Thermite Incendiary Fountain; A Hot Idea!

[2,4,6-TNP]

After thumbing through my TM 31-201-1 U.S. Army Incendiaries Manual
and also reading through some related threads I was disenheartened that such a hot reaction as thermite is so difficult to use as an incendiary in
the sense that it is difficult to spread it around to cover larger areas( At least this is the view Iv'e taken from what I read and tried.
Well anyway here is the Hot Idea:

I propose to invent a device described as a length of steel pipe with a cap on one end and a special filler consisting of pressed thermite pellets(around 5mm in diameter) in combination with a type of first fire mix/propellant that would burn hot enough to ignite the thermite pellets and that will at the same time produce enough expanding gases to eject the pellets from the tube to a range of between 4 and 25 Ft. so as to create a blanket of burning thermite pellets. The hope is that this ejection of burning thermite pellets will last for several seconds or minutes to provide enough time and heat to cause wood and other combustibles to ignite and burn. It would function sort of like a fireworks fountain but used in a horizontal position.

Things I like about this idea is that there is no liquid accelerants to deal with and the steel pipe would be heavy enough to go through a couple panes of glass when thrown at a window. And a cap could be fitted on the other end of the device wich would make it waterproof and good for long storage.

What I need help with is coming up with a special propellant that would ignite the thermite pellets and eject them a long distance. Any Ideas anyone?

[cyclonite4]

Thats quite a nice idea you have and im sure it would generate enough heat to ignite materials in the local area. :)

From what I've heard a sugar/chlorate mixture can ignite thermite, however im not sure if it would be a suitable propellant. Maybe a coating of sugar/chlorate on the pellets, and a blackpowder propellant might work.

[knowledgehungry]

A slow burning flash powder should do the trick. You also might want to coat the thermite pellets with a layer of flash or other easily ignitable, hot-burning substance to increase reliability of ignition.

[nbk2000]

A thermite firing roman candle. :)

[K9]

Well thermite stars would definitely be interesting. They would just need one hell of a prime.

[FinnBell]

Can you imagine the insane amount of lawsuits that would ensue if a company made thermite stars or thermite roman candles?? lol It would be sweet though.

[A-BOMB]

Thermite stars, I had a topic(or was it a post? cant remember) a while ago about they new incendiary blocks I make. They are pretty much just a mix of thermate, bound with a NC, sulphur, Mg, mix that I soften with acetone then inject into this special icecube tray(the trays that make the icecube that you can fit into a water bottle). I mainly made these blocks for a "thermite flamethrower rifle" I was making(shelved the project). Though a rapid fire thermite roman candle sound alot more simple and cheaper.
Heres a pic of a handfull, I'll see if I can find the formula for them tommorrow.

[xyz]

You could inject them into a modified sinker-mold (used for molding fishing sinkers). Just remove the little bar that makes the hole through the sinker and you have a mold for some nice, uniformly sized, round stars.

[Boomer]

Or leave the hole for better priming?

You could slightly enlarge it and fill it with NC bound flash, then coat the whole star with the same mix and let dry. If the dried flash layer is still too fast, you could add powdered sparklers to the mix.

BTW they make a hot fountain on themselves, but miss the flying "fire balls". The above starts could be mixed in ...

[hereno]

Just use CuO thermite to spread Fe2O3 thermite stars. With molten copper splatting on them you wont need a prime. If CuO/Al needs to be slowed, mix with a conventional pyro comp.

[2,4,6-TNP]

Dear members thanks for all your replies.

After talking with a friend about my idea he thought that the thermite pellets were a good idea and said I should use Silicone Rubber mixed with powdered aluminum and potassium chlorate/perchlorate or sodium nitrate as an oxidizer. He said that I could buy Silicon rubber in a liquid form at hobby stores and I could just thoroughly mix the thermite, rubber, aluminum, and oxidizer and let the rubber solidify in the tube after placing a fuse in it. When I asked him why I should use rubber he said he heard that it has been used in experimental space shuttles with good results. So it seems it would be a good propellant and the aluminum supposedly would provide the heat for igniting the thermite. Well any way before I go out and spend any more money on this project would some of you tell me if you think my friends idea is workable. If not any more suggestions on binders if I do use a flash powder.

[Doug]

The standard mix for flash powder is powdered aluminium + potassium perchlorate or chlorate. That's what you're mixing with the rubber.

I couldn't believe it when I saw this thread - this is something I was about to start work on. I was intending using dextrin as a binder. I will let you know the results when I get a chance to let it off somewhere.

[knowledgehungry]

You can also but 100% silicone caulk. It works great as a binder, I used to use the caulk and mix it with KMnO4 and Al to make these rubbery balls that I could light and toss, it made an amazing bright white/light purple flare. I also coat the ends(the ones inside the tube) of my fuses for M-80's with it to ensure ignition of my rather substandard flash mixture.

[2,4,6-TNP]

I'm going ahead with my friends advice after all I found a pretty cheap source for silicon rubber and there is plenty of time to mix things up before the rubber solidifies. I will be using sodium nitrate first as I have more of it than chlorate, I'll post my results when I can get things finished.

[Crazy Swede]

The idea of using silicone rubber sounds very strange! What would you gain from that?

My guess is that the silicone/pyro-mix will be so slow burning that your thermite pellets will not leave the tube!

Silicone rubber can be an effective fuel together with ammonium perchlorate, but it will only burn fast under elevated pressure.

It is easy to eject pieces of thermite, there are many effective ways to do that. What is difficult is to ignite the pieces and keep them lit while traveling through the air and also insure that they do not extinguish on impact with the ground.

Hot and thick prime is probably the easiest solution.

Finally, using a steel pipe for experiments like this is really asking for trouble!!

[2,4,6-TNP]

The reason for using silicon rubber is it is both an excellent fuel and binder at the same time. By adding powdered aluminum in combination with the optimum amount of oxidizer the reaction mixture combustes much more rapidly than with out the aluminum. I attribute this to the heat produced by the aluminum. As more heat is evolved the reaction will speed up as well.
Of course silicon rubber is not the only option I just thought it an interesting possibility for my early experiments! I will be spending some time now searching for patents that relate to this idea that have been used in military operations perhaps or in some other compacity.

[Dr.K]

nice idea, couldent you coat the thermite stars in a Mg powder mix with something friction sensitive compounds on the outside, and then make the tube like a shotgun kinda..A flaming-thermite-pellet-shotgun thing:D