it placed in a hole in the ground (upsidedown) with the cap been filled half way with the liquid.

i heard the stuff needed little charge like a very small cap to detonate, so i had this small pen lid with a tiny amount with a fuse running through a short paper tube with the wick about 10 cm exposed ( the whole thing standing upright).
I kneeled down and lit the fuse at that instant a spark flew from the wick and into the bottom of the mekp filled coke cap the shit went off instantly damaging my hand and my Right ear which is still ringing to this day.

it is enough to make any one crazy and think WTF R3.00 (prob about half a dollar) has now fucked up my ear for life.
to all newbies dont do it, its not worth it. if so any using fuses always lay it down and make it at least 5X longer than you would have had

[Efraim_barkbit]

Around midnight between saturday to sunday, a 15 year old boy where killed in an explosion in Umeå, Sweden. He and three more boys had made the "bomb" at the fifteen year old´s house and went to the park and set it off.
The police believes he was killed imidiately. None of the other boys where hurt.
The article said nothing about the cause of the premature detonation, and it is not known what exlosive was used.

You are neither invulnerable nor immortal.
The tiniest mistake when dealing with this "hobby" can change your life forever.
Think before you act!

[simply RED]

"5 weeks ago finally got hold of some mek so whats the obvious thing to make MEKP, the problem was the only fuses i could get hold of is ones ive had to make myself now the mekp was made and its time to test.i had a 2lt coke bottle with the bottom cut out i had it placed in a hole in the ground (upsidedown) with the cap been filled half way with the liquid."

:)
You tried to explain something? Well, you failed!
This is full of mistakes, not only that - it is unbelievably hard to understand what you've tried to say.
Be correct, KeWel NoooBeeeZzzz !

[OFEP]

This post is to follow Efraim barkbits previous post. The 15 year old boy who died in the evening of 21st of february 2004 had made AP. The scenario is as follows, according to the three other boys: The 15-year old lit the fuse and ran of, but the charge didn't detonate, so after 5 min he walks back to it using a lighter to guide him or something. Then the bomb detonates, the yield was 800g of packed AP and it made a 3 meter wide crater and ripped up a lightpole - the boy died immediatly. Back at his home, the bomb squad found a lot more of AP (see the picture) and, even if the article doesn't mention it, ammoniumnitrate. The picture is from a Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet, and it shows the remaining AP drying and several bags of instant cold packs containing AN.

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/0402/23/NYHETER-23s11pulver_368.jpg

[Bert]

Kids making AP for a first explosive is way too common now, apparently. I expect to see a lot more incidents similar to this. The only reason I lived long enough to graduate from high school was that I had only tried to make BP, simple pyrotechnic mixtures and nitrocellulose, all in fairly small quantities. My accidental ignitions and other fuckups weren't more than a nuisance. (Oh yeah, I also made nitrogen iodide in sub gram quantities- And had accidents with that too.)

Young men (boys!) have never believed they can die, hence the military recruiters interest in high school age kids... Believe it, you can die too, and statistically you're actually more likely to than most other age groups in any modern society.

[frogfot]

Believe it, you can die too,
No way!! really!? :eek:

Anyway, no big accidents happened with me, probably because I test syntesises of HEs only few times, only in demonstrative ammounts. Though now I'm not even comfortable with that.
Truly speaking, I'm afraid of HEs, but it was a great experience to make some and feel what power a compound can contain :)

[Bert]

No way!! really!? :eek:

Anyway, no big accidents happened with me, probably because I test syntesises of HEs only few times, only in demonstrative ammounts.

And you'll probably not lose more than a few fingers or your hearing thereby. There have been several of these types of incidents of newbies making a huge ammount of AP (or claiming to have) recently. God knows, I did stupid shit as a teenager, and maybe even since. :rolleyes: The reason I'm alive and mostly in one piece is because I didn't do these things with kilogram quantities. The habit of thinking about what could go wrong generaly follows seeing "shit happen" (maybe from REAL close).

[Blackhawk]

DAMN that's a crapload of AP, I'd be positively shitting myself knowing I had even one of those piles drying at home, they obviously did not understand what the hell they had made. Had those three sheets gone off I would think they would at least loose a substantial quantity of that room.

[infernal]

Bert, every time I go to make something... no matter if i've made it 20 times before or once... I allways watch that video of the kid having the chlorine blow up in his hand...

makes you think twice.

[OFEP]

Quotation:
-----------------------------
"Yeah. They´re german, I don´t have the pack right here, but it´s almost pure methanamine (or how you now spell that lame word). You just solve it in aceton and you get it pure (or was it water) I haven´t really memorized it since I am an AP lamer (but I do own a pack with methanamine), HMTD is nutting for me :P, but hey, first time I did AP I did 80 grams, second 120 grams, third time (yesterday, drying today) something about a kilo or more... :P I GONNA BLOW MY FRICKING ARMS OFF! And yeah, I don´t treat AP with respect, but well, I got plenty of cold, snow and ice outside so my AP is usually quite resistant against pressure e.tc. Well, right now my brain feels like weird, I gonna have to put up a few lamps e.tc. (it dried overnight, switched the newsspaper it was on) and I think I gonna put up a few lamps to get the bitch dry faster. Well, my moms out of the weekend, that´s why I am sitting here with over 1 kilo AP and lots and lots and lots AN. Well, sure, I spam... but.. hey! :P Well.


Well, almost forgot, I always take all my explosives and just make 1 big fucking bomb of it. 1 kilo AP and a couple of kílos AN coming up."
----------------------------------
Does anyone recognize this post? It was made by a forum user called "phone", that is the same person mentioned previously in this thread who got killed by 800g of AP. In the thread were he posted this he was warned several times by doing what he later did and was told he would hurt himself... Obviously he knew how powerful it was and the sensitivity of it.

How someone can be this ignorant is a complete mystery to me.

[scarletmanuka]

My worst accident happened just the other day, with my first attempt at synthesising NG. I had a nitrating mix of 50mL H2SO4 and 21g KNO3 cooled to 0C with the idea of adding 8mL NG. However, after adding 1mL instantly, the beaker in the ice bath heated up, it did not boil or froth, but large volumes of orange brown gas which slowly turned to blood red gas emerged out of the beaker, carpeting my small back yard to about 10cm in depth. This took about two minutes to dissipate, and I got quite a decent headache soon after.
Shortly After that, I made some Mn2O7 (about 2mL) outside as well, which spontaneously exploded, as Mn2O7 does, not detonated, it just sort of ruptured like oil spitting with small flashes, sending Mn2O7 everywhere, igniting some of the paperwork for my experiments on the grass nearby. I am pleased to report that no property or animals where damaged in these accidents.

[EP]

Here is a fun story:

http://www.xsorbit2.com/users/xinventionspyrotechnics/index.cgi?board=general_discussion&action=display&num=1078443487&start=0

[nbk2000]

Here's a really funny thing I read somewhere recently.


HEDbait was one of the best members E&W had in a long time, NBK is just a whiny bitch who can't stand having his authority challenged. Too bad... I wonder if somebody could find his email and invite him over here?


Care to comment?

[Hang-Man]

Well, I do agree that that belongs in the “worst accident” thread, as I get the feeling that whoever said that is going to have an ‘accident’. :eek:

[Flake2m]

Now that would be entertaining. Seeing HEDbait say that to NBK's face. Hmmm, a pimply 12 year old having ago at a much wiser fully grown man. I can't imagine who would win :rolleyes:

But I have lost my eyebrows and hair a few times. Mainly due to me leaving the gas on the BBQ on too long :rolleyes: or being an idiot and doing something I shouldn't have done, such as throwing a gram of pressed HMTD into a raging fire. I was lucking I didn't have a chuck of flaming wood hit me.
Now I have gained more common sense and a "clue".

[Doug]

I've been pretty careful with most of the nasty stuff so no serious injuries so far.

I was playing with butane lighter gas when I was younger whilst wearing a towling bath robe and managed to set the whole lot on fire, I'm so glad nobody walked in or they'd have seen a naked 15 yr old jumping on a burning pile of toweling - bizarre :rolleyes:

The main damage I keep doing is drilling holes in myself because I'm daft enough to hold whatever I'm drilling. You'd think I'd have learned by now. The worst one was a 0.5mm tungsten carbide drill for PCBs - I put that one right into the bone on my fingertip, and yes it hurt. A lot.

I was asked to make an IED for a local airsoft team who were training some new recruits (they take it a bit seriously), so I popped an electrically initiated charge into an M16 magazine with a couple of tilt switches. The charge was a commercially produced one which was roughly 1g of BP compressed in the bottom of a small cardboard tube with an electric initiator in the top, same kind of thing used in paintball/airsoft grenades. I thought it would be a rather good idea to test it first because of it being enclosed inside a metal casing...

Needless to say, after recovering the now unfolded magazine casing from a field about 20-25ft away I decided not to use it at the training weekend. Never did find the electronics...

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/maniacdoug/images/mag.jpeg

Edit: A mate of mine volunteered to set it off (fool!), an ex-paratrooper, now a traffic and armed response unit policeman. Only time I've ever seen him loose his cool. A definite brown trouser moment, and he's pretty glad he listened to my advice and used a long stick.

[EP]

Here's a really funny thing I read somewhere recently.

Care to comment?

I may have put it more bluntly than others have (some here at this forum and still posting members) but I did it in a different forum and I don't really think it's an argument either of us wants to clutter up the forum with. Banning me for making a comment on a totally different forum woudl just prove my point, but I'm not looking for a fight and I'm not trying to cause problems. You could always email me if you wanted to discuss it further. *shrug*

So this reply isn't totally off topic:

My worst accident wasn't anything bad, though it could have been. I was deflagrating AP in the open to show some friends the fireballs. It was dark and I couldn't really see how much I was pouring out, leading me to pour more than I intended after a few that went with no problems. I lit the corner of the paper it was on, got back a safe distance and had it DDT instead of just burn. No injuries or anything, but it was a wake up call.

[nbk2000]

*sigh*

People need to remember that the very nature of the internet means that ANYTHING you say can, and will, come back to bite you in the ass at the least opportune moment.

Other forum or not, it's not nice to talk like that about people, especially not the admin of a site you frequent. :(

You hurt my feelings.

I think I'll act infantile and lash out at you. :)

(Goes to admin control panel and bans EP, pruning every post he's ever made)

There, I feel much better now. :D

Same for the other people there, who were (past tense) also here, but aren't here any longer.

WOW! I'm feeling ORGASMIC NOW! :eek:

++++++++++++

This would be the scenario if I was such an asshole as most people (at lesser forums) seem to think I am.

But I'm forgiving.

Anyhows, posting links to other english language E&W forums, which you run, signature line or not, equals advertising for competitive forums, which is prohibited by the Rules.

That's a banning offense if I felt like enforcing it.

Oh, and while there may be no Nazi's ;) over there, there's also a decided lack of grammer or focus. That's just my being blunt.

E&W forums without a Nazi to enforce discipline means a flood of crap posts. Anyone remember this forum back in '99? Just like every other crap 30m3z site. That was pre-Nazi.

Now we're Nazi. And see how much better it is? Order and discipline, not to mention coherent posts that you can understand, are the order of the day. :p

Every other E&W forum I've seen is composed of either people who were banned from here for being foolish/too k3wL to even attempt posting here (and know it)/too lazy to bother with grammer (a lot of people)/trying to beat us at our own game and failing miserably.

The worst accident most people have here is pissing me off. Don't stick your hand in the lions cage if you wish to keep use of it. ;)

[EP]

I forgot about the link thing, it was just faster to post the url than copy the message... I'd take the url out of the post but it won't let me edit it for some reason.

Anyway, good job not freaking out, we've both had our say, etc etc, now I'll drop it and get this thread back on topic.

Accident stories here:

http://krimzonpyro.com/ep/infodir/anar.html
and
http://krimzonpyro.com/ep/accidents.txt

(hopefully the fact that these are hosted on my site, which includes a link on a different page to the forum I help run will not be considered an ad...)

[Chris The Great]

Well, I only recently gained an interest in high energy chemistry. After reading this thread, I am going to be very careful!

As for why many of these accidents happen:

We assume something is a certain way.

Never assume the fuse will last so long. Etc. Etc. Check everything. I've had some accidents with high voltage because I assumed something was connected properly, when in fact it wasn't. A few extra seconds would have meant alot less pain and alot less being laughed at by my friend.


As for accidents, the one that scared the crap out of me was a plastic container with a butane/air mixture. It wasn't much, but it scared the crap out of me when it went off in my face at 3 in the morning in my room. Not much compared to what you guys are used too, but hopefully it will teach me to be safer around the more powerful stuff.

The most lethal was accidently bumping a 3000 volt capacitor with each of my hands. Nothing like feeling your heart stop to make you more safety concious. It's also something you don't want to feel again.

I have been very lucky so far and never had a serious injury. I have had countless little ones however, and all these have taught me is what I said above. The problem is, after you do something dangerous a few time, you don't see it as dangerous anymore. And then you don't check stuff and suddenly you're short a kidney and a few limbs.

[meeks56]

mine is nonpyro related i was at work i had a 6in cut of wheel for metal i sat down turned it on it sliped out of my hand and cut a 2in wide 1in deep cut in my leg thats about it

[FUTI]

I describe it in some other post but...shortly speaken hydrogen explosion in Kipp's apparatus (how did I remembered what's the name for the stuff:)) large one (3l)...it seem that it didn't make good seal and even after we (guys involved in the experiment) purge it pretty good it made the bloody explosive mixture with air. Pretty scary...but gods defended our *** (only one person got few cuts from the glass flying everywhere) :eek:

[croc]

I have not had any serous accidents but gassed myself quite a few times with HCl vapor, HCl gas, SO2, ping pong ball smoke and the classic KNO3+sugar smoke bomb. ;)

[Trigger Mike]

I once was in close proximity to a guy who lit a plastic bottle of petrol, and when unsatisfied with the result decided to stamp on it which resulted in a HUGE flameburst setting his jeans on fire and making him run around screaming like a girl, and almost set me on fire by running past me!
This one is not very manly, but when I was about 11 I learned a "cool" trick(its cool when you are 11), lighting matches with your fingernails.I managed to do it but got some of the powder stuck behind my fingernail which lit up aswell.My finger stayed black for ages!

[Swindle1984]

The worst accident I've had was setting my shirt sleeve on fire when the match I was using broke in half and the flaming end landed on my arm. A quick smack on the arm put out the fire and I did a check to make sure sparks hadn't landed anywhere else I didn't need them, and that was that. Well, it's no longer my good shirt, so I just wear it or something expendable whenever I do chemical/flammable/explosive experiments now.

Anything I make, I produce in small quantities so it's easier to control. It also decreases the damage you can do to yourself when you screw up. If I want a bigger bang, I'll combine several units. I'm already worried about the house ever catching on fire, because my room is where we store the black powder, ammunition, and my fireworks. Yeah, I can pretty much kiss all my stuff goodbye in the event that my cooking goes horribly wrong.

As for safety equipment, a fire-retardant apron, safety goggles, shooter's ear-phones, a dust mask, gloves, and a shower cap to keep my hair from igniting are my usual preventative measures. Add in a heavy-duty ventilation fan, available at most hardware stores, and some damage-resistant equipment, and I'm all set. I figure if I need anything more heavy-duty than that, I probably shouldn't be screwing around with it.

The reason I wear the ear-phones is to protect my hearing, naturally. I've already lost some hearing in the mid-range thanks to my hobby of firearms, and it wasn't until a couple years ago that I started worrying about how my different interests could affect me.

[redbull]

Wow, you guys have had some crazy shit happen to you! The worst
that's ever happened to me is a drop of 30% H2O2 on my finger.
Yup, just a little skin burn... I mean I've broken labware and wish
I hurt myself because the glass distilation rig wont get better :-p
Either im lucky or careful... maybe a bit of both?

[Dr_Pind]

I tried to make a redox mix out of Cu powder and sulfur. Mixing went fine, but when I had poured the mix into a paper-tube the mix decided to spontaneously ignite and spray a hot jet of molten CuS straight into my face. For a minute i thought I had lost an eye, but after examining the eye closer, I found that there was no serious injury (Well, I did loose half of my beird and a little hair :rolleyes: ). I was lucky that I wore glasses when doing this experiment. Next time I may not be as lucky. I believe the reason for the spontaneous ignition was the sulfur used. It was not analytical grade sulfur, but flowers of sulfur (being acidic). This combined with very fine Cu powder led to an uncontrollable reaction. I had my lesson. Be sure of exactly what you are doing. It doesn't take much to start a dissaster.

[aoz]

My worst accident actually occured when I was cooking a smoke bomb. Not much more than a pound of a sugar/potassium nitrate mix exploded on the kitchen stove. I was just a few feet away from the explosion, which was huge. The smoke took more than an hour to get out of the house, I had to twist the fire alarms in the house off, and talk to the neighbors about the huge volume of smoke engulfing my house. Oh, then I had to basically replace that end of the kitchen, including the hardwood floor.

[Macgyver]

In the beginning of my experimentation with HMTD a batch started boiling violently and it ended up rupturing the container it was in, spraying one of my arms with acetic acid, hydrogen peroxide and HMTD + unreacted hexamine.

I suffered no injury from the accident other than having to explain why there was a strong smell of acetic acid in the apartment (This was while still living with my parents, about 10 years ago).

The accident was probably because of unpure hexamine extracted from fuel tablets that contained paraffin in addition to the wanted hexamine.

[Bugger]

These cases show the need to wear protective clothing and equipment. At the minimum, safety glasses; better still, strap-on goggles with protection against side-entry of material, or even better, a full-face motorcycle crash helmet with a polycarbonate visor.

For clothing, wear heavy layers of a material which is not easily combustible, which rules out most synthetics especially polyesters (wool or nylon is better). Ideally, the best protective clothing would be made of glass or asbestos fiber, or a firefighter's protective suit, but these would be expensive. Also wear gloves of an adequate material, and heavy boots.

Bugger.

[FrKoNaLeaSh]

My worst accident would have to be a while ago when I had a 2-3g AP polumna detonate about an inch from my hand. I was lighting the fuse and did not notice the coating on the american visco that ignited before the core. Once I finally realized I threw it but it went off extremely close to my hand. Blew off skin down to muscle on my pointer finger and speckled my hadn with paper bits. I have pictures yet don't know how to post them on this forum.

(Add you pictures as an attachment to your post. Don't make them too big though. - kingspaz)

[cursed-flesh]

this isnt much but one time when i was six i snuck into my neighbours barn and found a bunch of rusted aerosol cans or something like that anyway. i decided to learn about combustion by taking the teeth of a hammer and introducing it forcefully to one of the cans lying on its side on the ground. presto!!! i had a burst of condensed liquid shoot all over my face and in my eyes. that hurt like hell. my face was pure white for a week or so, although i dont know if that was from my experiment or my retarded mother scrubbing my face with turpentine for an hour with steel wool (what a bitch) whatever im happy i can still see.

[evilgecko]

My worst pyro accident happened just half an hour ago, and I though I might write about if because I've gotta tell someone (just not the fire brigade). Anyway, I was setting of BP rockets in my front lawn/paddock, with the rest of the family. I live out in the middle of no-where, so neighbours arn't a problem. The first two when fine, they both flew up straight and then the shells nicely exploded. However the third one struggled to gain height, then tilted sideways and flew over the country road and into the asparagus farm. A few seconds later we heard the pop of the shell exploded, annoyed but not worried, I set up the forth and final one before I heard a slight crackling. Alarmed I looked up but could not see anything. But then I saw a faint light coming from the apsaragus farm. "Fire" shouted one of my brothers, and he sprinted after me, over the road, over the fence in pitch balck darkness. Now just so it be the the rocket had landed in a large patch of dry grass, and just so it be the stars had ignited it. I started jumping on the roaring fire but to no evail, it kept getting bigger and bigger. I was then getting really worried. But just so it be I fell into and unknown irrigation ditch, and just so it be it was right beside the fire. Using my gumboot as a bucket (lol) I heaved water on to the angry fire. By that time my brother finally arrived and we managed to subdue it.

I can believe how unlucky (landed in grass)/lucky (ditch beside) I was. Man it was close. I've still got adreline in me as I write. All I got left to show are damn scratchey bites from the mosicetoes in the water.

[shooter3]

I always suspected that oxy/acetylene noisemakers were sensitive to static electricity, so I never did them on dry winter days 'til now that is.

While filling a ziplock bag, I had the acetylene in and was about halfway done with the oxygen when the damn thing went off. I was holding the bags neck around the torch head and the bulk of the bag was in back of the heal of my left hand. It was about the size of a baseball. The big surprize was that after realizing my hand was still there I also realized that aside from a slight tingly feeling and the hair burnt off my hand, there was no damage!

I think that the static charge was from when the inside surfaces of the bag were separating.

Not that I'm going to do it again, but I think if I had swished a little salt water around the inside of the bag, it wouldn't have gone off.

From now on I'll be filling them remotely(at least the big ones).

[nitram3000]

Just this Monday I set off a 100 gram apan charge that went horribly wrong. The fuse was defective so it burnt way too fast and the charge detonated with me almost on top of it. I immediately had to go to the hospital because Shrapnel from a little plastic bottle had cut up my whole left leg and one piece managed to get my arm pit. Right after the blast I noticed that I could not move my hand. My fingers were clamped down as if I were still holding the lighter. I thought I had blown my hand off from the feeling of it until I saw everything was intact. Today, two days later my right arm feels like it is "asleep". My left leg feels a bit numb too. I will just have a lot of scars on my body but I will be fine. The doc said that he might have to do surgery on my arm pit wound since it is so deep. :mad: I don't trust cannon fuse any more. I was going to use my electrical igniter but the nichrome was split and the wire was to little to fix. Thats my luck. I encourage all pyros to use electrical ignition from now on.

I have the footage here on this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaLALuzBVjs

[Fourfifth]

This next 1 isnt my worst. It was someone elses ;)

I studied Chemistry through to my A-levels, and during a lecture potassium was dropped in water as we were studying exothermic reactions etc...fizzed, turned puple and all the other stuff it does. Lecture over.
After the lecture I decided I need a piss, so off I trot to the Science Dept. toilets, have a quick slash then go to wash my hands and in the mirror, I see 2 students who were in the same lecture handling potassium they had 'aquired' from upstairs. One of them throws it into the toilet and they both watch in awe until the potassium pops and lands in one of the lads hair. I stand there laughing my ass off and in total disbelief, see one of the lads run to the sink, guess what happens next....yep, he trys to wash it out with water.....

He lost most of his hair and burnt his scalp through to the bone. Dumbass.

The 2 worse to happen to me are climbing onto a shed roof to detonate a rocket with no stick away from everyone/property. But as I lit it, i turned round to find no ladders, shitting my self I just jumped 15foot to the grass below with my friends family all laughing at the 'die hard' style stunt. They told me the explosion went off as I left the ledge, making it look like a movie stunt.

The other was 5-6 years earlier, me and my friend(same as above) were in the same shed I dived off many years later trying to ignite the inside part of a party popper. I held it over a candle for about a minute, nothing happened, so my friend takes the pliars holding the insert off me and puts it over the flame, almost instantly it go bang....really loud in a tiny ass shed. Of course it made him jump back and headbutt me, and I hit my head on a post as a result of this, we both managed to find the lawn to lay down, really disorientated. that was my first case of shellshock :p Haha

Just silly things really.

[Rbick]

Damn nitram300! Nice footage!

The worse for me wasn't really mine, but I was standing right there. It was back in High School (about 5 years ago) and a few buddies and I were doing a project for digital imaging class that required the use of some pyrotechnics. We filled ping pong balls with finely ground black powder and wrapped them in duct tape. They made a pretty good pop. My buddy decided to throw one while we were filming, except held on to it for too long. So it went off in his hand. It tore up his hand pretty well and pieces of ping pong ball were embedded in his face and torso. Luckly he didn't lose any fingers and was wearing a paintball mask, otherwise he probably would have lost his vision. When the docs at the ER asked what we were doing, we just said it was a firework accident. They didn't ask again even while they were pulling orange pieces of ping pong ball out of his skin. We caught it on tape, and got an A on the project, but the file has long since been lost.

[Sausagemit]

I encourage all pyros to use electrical ignition from now on.

It's especially dangerous using a fuse when your disposing of outdated electronics.

I had a near miss blowing up a VCR last year. The stout Aluminum head almost landed on my head with a fairly high velocity. It landed about a foot in front of me with a fairly loud "thud" and buried itself about an inch into some really soft dirt. It probably would have giving me a pretty nasty bruise and maybe a cut if it would have struck me. If I hadn't been running away I probably could have been watching out for flying debris.

The worst that has ever happened to me is burning my hand while trying to light off bottle rockets whilst extremely intoxicated.

I have seen my brother get hit in the forehead with a small aerial shell once. He had gravel embedded into his forehead and had no eyebrows or eyelashes for quite a while. He is really lucky he got his eyes closed before the impact. Don't ever jam an unmarked shell into a pipe and try to light it with matches. ;)

[209]

Wow, It sounds like for the most part I have been pretty damn lucky. Thankfully I havent lost any fingers/eyes/hands/nuts. I have had a couple accidents that have really cost me.


1) was to lazy to pull out the camp stove to melt my KN03/sugar mix, I opted to use my bunsen burner on my WOODEN bench (big mistake) Of course, it ignites and lights the drywall on fire .:eek:. . I ran to get the hose from the side of the house but it wasn't there because my friend was washing his car!!! Oh Shit!!! I burned out the wall of the garage and was damn lucky I didnt burn down the house.

2) lit a shitload of flash and burned the crap out of my hand, I still have 2 huge scars from it.

3) (not really pyro related) I was cutting a huge ass piece of I beam at my job with a big ass cutting torch. Hit the oxygen lever, begin to make the cut, finish the cut and then........ I watched in slow motion as 3 foot piece of I beam (weighing at almost 50 pounds) slowly decends towards my exposed foot. I ended up breaking 5 bones in my foot (ouch).

4) Was pressing an AP cap (it was clamped in the vice) and it when off, a piece of the copper pipe found a way to embed itself in my hip, (I had to dig it out with a pair of pliers) god there was so much blood.

5) A friend of mine was using a drill press, he has this long rasta hair and somehow it got wound around the chuck while it was spinning at 3000 rpm. Half his scalp was torn clean off, it was not pretty. It look like one of those wacked up people from that movie Hostel had gotten to him.

moral of the post: don't do dumb shit :D

[tiac03]

My worst (Think I mentioned it here once) was a Bottlecap full of AP with a rock on it went off about a foot away from my head. My arm was peppered by sand and small gravel and the inside part of my thigh got hit by a piece of about half inch gravel. Made a hole in my favorite pair of pants. Anyways Ended up using the hydrogen peroxide we had bought to make the AP to clean off the blood from my pants and shirt.

The Problem was that we forgot to bring a straw to use as a fuse so I just used a train of black powder, I had done it before and it worked very well. Problem was that rather than use my crappy home made BP as I had done previously I Used commercial BP. The 10 inches of powder train I used flashed and before I realized I was fucked it was all over and I was having a good laugh at my own stupidity. Took about 30 mins before my ears stopped ringing.

Luckily The powder wasn't lighting very easily and I repositioned myself which saved me from having the fist sized rock share living quarters with my brain.


I've noticed that all my close calls are from (apart from my own stupidity) not respecting the Pyrotechnic aspect of this hobby. Always something stupid I do with getting it started... Maybe I should go electric... lol.

[NUKE(slo)]

Well my worst accident coud be fatal to me but i was very very lucky:p . I spilled myself with almost 1 L of 96% sulphuric acid. The bottom falled off when i hit ceramical desk with the glass bottle:rolleyes: . The H2SO4 was all over my clothes (it was winter so i wasn't wearing shorts). But fortunaly i didn't get a single drop on my skin. Conciquences were only destroyed clothes and a few months of fear with working with the sulphuric acid.

Sorry for my spelling I hope u get the point.

[mil&co]

Wow, you have been extremely lucky then.

Your skin can take SA for some time, I geuss even half a minute wouldn't do much harm (you can rinse your hands with it, but only if you aply water fast enough), but getting even a drop in your eye would be disastrous, it'll turn you blind for certain if you do not act quickly.

Have you seen "The phantom of the opera" (1983 version)?:p

[chemdude1999]

I worked with a older gentleman that previously worked in a huge arsenal in the midwest (take a guess). They made huge amounts of TNT. Well, one day he was taking readings or gathering a sample (can't remember which). A line carrying concentrated nitric acid ruptured above him and sprayed him quite thoroughly. Luckily, his eyes were protected and they had showers positioned all over the place. He dove for a shower and yanked the lever.

He had minor 1st degree burns (4th degree if you want to consider them chemical burns) smattered over his arms. He healed up fine. I asked him if he turned yellow and he explained that the nitric had not had time enough to oxidize. Very lucky man. Good thing it wasn't silver nitrate.

[PanMaster]

A few people presumably from the USA seem to have lost hands and eyes. Such stupidity would surely be found "only in America". Who would light an untested device by hand?

Why not show some pictures of these horrific injuries? Do you wear eyepatches or prostheses?
Without any pictures I don't believe any of these stories.

[stupid939]

Here you go PanMaster, this is from the PFP database:

http://members.shaw.ca/gryphon223/consequences.html


My worst injury would have to be something rather careless that happened a few years ago. I took apart some mini roman candles to harvest the stars. What I was left with was a fuse and a large pile of mainly sawdust with some granular black powder mixed in (the black powder was barely visible).

I lit a small pile, and it mainly smoldered and did hardly anything. So i took the rest I had (about 50-100g?) and lit it in a small tin can. WHOOOMP, and it burned some of my eyebrows and quite a bit of hair on one side of my head. Luckily a hair cut took care of that and I turned out to be fine.

[Rbick]

Good idea PanMaster, insult Americans in a forum that consists of a good percentage of Americans. And its odd that you make this statement when a good amount of those who posted arn't even from the US... Hey if it weren't for us, you would be speaking German right now. So show a little respect.

In addition, I believe my personal worst accident was spilling a 2.5 L jug of conc. H2SO4 on my basement floor. It came in contact with some water from outside on my floor and filled the entire room with fumes. I needed my M-40 gas mask and a full bag of wood chips to clean it up, it sucked. Luckily H2SO4 doesn't react with Vinyl. :)

[Xenodius]

Hey, I have been out for a while, I looked (searched :p) around the forum and didn't find any threads like this and feel so much more cozy here in the cooler... Anyway, to (self-humiliating) business.

Its not easy to type with boxing gloves on, so I will be short. :rolleyes:

*I made 100g CuO thermite, using flour like consistency CuO and 400 mesh atomized Al. Stuck it in a plastic bathroom cup and inserted a 2", fairly thick Mg ribbon. Lit the ribbon, and it went in w/o setting off the thermite, but lit the cup on fire (touched the rim) and the cup continued to burn down the side.
*I realized that the precious CuO would be uselessly dispersed in the silty soil, so I went up to throw some dirt on it and it exploded in my face/hands, I think cause it avalanched out of the cup and re-exposed a Mg tidbit. Anyway, I was holding a bottle in my right hand which absorbed the brunt of it, my right hand wasn't as lucky. It ruined my Fila hoodie, my favorite ever, and my most comfy shirt under that, plus my shoes, and my (new) jeans have metal embedded in the material... its red and crusty. My hoodie stayed aflame when it went off, and I didn't know cause my eyes were burnt shut. Thank God my family was there, although my mom majorly freaked-- my face was black with skin hanging off.
*2nd degree burns on my hands/face, but thank God^9999 that I can see, I just got my eyes open this Thursday, they had started bleeding and the scabs built on themselves to a disgusting point. My lips couldn't even form a seal for over a week. Picture below, 1 1/2 weeks after. My "DANGER - NO SMOKING - FLAMMABLE GAS" sign would be more appropriate.

http://alkaspace.com/is.php?i=16829&img=SIMG0008.JPG


Lessons learned:
*Fuse goes out, don't freakin walk up to it, PERIOD.
*CuO thermite is *very* energetic.
*Always use appropriate gear: blast shield (like swat face shields), welding gloves, non-flammable clothes.
*Always have a bomb buddy

'kay, my hunt-and-peckin thumbs hurt now, so signing off, remember, share your bad experiences and hard lessons. Jeez that was long.

PS: Doctor bill for just 5 visits, only rebandaging, prescriptions and advice, is ~$700... *moan*

~
Xeno :)

[nbk2000]

You mustn't have looked very hard, since your thread was listed just a few above the thread that it is now in.

Anyways...

Either you're face is burnt to the degree that'd make the Elephant Man wince, or you learned how to use halloween makeup for a really cool costume.

Lets get a clear (not outta' focus), well-lit, closeup of the area around your eyes. That'll show if you really are injured, or if you're using stage makeup.

IF you really are injured...fuck dude....you're fucked! :eek:

But, like you said, your alive and not blind. Do you still have 10 fingers?

This serves as a warning to others who may be thinking that Thermite and other non-explosives are 'safe'. No, they're not. They're just dangerous in a different way.

UTFSE would find several videos showing how explosive Copper Oxide Thermite to be.

[Tackleberry]

Complacency can be deadly. Having done this heaps of times I was disarming a 40mm projectile by drilling through the base after removing the inert filling and then cutting the projectile in two for placement on a polished board as a trophy. After identifying that it was inert I placed it in a special vise and (fortunately) wearing safety equipment including a ballistic face mask from the EOD kit I proceded to drill out the base.
"Whats this grey stuff,?? It should be a plasticine mix.?? "
As I withdrew the drill bit the tracer compound went off in front of my face. Didnt quite crap myself but spots were in front of my face for hours.
A bit of a history check revealed that when WW2 ended all the ammo in the Northern Territory (Australia) was destroyed by burning. As a result lots of live ammo was thrown all over the place. A scrap dealer in the fifties took all the brass cases and left the projectiles on the range. Consequently a lot of projectiles were used as door stops, repainted etc. This particular projectile being one. Nothing on the projectile would have identified it as tracer. A lot more water based lubricant would have been appropriate.

[Jabir ibn Hayyan]

I have a list of injuries and close calls. None of them have damaged me enough to create an impressive story, but the fact that my accidents happen so often, and the fact that they have happened so many times is enough to make anyone wonder how much longer I can stay safe. I can’t stay lucky forever, one of these days I’m going to get a real injury, but so far I haven’t had a bed enough accident to reconsider my hobby interests, and it’s not like these accidents didn’t help me learn valuable lessons.

1. I boiled Sodium Hydroxide concentrate in a Pyrex glass. It was not borosilicate, and it shattered. The skin on my fingers dissolved, my hot plate began sparking, and I got shocked right before it died.
2. I added hot water to Sodium Hydroxide instead of cold, the bowl I was using was completely destroyed, I had minor eye damage, I got boiling water all over my hands, and I breathed in caustic fumes which was the most painful of all.
3. I made a stupid little “Work’s” bomb in a glass bottle, I shook it for too long and instead of the glass shattering the cap launched into my face along with HCL and Aluminum Chloride. I immediately ran to the shower and washed it off of my face and eyes.
4. I was grinding some aluminum on my bench grinder which I was about to put into my ball mill, turns out I grinded my hand instead. That happened several times with large amounts of flesh loss.
5. I used a large folding knife to cut open an Etch-a-Sketch and experiment with the fine aluminum resin, the knife closed on my hand resulting in severe nerve damage on my right index finger. (If I touch the top, it feels like someone is tickling the bottom.)
6. I inhaled enough aluminum powder to get sent to the hospital for a chest examination and an X-ray
7. I lit a batch of Thermite with a magnesium ribbon that was just too short, my hand was red and crispy for a week.
8. I tried to hydrolyze palm oil to retain the Palmitic acid for Napalm. I started a massive grease fire instead, couldn’t put it out, burnt my hair and face, almost burnt down my kitchen.
9. I boiled some dry baking soda in my kitchen to decompose it from sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate. I got co2 poisoning and vomited for three days.
10. I mixed several large sized boxes of steel wool with 2 gallons of bleach, and one gallon of vinegar inside a large plastic trashcan. I could barley see, or breathe. I ran away from the trashcan in fear of further chlorine gas poisoning, but by the time I got back at least I had a wonderful batch of Iron Oxide.

[Ratman2050]

I have a list of injuries and close calls. None of them have damaged me enough to create an impressive story, but the fact that my accidents happen so often, and the fact that they have happened so many times is enough to make anyone wonder how much longer I can stay safe. I can’t stay lucky forever, one of these days I’m going to get a real injury, but so far I haven’t had a bed enough accident to reconsider my hobby interests, and it’s not like these accidents didn’t help me learn valuable lessons.

1. I boiled Sodium Hydroxide concentrate in a Pyrex glass. It was not borosilicate, and it shattered. The skin on my fingers dissolved, my hot plate began sparking, and I got shocked right before it died.
2. I added hot water to Sodium Hydroxide instead of cold, the bowl I was using was completely destroyed, I had minor eye damage, I got boiling water all over my hands, and I breathed in caustic fumes which was the most painful of all.
3. I made a stupid little “Work’s” bomb in a glass bottle, I shook it for too long and instead of the glass shattering the cap launched into my face along with HCL and Aluminum Chloride. I immediately ran to the shower and washed it off of my face and eyes.
4. I was grinding some aluminum on my bench grinder which I was about to put into my ball mill, turns out I grinded my hand instead. That happened several times with large amounts of flesh loss.
5. I used a large folding knife to cut open an Etch-a-Sketch and experiment with the fine aluminum resin, the knife closed on my hand resulting in severe nerve damage on my right index finger. (If I touch the top, it feels like someone is tickling the bottom.)
6. I inhaled enough aluminum powder to get sent to the hospital for a chest examination and an X-ray
7. I lit a batch of Thermite with a magnesium ribbon that was just too short, my hand was red and crispy for a week.
8. I tried to hydrolyze palm oil to retain the Palmitic acid for Napalm. I started a massive grease fire instead, couldn’t put it out, burnt my hair and face, almost burnt down my kitchen.
9. I boiled some dry baking soda in my kitchen to decompose it from sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate. I got co2 poisoning and vomited for three days.
10. I mixed several large sized boxes of steel wool with 2 gallons of bleach, and one gallon of vinegar inside a large plastic trashcan. I could barley see, or breathe. I ran away from the trashcan in fear of further chlorine gas poisoning, but by the time I got back at least I had a wonderful batch of Iron Oxide.

Sigh. These are are careless mistakes, not accidents. Your are very very lucky to be in enough health to be posting on here. Anyways, take more care, some of these seem like a k3wl trying to gain awe here.

However, about the nerve ending, I was shot with a bb gun through my hand, almost paralyzed my hand, I get that same tickling feeling.

[UnderConstruction]

I haven't really done enough yet to have made any notable mistakes, I used to get a lot of H2O2 burns using 35% conc., and once I was almost scared shitless when the burner was flipped on in a room filled with acetone fumes.

Jabir-
That's a cool name by the way, I got the Alchemical Works of Geber a few months ago.

[Rbick]

Damn Jabir! Are you scarred for life from any of those incidents? I can't imagine your face looking normal after having HCl and Aluminum Chloride sprayed all over it.

I've already posted a couple times on this thread, but another good one was the time I almost blew myself up with 400g of ANFO. It was a dry time during the summer some years back and I had buried a 400g charge of ANFO w/ 50g booster about 20cm under ground. Cap was probably 1g AP if I remember correctly. The charge was just for fun, as I was bored and wanted to see something explode.

Anyway, I lit the fuse, or at least tried to. It was a crappy fuse I had been storing for quite some time, several years or so. It was about 8 inches in length. So the tall, dry grass started on fire before the fuse did. It didn't seem like a problem at first, since I figured the ANFO blast would blow it out. After about a minute, the flames were getting fairly large and the charge still hadn't gone off. The flames had burned all the grass around the charge and started to move towards the house. I left my cover and ran to stomp out the flames before the fire department had to get involved, which has happened before.

Everyone can guess what happened next, the charge went off about 20 ft. away from me. In the midst of trying to put out the flames, I didn't realize how close I had gotten to it. So I was pelted by large pieces of dirt and my ears were ringing for days. I have to admit, it was kind of cool feeling the pressure from the blast, but it was a DUMB mistake. I recovered and successfully extinguished the flames. What I learned: Use a higher quality fuse, or electric firing system (one of which I just recently invested in), and clean anything that may catch fire away from the charge.

[joffe]

I've made one major mistake that nearly cost me my life. I was supervising what turned out to be a complete moron in the preparation and placement of non-electric firing systems. He prepared a fairly standard charge with detonating cord, primed in both ends. But what I didn't notice (but should have) was that one of the fuzes was more than half a meter longer than the other. And when the charge went off, we approached the site and when we got pretty close a second explosion occured. I was hit in the leg by a large wooden splinter that severed the main artery - if the plinter hadn't stuck I would have bled to death in a very short time. The idiot had bent the cord which was cut and the delayed fuze fired the remaining charge. Well, I should have checked more closely and that's a mistake that I never repeated. Never saw the idiot again, by the way.

[Rbick]

I'm curious as to how that went over with the authorities, although I'm assuming you're licensed or in the military as you had what I imagine to be commercial det cord. If this incident was job related, is this the reason why you never saw him again? Because he was fired? Even if it was for leisure, I wouldn't talk to somebody again after something like that.

Could you describe the charge again, I'm a bit confused. If it was primed at both ends, how did it fail? Were you using shock tube?

[joffe]

Yup, I was in the military, but not your military. It was a ring main with five branch lines, each one connected to a 250 gram TNT charge (I'll never forget the number of charges). Primed with a non-electric blasting cap in each end. He must have made mistake at the U-turn. I don't blame him for that - it's happend to me a couple of times. So there were either 500 or 750 grams that was set off in the second explosion.

He was offered a hefty fine (somewhat similar to your plea-bargains) which he accepted - he'd be a fool not to. I didn't have to show up in court - the police and the military enquiry commission just took my statment from the hospital bed when I was out of surgery. He was then transferred to some God-forsaken place for the rest of his service.

Myself, I spent 3 weeks in hospital. I have a nice circular scar that really looks like a bullet wound. I sometimes tell people I had an encounter with the business end of an AK-47.

[darkhunterjag]

A little back story before I go into my worse accident. I have a cat that likes to be a nosy little thing and it interrupts me a majority of the time by walking into the middle of what I am working on. Now onto what I was going to contribute.

I was emptying shotgun shells for the black powder and placing it in a container on a counter. I get a phone call in the other room and being the scatterbrained person I am I went ot answer it. It was a simple 5 minute the girlfriend is coming over call. That meant to me "Get your stuff in order and hide stuff."

I go back to where I was and the cat is on the counter. Good old Coon Cat. She knocked the black powder down to the ground all over the kitchen floor. There goes about a good hour of work. I damn near killed the cat right there but she ran and hid.

Fast forward to me cleaning all the black powder I see, girl comes over, and the Friday Night date is over and done with. I got into the kitchen when I get back and I'm tired so I go to bed. I wake up the next morning and turn on a burner to fry an egg. Few seconds and the burner goes up and kind of sets the wood counter near it on fire. I shut the burner off and somehow get the fire under control and put it out before my house burned down.

Black powder had fallen into the burner and me being stupid never saw it. I still have burn scars on my left hand from putting that fire out.

[tmp]

As a teenager I underestimated the sensitivity. Took a long time for the
eyebrows to grow back but no other injuries. Haven't worked with that shit
ever since !

[Charles Owlen Picket]

....It was a ring main with five branch lines, each one connected to a 250 gram TNT charge.... That's why we "generally" don't use non-electric on multiples (and mostly Nonel). Strange deal.... :( Femoral artery injuries are really very nasty.

[joffe]

My Army (I left several years ago) are using Nonel more and more. But the classical ring main is still very much in use. Sappers (probably the only MOS worth having) are taught the ring main before they're taught Nonel systems. It's probably a question about economy. Nonel is still pretty expensive compared to the detonating cord. Is it correct that the old non-electric blasting cap is no longer produced in the US?

Yes, it was a close call. If it weren't for the splinter that was stuck in the wound and the ambulance that alwas had to be present during demolitions exercises, I wouldn't be writing this.

[Charles Owlen Picket]

To the best of my limited knowledge; the last mfg was surplus from Atlas that was bought up by a distributer working with a company called Hodgen (who makes cannister powder and is last American manufacturer of "Visco" fuse). They exist but are not being manufactured, per se'.

In the US the detonators that one sees commercially are emblazoned with numbers and codes to an almost laughable degree. They have embossing and stamping of codes that delineate the manufacturer's date of mfg, who used what machine, what shift, and who handled the packaging. This is to prevent diversion of the product naturally, but served to make an object that costs pennies and sold once for several to a dollar.....to a cost of several dollars per unit!

Fuse caps are difficult to plaster with all the codes and such. Now you see detonators that have a little non-removable brightly coloured plastic housing more to hold all the codes and written crap than to make them visible! The days of the simple tube, closed at one end packaged in boxes of a thousand are gone. Today they are mostly sold by the half dozen and dozen on an individual basis. And if a firm wants to use a great deal of them they come in a shipping container that could hold a sea-chest & costs a fortune! Commercial firms are encouraged to use other means of individual initiation than multiple caps.

[joffe]

Thank you. Even worse than I fearerd. Last time I picked up a non-electric blasting cap, it was marked with the number "8" in the closed end as in a "number 8 blasting cap", and that was all the markings I found.

[Charles Owlen Picket]

This is a fun subject for me and I have some strong opinions about public project engineering.... There are Nonel fit caps. They have a clear tube on the end and a join-section for the tube. I imagine that they could be called "a non-electric" but they cost a ridiculous amount of money. I still get a magazine called Explosive Engineer that has all the latest crap in it and the prices seem like someone doesn't want to sell a God damn thing!

The issue is that these companies know that the projects are all either publicly funded or so steeply bid (like a building demo) that they can get away with pricing stuff at a ridiculous level. The explos. industry took a serious hit when the public found ammonium nitrate. They sought to make their money back and actually invented slurries as a way of inflating the price of fert-grade ammonium nitrate (DuPont's "Blast Grade" is BS that has been cooked non-coated prills that cost LESS than the fertilizer grade stuff!!!!!). Since they generally sold to people who also needed to inflate the bottom line, they got away with slick page ads for brightly packaged "sausages" of super-duper "heaving explosives". The "line" was "you need a certain type of "push" to do that work that only baloney slurry can accomplish"....and people wanted to believe it.

Qualified engineers knew that work was work and that only in mining did the break-up of rock for a pre-determined size really matter & that could be accomplished cheaply. But it made good ad copy and inflated the bottom line. What's more, the companies couldn't charge for BP blasting anymore as it became more of an art form that few found in schools.

If you have a professional background in that sort of thing and still enjoy it go to the ISEE web site and look at the book sections. Get on mailing lists and get the magazines....they send them for free anyway......as who knows, you might be a good "in" to a fat contract somewhere. <grin> It's fun. And all that crap is free anyway; no one would pay for it.

[joffe]

Thank you for the link. I hold both military and civilian blasting certificates, but, unfortunately, ex-army sappers aren't much sought after on the civilian blasting market. This is mostly due to the fact that we're not considered to be economical enough. In other words, civilian companies believe we use too much explosives - and they're right! So I when I left the Army, I found different work. But boy, do I want to get back in business!

Things seem to be better in Europe though. With the expanded EU, British, French, Swedish and German manufacturers have got competition from Polish and Czech explosives manufacturers.

[deformedreality]

I only have a few accidents that involved chemicals and such. When I was in college in a metal and jewelry working class some dumb bitch turned the crock pots of acid on to high of a temperature (we only needed it slightly warm, if its too hot it will eat the metals very quickly) well i was just finishing up a solid gold coin that I just finished casting and needed to clean up a few spots so i threw it in the acid. Soon after i realised there was a brownish yellow fumes coming off of it so i quickly grabbed the tongs and pulled my piece out. Dyed a few of my fingers yellow for a month.

Ever since a young age my brother would teach me how to make things such as flash powder inside a hunting arrow with a primer and a piece of a nail glued to the end. He was very thorough on things and taught me to be the same way. The only accidents involving explosives were always done to my friends. Such as sticking a lit match inside a bottle full of black powder and getting burned under the fingernails really bad. It seems like people get hurt when makeshift ignition sources are used because they are in too much of a hurry to do things the right way.

[Anformula]

When I was a kid I tried to turn a Ruger 10-22 into full auto. With hand files and a drill I tried to make a small piece out of aluminum that locked the sear disconnect. Really moronic, crude stuff.

So, like an idiot I did not test it with one or two rounds in the magazine. I loaded a full 20 round clip, lock and load, and pull the trigger.

It DOES go full auto, for 5 or 6 rounds. Then a round goes off when halfway chambered, blows the magazine out of the rifle, and sprays a load of shrapnel from the case out the ejection port. No injuries resulted, but man I felt like a moron.....rightly so.....:p

[totenkov]

A friend of mine who isn't the most intelligent of people dipped a wooden match up to the head in MEKP and then gave it to his friend to light as a funny "joke". Severely mangled his index and middle finger, they still are all messed up cause bone became so mangled.

[Rbick]

Wow, if someone blew my fingers off because they thought it would be funny to have me light a match dipped in MEKP, I would take my severed fingers and shove them up their ass. Stories like that piss me off. No offense totenkov.

[Positron]

I once ground up a black-powder based "C" rocket engine when I was very young. I thought I'd be the smart and stay away from whatever the hell would happen when I lit it; so I used a magnifying glass and sunlight to ignite it instead of a match. That got my hand an entire 4 inches away. That was far enough, right?

A few sparklies, then a big orange fireball rapidly approaching my face. Closed my eyes, and felt flame over my entire body. Involuntarily threw myself backwards into a patch of clover. Stood up expecting to be on fire...I wasn't...so took a deep burned-hair-smell breath of relief and brushed myself off.

My right hand felt funny, so I looked down to see melted skin sliding around on the back of my fingers.

3rd degree. I kept it directly in ice-water for a couple of days to keep the pain away; it worked incredibly well. Nights were a bitch.

If I removed my hand from the glass of ice water, it was 30 seconds before tears from an intense burning and stinging sensation. When under the water, I didn't feel a thing. Pretty amazing I thought.

Cause of accident: Dumb kid didn't realize the power of what he was dealing with.

Haven't been hurt since.

[sbovisjb1]

Being shot at outside the French Hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by Rebels.

[Masonjar Chemist]

Cause of accident: Dumb kid didn't realize the power of what he was dealing with.

Haven't been hurt since.

I did then same when trying to cast KNSU mix a few years back. I know exactly what you mean by the water thing, amazing isn't it?

Other than that, I had an accident similar to Rbick's involving ANFO, only it never did detonate, but caught half of a field on fire.

[Hightimes]

Well I have done some stupid! things, well I tried to dry NC in front of a heater for one, I burned a hole in the carpet.

Had another close call with my first attempt at making nitroglycerin, as I was walking away I herd a fizzing noise then a HEAP of nitrogen dioxide came off the beaker.

Also I have had a few grams of Acetone peroxide go off in my face,
stupid mistakes that could of been avoided or could of been a lot worse

[Azido]

The worst accident I ever had wasn't related to explosives at all in fact. I was boiling a toy soldier in oil when I was smaller, and as little budding idiots do, I go t distracted. I came back to find over half a liter of oil had begun to boil, then burn. I was terrified, and I had planned to go throw it outside, but I was afraid of spilling it.
The solution at the time? Douse it with water!
I turned the cold tap on full blast while holding the pot.
The resultant fireball towered over me, toasted my hand, and scattered oil droplets everywhere. Scary.

[Gammaray1981]

BP, plus about 1/5 part of KClO4, got me at about age seven. I lost my fringe, my eyebrows, and all the skin off the thumb-side of my right hand - I picked out quickmatch rather than slowmatch. It took about a half-second to travel the twelve inches from lighter in hand to the ten-or-so grams of piled mixture. I was, I think, lucky to keep my eyesight.

Thankfully, my father saw the funny side of it, and didn't end my home education in these things.

I still, thirteen years later, have a section of my right hand that stays white for a few seconds if pressed.

Oddly enough, I then started labelling my fuse in coloured electrical tape.