Accidents and Legal Incidents

[Pu239 Stuchtiger]

It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to have a thread on the subject of accidents, and run-ins with the law. Stories about others would also be a good idea to share. Please share anything you have on this subject.

As for me:
Accidents: Once, due to someone moving glassware around in my lab without informing me, I grabbed a graduated cylinder that I thought to be completely clean; instead, it turned out that it contained liquid methyl ethyl ketone peroxide. I proceeded to pour in concentrated sulfuric acid, which was promptly ejected into my face. Thanks to having memorized emergency plans to the point at which they were automatic, there was no permanent injury. This accident was not my fault; I can't be expected to inspect every piece of glassware before use with a fucking microscope to make sure that it hasn't been switched with a dirty piece of glassware over the course of a covert laboratory re-organization operation.

Legal Troubles: none.

<small>[ May 10, 2002, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: Pu239 Stuchtiger ]</small>

[PYRO500]

For starters you should not allow anyone access to your lab, I know this sounds harsh but it is never a good idea to have anyone in your lab especially when you are working unless they are helping and they know exactly what they are doing. as for glassware, you should not leave chemichals out of their original containers and you should keep al unused glassware in a storage area. I keep my round flasks and such in foam rubber cases and never leave them out. My veakers and stuff are on drying flasks and I always make sure they are clean before use.

[0EZ0]

Hmm accidents eh?

Well here is one of mine:

I once became fascinated with hydrogen. This one time i filled up a balon halfway with it and inflated the rest by blowing into it(yes stupid i know). I tied some (what i thought was metho soaked wool, but was actually petrol soaked) wool to the baloon and secured it to a rock. It did not need too much to hold it seeing as the air in the baloon weighed it down. Then with a smug grin on my face i struck a match and held it to the wool. The flame flashed up the wool and BOOOOMFF! Luckily i had receeded my hand as soon as the was lit. My 'friend' shall i say was rolling on the ground laughing his arse off. :mad: The prick had soaked my wool in petrol instead of the instructed metho! :mad:
The only battle scars i ended up with was loss of some hair on an arm and a crushed ego. If i had of kept my arm, with the lit match, up to the wool any longer i might have had more substantial injuries.

Now safety is certainly my no. 1 priority. I don't trust anyone but myself with anything i make.

<small>[ May 10, 2002, 09:35 PM: Message edited by: 0EZ0 ]</small>

[Pu239 Stuchtiger]

Thought I should clarify: I didn't want that person in my lab. She happens to live in my house, and did it without permission.

(edit: whoops, wrong smiley)

<small>[ May 10, 2002, 09:59 PM: Message edited by: Pu239 Stuchtiger ]</small>

[Rat Bastard]

a while back I almost lost sight in one eye. I was lighting some scraps of visco ( I had just swiped some fuze from a firework and had some scraps left) the visco had a chunk of BP stuck to it. When I lit it the fuze, It flew into my face, missing my eye by an inch.

[BoB-]

When I still lived on the farm with my dad, I filled an improvised grenade with Ammonpulver and set out to "test" it in a gopher hole, the fuse I used was blackmatch type, and unfortunatly was much faster than I anticipated, I managed to get the device to the ground in a desperate girlish flailing motion, but it exploded before I had a chance to do anthing.

I was hit in the stomach and my left knee pretty much disintigrated,
The PVC didnt show up on X-ray, so the doctor had to use forceps and a scalpel to "dig" the peices out.

I still walk funny.

Luckily in that tiny Virginia hick town most of the cops knew me and my family, so I never got in trouble for it.

[DBSP]

I once got shrapnell from a 30-06 case filled fith DB-smokless powder.
The fucker got shorted and blew before I was behind cover. I got a piece of brass about 1,5cm2 stuck into my arm about 3cm beneath my hand. It had got stuck between the two bones in my arm so it took about an hour for the doctor to get it out. It missed the larger blood vessel in the arm with about 1cm. I told the doctor that I had fallen in a scrap yard and plunged my hand into a pile of rubbish. They didn't suspect anything.

I got away with a 5cm scar and the inconveniance of having my arm covered in .....I haven't got the word for it, but you know what I mean, the shit they put on your arm when you have broken it.
I allmost missed the firs hunting day because of it but I ripped it off myself so that I could shoot properly.

[xoo1246]

What can be learned by this? Use proper fuse or electrical ignition maybe. I haven't had any accidents. Although accidents can be good, if you survive them, you learn yourself a leason.

[mr.evil]

i had an accident once, but not in the lab:

on New Years eve i maked some AP crackers(about 3grams) all of them were setted off by adding Glycerine to KMnO4, but one didn't go off, so i putted a fuse into the straw filled with AP, putted it on the ground, lighted the fuse and run... after 1second: BOOOOOOAAAAAAM: There were some tiny little pieces of AP on the fuse, i'm glad i didn't lighted the Cracker in my hand :rolleyes:

So again; Never play with AP, if you must; use electrical ignition or a very long fuse

(sorry for my shitty english)

[A_W]

Most of my accidents has occurred with nitric acid. I was making cellulosenitrate on our very small veranda (or porch?). As I didn`t have a respirator, I had to step insiside to avoid the HNO3 fumes, while watching it the whole time from the window. I looked away for a little while. I then heared a fizzing sound from outside. I opened the door, and got quite a shock. Red gas was pouring from the beaker. I didn`t know what this was, so I tried to lift the cellulose from the beaker (with tongs). It was stuck, so I had to throw the whole beaker into the woods.

The gas smelled almost like chlorine, and it took some time to find that it actually was a lethal gas, and that I`m lucky to be alive. I have now disposed of my acids.

<small>[ May 11, 2002, 11:37 AM: Message edited by: A_W ]</small>

[Cricket]

Ohhh boy :rolleyes: , accients... Nothing serious for me, but a lot of little stuff.

Once I found out that a large pistol primer fits great inside of my .22 pellet gun. A while after that it broke and I kept the barrel and scraped that rest. I thought it would make a neat little blow gun and so I shot a primer out of it at a steel pipe I was holding infront of me and then andvil of it, when it exploded, stuck in my skin about an inch under my eye. I was scared.

When I first got into making AP, all I could do (no fuze) was put a very small bit inside of a 1/4" ID steel pipe and light it want it would go crack (and that smell :) ). So I did that all day long for about a week while watching TV and such. Then I lost my pipe (fell in the couch) and so I tried a straw (risky and stupid I know). It worked (with slightly less anyway :) ). So then I was taking a dump the next day and seemed to have put in a bit too much, and it exploded the end of the straw. It folded a small slivers of plastic in half and stuck it in my fingers (couple places) and, unfortunately, I cought a piece in my nuts (ouch!). It didn't penetrate or anything, thank God!

Another time, I tried to make a very small (under 50 ml) batch of AP and weigh it and get all the stats of it (how much liquid makes how much AP). Something went wrong and it made an astonishing amount of HCl gas. So I put on my gas mask and it helped some and then someone on the room next to me (my asshole brother) got a lot of it too. He called the cops and everything. I hid all my stuff in this abandoned house next to me. The next day at school, the police chief and a BATF agent showed up and questioned me and I gave them the "I would perfur to speak to my lawyer before I say anything sir." bull shit like 10 times and then theyt just left. Heard nothing after that :) . I was really scared. The night before I dumped all my HCl and 27% H2O2 in a ditch in the woods (poor fish :().

I got a half way done 27% H2O2 batch of AP in my eye. I was right by the sink so I washed it out and I actually seemed to see better out of that eye afterwards (feed this to the KEVVLS).

I got my first mortar (legal stuff, fireworks) any noticed the shells didn't fit good at all. I chopped the fuze to about 1.5" and wraped the shell with electrical tape to make a good fit. My friends told me it was short and I said ohhhh what ever (I didn't know it, but the visco on mortars burns very fast). I was holding it almost in the tube, but with the fuze exposed. My friend touched it off with his cigarette and exactly then I droped it and before it hit the bottom of the tube, BOOOOMMMMMMMM (nice powerful shockwave on my face :) ). It went like 2 times as high as it was supposed to! Later that day I thought I should I should add a bit extra power to the shell so after I wrapped it with tape I put in a half of a spoon full of AP. The fuze hit the AP well before the propellant. It shot it about 3 feet in the air and the tube was like a tube of opened biscits, unrolled. Then the shell exploded in my front yard and set many small fires. A week later I was in the country at my grandmothers and noticed the fishing pole holders on the end of the dock. I took one off and took the base off my mortar and it fit nice and tight in there. It had a hole in the back though, about half os big as a pincel. So I had a mortar gun, in the middle of a forest, in hot dry Oklahoma. I set well over 15 fires on accident. I got them all out though. The biggest happened like this, I was fishing in the boat (mostly with firecrackers) and I saw a big turtle 40 yards away. I shot a mortar at him and it went about 30 feet over his head and into a two week old cut field of dry grass. I couldn't paddle fast enough to get there so I jumped out and swam there and by the time I got there it was a good 20 feet wide. I was wet so I rolled around in it and got it out. While I was there I did a bit of yard work, I had a 10 foot high, 20 foot wide pile of trees and brush. I made 5 gallons of napalm (using all the styrofoam at the lake :) ). I climbed on top of the pile and poured it all in the middle. I made a torch with this stuff and light it and threw it in there. It made the most beautiful black and redish mushroom cloud ever (the pine needles and napalm really burned good). Not an accidnet I know, just thought I would share the experience.

Thats all I can remember. I am surprised, some of you have gotten some nasty shrapnel wounds and stuff. I always just get small stuff, luckily

[S. Toppholzer]

rolling yourself in the fire? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

[Wicked]

This one time, I was playin around with some black powder, and my friend was smokein a siggy, well I had the bp in what he thought was an ashtray, all my shit burned up, it was nasty as hell. We darted for the resperators and tryed to get the tourchs out and shit, but we forgot a can,,,,,,, there is now a really big hole in my backyard, and grass will not grow there for a really long time. I also cought a nail through the leg. :mad:

[Cricket]

Ahh, shit. Funny, but sad too. Yea, I rolled in the fire, but I was all wet from swimming there (couldn't paddle the boat fast enough, my really fat friend was in there with me and we only had one paddle and $80 of fireworks :) ).

<small>[ May 11, 2002, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: Cricket ]</small>

[W_S]

Well, me and a few friends were in one of their garage and we had some low grade flash powder and made some small salutes by duck tapind two pop bottle lids together. we took this and put it in a small toolbox just do deflect the schrapnel. lit it, closed the lid, boom, the box exploded throwing the lid up to the cieling and leaving a mangled pile of metal on the floor. on closer inspection, the metal was all rippled on the bottom where the firecracker had been. No-one injured, no legal troubles, just a mangled toolbox.

<small>[ May 13, 2002, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: W_S ]</small>

[Polverone]

I had a nice Zippo lighter destroyed when a friend used it to light a pile of acetone peroxide he was holding in his hand. We'd noticed that the powder, when damp and in small quantities, just burnt superfast. So fast that it wouldn't harm bare skin. But while attempting to impress someone with this trick he poured a little too much in his hand. And it wasn't as damp as it should have been. So there was a great "BOOM!" and my lighter fell to the ground while he doubled over with his hand clutched between his legs. I was really scared - afraid that he'd maybe lost fingers. He was temporarily deafened, but the skin on his hand was just barely broken. The hand was bruised all the way through, though, like someone had whacked it with a rubber mallet. The top of the Zippo was mangled.

I destroyed a porcelain mortar with acetone peroxide on New Years' Day 1995. I was attempting to crush small amounts of it inside my freshly washed mortar. I went to dump the contents out and suddenly there was an orange flash and "BOOM!" and porcelain chunks all over my bedroom. My hand didn't really take any of the blast. It was bizarre, it felt like the mortar had just decided to fall apart in my hands. I think the explosion occurred because I had washed the mortar in hot water and hadn't waited for it to cool.

And, of course, there was the disaster that claimed the dominant hand of one of my friends. He was attempting to use acetone peroxide deflagrations to produce fireballs for a school play. While practicing, fire leapt from one of his small devices into the glass mortar of acetone peroxide held in his hand. The explosion mangled his hand. He nearly bled to death. The shockwave drove his pants against his legs at high speed, so that curious gaps were formed beneath the flesh (only discovered later, when injected painkiller started leaking back out of his legs). He and another nearby student suffered temporary hearing damage. The morning after the accident, everyone at the school who had been involved in pyrochemistry (there were at least 6 of us) got a visit from the bomb squad. They took my acetone peroxide for disposal. Oddly, they seemed to know hardly anything about improvised explosives. They didn't know of acetone peroxide, they wanted to know how I'd prepared it, and they seemed to think that when I said the HCl was a catalyst I meant that it made the finished product burn faster. This incident sharply curtailed my interest in hobby chemistry until this last summer, when the bug bit me again. This time I'm better informed, better funded, and more cautious than before.

I have the shards of my broken mortar, the mangled Zippo, and a newspaper clipping about my friend's accident all stored together in a box to remind me of the potential danger of explosives.

It's not just explosions that are hazardous. I've borderline-poisoned myself with H2S (could no longer smell the gas and started to feel dizzy and shaky). I've induced an asthma attack in my roommate when I accidentally evaporated some phenol indoors. I've made HCN in the bathroom when a synthesis worked rather better than expected. I've gassed the yard with ammonia, NO2, N2O3, and chlorine. I've stained floors with picric acid and toilets with prussian blue. I've discolored my skin with picric acid, iodine, potassium permanganate, silver nitrate, and hydrogen peroxide. I once inhaled (during lab cleaning without a dust mask) enough copper compounds to turn my snot a brilliant blue-green. I've prepared hydrogen fluoride without a fume hood or respirator. I've burnt various bits of hair off my body on more than one occasion. I've broken glassware from too-rapid heating and too-rapid cooling. When I was in elementary school, practically every day after school and all weekend long my clothes carried the smells of sulfur and combustion. I've burned out electrical equipment, made capacitors explode, and permanently discolored 2 televisions and one Commodore 64 computer monitor.

Curiosity hasn't killed this cat yet, but I wouldn't rule it out permanently.

[BrAiNFeVeR]

I feel real sorry for your Zippo lighter :rolleyes:

I only had 1 serious accident, I prepared a fairly large amount of AP (20 grams or so, didn't weigh it), and it was drying in my lab, while I was doing some KClO3 + H2SO4 experiments.

As soon as the H2SO4 was poured over the KClO3, it started to bubble and make all these little explosions. As a natural reaction I took a few steps back (luckily), and just at that moment, some conc. H2SO4 + KClO3 got on the pile of nearly dry AP.

The result was a huge blast, a bit of glass equipement was broken (no precious chems where lost), serious temporary deafness, some scratches from pieces of flying plastic in my face and my lab covered in KNO3 (the filterpaper full of AP was on box of KNO3)
And of course my mom screaming and all exited and shit, I told her it was more noise then anythingelse, and I think she bought it :)

Even now I still hear this high tone (12 to 15 KHz) when I'm in a quiet place, sometimes louder, sometimes hardly audible ... real weird !!

Anyway, after this accident I enlarged my lab with seperate working area, chem storing place and drying area, so that these things can no longer happen.

I strongly discourage anyone storing more then 10 grams of AP in one place, and I now only make it as needed and in sub 5 gram quantities ...

[PYRO500]

I don't think you or your friends should touch or make any kind of explosive, you seem to lack common sense. I just used an SCR the size of a hockey puck to switch a 2Kj capacitor bank into my coilgun, the coild was made of telephone wire and got VERY hot and after a few shots it found a shortcut through the coil (carbonized insulation) and it burst into smoke while firing and it got stuck to my fiberglass tube barrel witch I had to scrape off.

[Polverone]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"> I don't think you or your friends should touch or make any kind of explosive, you seem to lack common sense.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Was that directed at me? I will agree that we were ill-informed and reckless back in my high school freshman year with the acetone peroxide (when all the AP incidents I described happened). I had been used to pyrotechnics for quite some time and had little sense of the new danger.

Considering that I listed every incident that I could think of from 14 years of amateur chemistry, starting when I was 7 years old (with a major break between high school freshman and college sophomore), I think my overall safety record is pretty good. I always work small & manageable, so I can learn from mistakes instead of suffering from them. I may eventually be blindsided by the unexpected, but I accept that as a risk of my hobby.

[A-BOMB]

Let me see I've shocked myself with my supertazer just last week. I was ajusting it and it still had the battery in it and it started shocking me so much that my hand sqenched around it and I couldn't let it go and it kept on shocking me till the battery ran out of juice (about 8 minuets) and damn did that hurt like a mother! Then I burnt all my eyelashes and eyebrowes off and a 1/4 of the hair off my head when I looked over a fountain that had I have found out on the street. Then awhile ago I had a fire in my lab (I'll put a pic in of my new and inproved lab in later) which burn all of my glassware and chemicals :( :( Then I had a table spoon of molten lead on my leg and gave myself a 1.5" theird degree burns the top layer of skin burnt off and the layers below it turned into one big blister and it hurt like a mutha fucka.

And todays funny Bombshock quote:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"> PYRO-LIFE whats wrong with u? U think HN03 is nitrik acid! Donts you know that HN03 is hydrogen nitrate! Donts you know any thinks abouts !!!ANARCHY!!! Thinkinges like thert will get you killaed U lame-arse counterterrorist huxor! </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">And that concludes todays kewl Bombshock quotes.
stay tuned for tomomarrows episode!

[mongo blongo]

I have had no nasty accidents yet but I have a few close shaves.

The first time I made Lead Azide- I had made a batch of around 2g and was going to test it. I took a very small amount of it (about a quarter of the size of a BB) and put a match to it and made a loud crack sound. Next I took about 1g and realized I had no fuze and didn't want to waste an electric ignitor. I folded a piece of paper and put 1g at the end of the fold and put a line of crushed match heads down the rest of the fold as the fuze. As soon as I ignited the match heads, a gust of wind blew the flame in the direction of the Lead Azide and turned the fuze into a 1 second fuze. I had just enough time to stand up and BOOOMB! Bits of the stone ground hit me in the face and I lost my hearing in one ear for a day.
I didn't expect it to be quite that powerful and I have always been very careful with that explosive ever since.

Another time on guy falks night two years ago I was entertaining my friends with numerous things. One in particular were some BIG flash powder crackers. One of my friends was filming the night so I have this recorded but I have no way to get it on computer. :(
Anyways, we found a Leprechaun soft toy and stuffed one of the crackers into it's head and body because it would be funny to film. We put it standing up on my lawn and lit the fuze. It went off with a HUGE BOOM!! and one of my next door neighbor's window was broken! It must have been a button or something from the Leprechaun that hit the window. We could also hear some dirt debris falling on the roofs on the surrounding houses. We shit ourselves and ran back into my house.I thought someone was going to call the police but they didn't. My neighbors were pissed and I had to pay for a new window :(.
On the tape I have you can only see a bit of the explosion because the camera swerved and you can't hear the window breaking because the sound was drowned out with my friends voice "JESUS CHRIST!!!".
Maybe one day I will put it on computer but I don't have the hardware or software to do it.It has some other cool bangs on it too. :D

[plasma]

This happened to me today

I was washing a 20g batch of CTAP, it had been washed and neutralised. I wanted to get a quicker drying time, so i put one teaspoon of CTAP in ethanol. As soon as the CTAP hit the bottom of the beaker with ethanol it exploded and ejected ethanol right in my face and in my eyes. I washed my eyes for 5 minutes and now they are perfectly fine. I think a little stone or something may have been in the teaspoon and shocked the CTAP as it hit the bottom of the beaker.

From this little accident I learned that one should allways treat primers with outmost respect and use goggels at all times.

I've had no legal troubles, I also think I will ask the police for a permission to buy chemicals to avoid legal troubles.

[S. Toppholzer]

Time for the "legal incidents" part...

I once took part of some sort of neighbourhood watch that wasn't very politically correct and the cops were clearly on the wrong side of the law by watching us instead the ones braking the laws - all because of politically correctness.
However, one night an unmarked police car stopped close to the car I was sitting in - I didn't know they were pigs and they looked pretty mean. I thought they were pimps so I just drove off not wanting to get into a fight.
I have almost forgotten them on my way home as a police car right behind of me turned on the flashlights. The same moment I have been overtaken by an unmarked police car and another one just drove side by side - cornered, I stopped. They made me get out and searched my car.
Unfortunately, the other day I was toying around with some black powder, flash powder, Armstrong's, fuses and little lightbulbs - all of it I have forgotten to remove from my car's trunk.
They naturally found that stuff, arrested me, drove me off to the police station and interrogated me. The same night they searched my home without search warrant (sort of legal because they found something they might tie to "immediate danger") and found other stuff (thankfully only pyrotechnical matter).
They then tried to confront me with a lightbulb filled with flashpowder connected to a fuse (electrical fuse ignition), calling this a detonator :rolleyes:
I explained them the difference between explosion and detonation and insisted they call it a "deflagrator" :)
They still didn't give up and so I took a hold of this "detonator" and showed them its contents: I broke the bulb, pulled out the wire and actually destroyed it under their noses while explaining how harmless stuff it actually was! :D
Anyway, they made me sit down outside the inspector's office. After a while a plainclothes cop sat down beside me, offered a cigarette and started talking with me, explaining how much he himself enjoyed Pyrotechnics and explosive matter - yadda, yadda. After a while he said he also loves toying a bit with chlorates as well and if I do the same, oh my. I said: "NO!!! Don't you know that chloraes are strictly illegal? And besides of that: What could I do with chlorates anyways?" He started explaining until I interrupted and said:
"Do you know the good cop - bad cop game?" He looked puzzled and I said: "Well, the inspector was the bad cop during interrogation. You're playing the good cop, right?"
Geez. He went away immediately.

No charges ever have been pressed.

<small>[ May 17, 2002, 08:54 AM: Message edited by: S. Toppholzer ]</small>

[Zambosan]

Smart move. Funny that your best opportunity to destroy crucial evidence is right during the "bust", but it usually is. :)

[Pu239 Stuchtiger]

Did they have a warrant to search your car? If not, it was up to you if they were to search it!

[a_bab]

Quote:

This happened to me today
I was washing a 20g batch of CTAP, it had been washed and neutralised. I wanted to get a quicker drying time, so i put one teaspoon of CTAP in ethanol. As soon as the CTAP hit the bottom of the beaker with ethanol it exploded and ejected ethanol right in my face and in my eyes. I washed my eyes for 5 minutes and now they are perfectly fine. I think a little stone or something may have been in the teaspoon and shocked the CTAP as it hit the bottom of the beaker.

20 grams of AP ?! From 20 grams of AP the ethanol from the beaker will not be 'ejected' but pulverized. Also the beaker. Some small pieces of glass will remain though, deep in your hands/eyes. Your ears will be permanently deafened.

"a little stone or something may have been in the teaspoon and shocked the TCAP"

Just try to drop a "little stone", or a sand grain in a liquid. The speed of falling is quite small. Not enough to set off the *wet* AP !

So, dear forumites, Plasma is a LIAR !
What do you think Plasma, that you'll impress someone with your lies ?
Hmmm…From the very first post – a lie. What next, Plasma ?

[Pu239 Stuchtiger]

Plasma most certainly is NOT lying.

1) What would be the point of inventing a story about an accident? It just causes you to be seen lower in the eyes of fellow forumites!

2) He clearly is not a lying k3wl. Hell, most people don't know that the proper term is cyclotriacetoneperoxide (CTAP) not tricycloacetoneperoxide (TCAP).

3) He dropped one teaspoon of CTAP into the beaker of ethanol, not the entire 20g batch.

4) A_bab, you have shown that you underestimate the danger of explosives, especially acetone peroxides! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> Neutralized acetone peroxides have been set off in the past by simply the shockwave created by a pair of hands clapping, or a shout. I have no trouble believing that his CTAP exploded when dropped into the beaker of ethanol. Look at plasma's signature; a concise statement of what should be the number one rule followed here. Underestimating the sensitivity and danger of an explosive will get you dispersed in every which way at high temperatures and pressures, unless you sell your soul to the Devil in exchange for outstanding luck.

<small>[ May 17, 2002, 09:59 PM: Message edited by: Pu239 Stuchtiger ]</small>

[mongo blongo]

AP has been known to have different properties with high sensitivity AND low sensitivity with different people's experiences. This may be the cause of some confusion.

[Spudkilla]

This happened in the good 'ole days, when my friend and I got our information out of those crap books. One day, we decided to make a 'fuse' out of toilet paper and BP. I poured some BP into the TP, and rolled it up tightly. We lit it IN HIS ROOM. It seemed to be going well, but not very fast. Then, the flame hit the black powder. A small pop and fiz, flame and smoke in our eyes, and the whole house stinking of lit matches, blackpowder, and burnt toilet paper. On a different occasion, I was testing a cap made out of a .270 casing. One of my moronic friends decided he wanted to see the cap exploding. not just the flames. So he walks up to about ten feet away from it, while I light the fuse and run away. It explodes and shrapnel flies right by his head. Ahh, the good 'ole days.

[a_bab]

Rule: Everyone believes what he likes mostly.

Pu239 Stuchtiger,

I like to believe that AP can't explode when wet by dropping it in some alcohol. You are right, it was only a teaspoon, not 20 grams. But since I KNOW what a teaspoon full of AP, CTAP, or TCAP - you call it - is able to do (because of an REAL accident), I KNOW that the effect it'll be much worse than some alcohol splashed on the face.

...Since the explosives are very impredictible, I accept the fact that this could happen. Especially in a dream, as it seems that most of us are dreaming here, aren't we ?!
I never meet Plasma, and I hate to judge people from the aparencies. But just take a look to ANY ke3wLZ forum: all you'll see is just lies, and ignorance. Erm, almost.

To criticize someone is something creative. I don't see it as a form of intellectual terrorism. I hate to criticize anyone, but sometimes it's just impossible to avoid this. Even you are tempted, and you did this with all of your reply. And only because you like the idea that TCAP in wet state is able to detonate when dropped in a liquid. I also know lots of facts about CTAP sensitivity, but I personaly like the idea that NI₃ is more sensitive...

I am still curious about Plasma's opinion "in the light of the recent events".

<small>[ May 18, 2002, 08:55 PM: Message edited by: a_bab ]</small>

[Madog555]

his sig is not refering to you or this situation in any way. hmmm, think... what are some fairly recent and reraly big events. ones that have further diminished americans rights and has caused people to be put into jail just because their oppinion. hmmm....

[Zambosan]

Bear in mind that the sensitivity of an explosive is all about probability... how it reacts to a measured stress *on average*. I've seen a plate glass window shatter because someone lightly bumped into it at just the wrong spot and time, whereas you could usually bounce a soccer ball off it if you wanted to. Same principle. Also, since the CTAP was being dropped into a solvent, chances are only a portion of the teaspoon was initiated, some intact CTAP probably remained, hence ejected solvent, not shattered beaker.

[plasma]

" I am still curious about Plasma's opinion "in the light of the recent events". "
Here it is a_bab :

Thanks for the support Pu239. :)

I will have to dissapoint you a_bab, it's not a lie. I don't really know if it was a little stone, all I know for sure is that allmost immediatly as the CTAP hit the bottom of the beaker it exploded. I don't think all of the CTAP exploded.

No hard feelings :)

[a_bab]

You are not disappointing me Plasma. Actually I am sorry. I was in a bad mood (long story) in when I wrote the previous replies. Now, when I read these replies all I can see is just acid dropping from my posts.
With explosives ANYTHING is possible but for me is just hard to believe that wet CTAP can be detonated by the contact with a liquid. Perhaps to feel saver when I play with it... It's the negation of the danger, who knows... Still there are reports involving wet fulminating silver (silver nitrides), detonated in the wet state when the FIRST drop of the water used to wash the precipitate touched the wet filter, and now I am really worried as I need all my fingers. I’ve done so many stupid things with CTAP that it’s a wonder that I still have the fingers.

[spydamonkee]

closest call i have had to being injured from my hobby was when i lit the fuse on a small CO2 container filled with "high speed rifle powder", as soon it was lit i ran backwards very fast as a second later it went off with a loud sharp crack and i heard and saw a blurred piece of steel "whizz" not far above my head : /

the "rifle powder" mentioned above ending up getting confiscated off me along with some pipes and a 8 shot repeatair slug pistol with laser glass sight, the nosy people i was living with at the time looked thru my room and saw the stuff then called the cops :( , i had to do 20 hours community service and i never got my stuff back (the gun was worth 350$)

only other incident was with a spudgun made out PVC Pressure Pipe with a BBQ ignitor in a screw off cap at the rear of the combustion chamber, i was sitting in the backyard mucking around with it by shooting the plastic endcap off the barrel as it would have been too noisy loading it with spuds or frozen lemons (which woulda gone right thru the back fence anyway :p ) so i sprayed some more ether rich engine start into the chamber screwed on the end cap and hit the ignitor!... nothing... hit it a few more time to make sure.... still nothing so i screwed the rear end off and looked @ the contacts of the ignitor as i pushed the button again.... i saw the spark leap between the contacts so i knew my ignitor worked... but @ the same time i felt my face get suddenly hot as fuck and as i pulled my head back i saw the big orange fireball that had lept outa the chamber, then i smelt the stench of burnt hair thats when i noticed i no longer had eyebrows or much eyelashes anymore and all the hair on my head was singed abit shorter :( .
i quickly reliased what i had done wrong... too much gas in chamber not nuff O2

i got off lightly compared to my friend though, he went for the cheap option when he made his spud gun and used normal pipe and the thing ended up blowing up when he was firing it... he got plastic shards all thru his hand which swelled up like twice the size and he sprained his wirst!

[kingspaz]

moving...

[Jackal919]

I had a very nasty legal encounter. I cannot tell you too much because it may be used against me in court.

A few months ago my friend wanted to go set off a LE device. I went with him and set it off. After I heard the bang I heard a neighborhood security gaurd yell "What are yall boy doin' blowing stuff up?". I immediately ran home but my friend didn't move. I told my mom what happened when I got home. She said she would circle around the street in her car to see if my friend was there. She came back telling me to get in the car. I did and she drove me back to the scene and I saw 6 cop cars on the scene. The wannabe cop said it was going to be ok. Next thing I knew I was staring at my mom through the reinforced glass of the cop car. Then I was talking to a bomb tech. Now for the worst part, they little pigs went back to my house and removed $500 worth of LE chems.The stupid bomb tech to my "Backyard Ballistics" book. He said "Oh, I haven't seen this one before I think I'll take it as a refrence. My parents were back home the next day. I'll tell more after I goto court.

[SmallR2002]

A few mounths ago I was atempting to set up a door handle shock app^ as i connected the wires to the batteries there was a flash and a whooofishhhzzzz all I know is that my 'rocket launcher was on the window loaded, and afterwards was empty how a 9volt spark can jup a three feet I am yet to discover also how a rocket launching can make that much flash espeiclay as it was designed to be used as a null detection wepon. Mmmmn weird.

PS: has anyone else attepted to use two fins on rockets as electrical contacts to fir into place with similar items on the inside of the launcher; it works realy well.

[Bert]

Dude, people who load weapons indoors have problems like that...

[Skean Dhu]

I've had many minor accidents/lapses in common sense.
a couple years ago I filled a mouse hole with propane and then proceded to light it with and Aim'n'Flame type lighter, that burnt off a layer of skin and was rather uncomfortable.

Last year I was disposing of an old AP batch with a friend and I showed him how it made little fireballs, so eventually the little piles got bigger and bigger until it was all that was left which turned out to be enough to make the DDT, this was inside a 4 car garage/storage barn. I got hit with some work bench shrapnel(wood splinters) and we lost hearing for a couple hours and the ringing took a day or so to subside.

Recently I was drying ASA in my toaster oven , the ASA was dissolved in acetone and after a few minutes the acetone fumes blew the oven open when the heater cycled on/off and proceded to ruin the entire ASA batch. Not to mention melt the knobs on the toaster oven and stink up the house.

After getting more ASA while I was making TNP , I added the last bit of KNO3 too fast and the nitraton started to runaway, but thankfully I was outside and it was 12*F so I put the beaker in snow and all was well. then while filtering the batch I spilled some on the concrete and thinking about the reactivity of TNP with metals(ie the Calcium found in cement) I dumped Ammonia on it totally not thinking about the Ammonium picrate it would form only focused on nutralizing the acids. So now my garage is stained yellow, and I managed to stain a few fingers yellow too

[MrSamosa]

Not working in my lab very often, I don't have many accidents. The only two I've had both dealt with Chloropicrin, and they were not very bad, and fortunately they didn't have any legal repercussions ( this is a very quiet hobby-- no loud bangs, bright lights, etc ). One of them has been explained in the Jam-Jar Chloropicrin thread, and what was learned from it, so it's not worth revisiting.

The second was just recently when I was testing my "revised" synthesis for PS... This one was much scarier, since it involved very concentrated PS. See, the reaction had been done in a Pyrex measuring cup, to facilitate decanting off impurities. So when I'd finished with it, as the Chloropicrin was the most dense compound present, there were many red oily droplets left on the sides of the cup. To confirm whether or not it actually was PS ( I wasn't sure, since it was red and Chloropicrin should be pale yellow), I stupidly wafted it to check if it irritated the senses. Well, it did, and it was much more concentrated than I had expected. Almost immediately, I felt a pang in my eyes and felt it going down my nose and chest-- it gave me one of those sickening "ahh crap" feelings.

The problem was, that my sister was in the next room, so I had to make everything look "OK" as I fled the lab and made my way to the washroom. I made my way quickly, and holding back my coughs as best I could ( it is extremely uncomfortable to hold back the coughs caused by PS ). Once in the washroom, I coughed, cried, and drooled ( try this, it makes you feel better!) to contentness... But again, I had to keep the "OK" thing going, so I muffled my coughs by coughing into a towel.

I was alright, in the end, and did a bit of self-treatment: taking Pseudoephedrine, so as to clear up my nasal area ( this actually made breathing more comfortable) and then getting fresh air . I was still coughy, in the end, and my sister joked to me, "If you don't stop this you're gonna end up killing yourself!" Not very comforting, when I was still worrying about delayed pulmonary edema.

Now, why wasn't I wearing my gas mask, you ask?? Simple: my glasses don't fit under it, and I'm extremely near-sighted. So it is very difficult to make measurements and to see what i'm doing without the glasses... However, I didn't make this mistake during clean-up (which had to be done very quickly so as to keep everything looking "OK"), and put on the gas mask, hood, and gloves.

As I said, no legal repercussions, my lungs are still intact, and I feel fine. Hell, a few days later, I was still able to go through my 2 hour Tae-Kwon Do class with a 5 minute break for water. However, I am rethinking my safety measures for my future experiments with PS. And by the way, ignore that line in War Gases that says something like, "The easiest way to detect Chloropicrin in a mixture is by the senses." :)

[tmp]

30 years ago when I was still in high school I stole some potassium chlorate
and red phosphorous from the chem lab at school. At the time I was
unaware of the sensitivity of this mixture and lost my eyebrows for some
time. I'll never mix those 2 again !

Recently, I was boiling down some lime on the stove. I was dissolving it
in water beforehand to reduce the amount of magnesium oxide in the
mix. My asshole roomate, a fucking alcoholic wannabe hippy, went
running into the kitchen to puke in the sink. He was choking on his
vodka. His left elbow hit my pyrex baking dish(with the lime in it), got
himself a 2nd degree burn and sent the baking dish flying. The dish
shattered and sent the lime solution all over the kitchen. The asshole
started screaming at me for his clumsiness and tried to say the baking
dish "exploded". He obviously knows nothing about chemistry.

[YayItGoBoom!]

^^ This is why I don't plan on rooming with anyone with an IQ less than 100. :-)

I really don't have any real experience with explosives yet (still building up my lab and getting prechems), but as a wee middle schooler I used to goof around with stuff in my basement all the time. k3wl kids + friends + potentially dangerous stuff = more stupidity than a Bush convention. I was with my usual group and we had tried the imfamously k3wl "hydrogen ballon," when I got the idea to mix weak H2SO4 and DranO. It bubbled over and released some kind of irritating gas, one of my panzy friends took off into the house thinking the pigs would come.

That doesn't top the time, about two years ago, when I mindlessly decided to mix NaClO and H2SO4. It bubbled violently, and I thought, "WOW k3wl bubbling green liquid!" when right about then the choking gas hit me. It was like super strong pool smell with a burning, puking sensation mixed in. No harm done, today I figured out that I had produced HOCl, some of which probably escaped as gas.

In 8th grade Physical Setting (its like a mixture of Chemistry and Physics), we were working on Equilibrium I believe, and were working with potassium thiocyanate and iron nitrate, using acids and bases to change the color back and forth. Anyways, there was some HCl which we were using with some kind of chromates IIRC (we used H2SO4 with the Iron Thiocyanate, I know why now) and I get the idea to try to dissolve iron filings from the spark in the HCl, then add SCN. It formed some kind of white cloud in the beaker, and I detected a faint H2S smell, so I put the beaker in the sink and washed it down as fast as I could. I am not positive, but I believe it formed KCN and H2S. I felt kinda sleepy for the rest of the period, probably from mild shutdown of the electron transport chain, my friend Zi informed me. Wow what good times they were.

[Piglet]

While quenching a reduction that used Red-Al (Vitride) the Tap on the addition funnel broke spilling 2l of NaOH solution into it. It instantly superheated 18l of toluene which vaporized. The stirrer wasn't sparkless & the whole lot weent up.

Result: 2 dead & 1 house destroyed. Legal outcome- Nothing could be proved since nothing was left. I was outside getting ice to throw on the whole thing. Removed all my hair & burnt ears, nose & hands. Oh, and my plastic credit-card holder melted to my skin.

[Trinitrotoluene]

So far I've had no legal incidents but a few lab accidents, and a few addidents related to pyrotechnics.

On the pyrotechnics note, this happand over a year ago, I was playing around with nitrated cellulose, there was a good 5 grams, in the form of cotton balls, I left them laying around on the floor, I decided to light one of them, the only thing was all of them went off, it pruduce a nice fireball, which engulfed my hand, the burns were painful, but I was lucky that it was very quick.

When it comes to chemistry, it was my first time distilling HNO3, the cooling wasn't efficient enough, so pressure built up, the stopper popped off leaving a could of NO2, and HNO3 fumes that engulfed my backyard, I ended up breathing a little bit of the NO2, and I got some pain in my lungs.

When I was doing a synthesis on chloroform, I added the acetone to the Ca(OCl)2 too quickly, whats even worse I capped it with a stopper, so I assume it would be under control, bad idea, pressure built up, the cap blasted off shooting off a plume of chloroform vapor, with it was the bleaching powder, the fumes of chloroform nearly knocked me out, but I managed to have enough strength to get off of the way to get fresh air. That time was one call, and I learned a lesson on that.

Other accidents I had was I improperly handled Br2, I got some on my skin which burned like hell, and inhaled quite a bit. On another occasion some mercuric nitrate dissolved with HNO3 landed on my hands, I wasn't wearing gloves, and I was doing a synthesis on mercury fulminate.

Such events happand a while back, I look back at those and pity myself, one thing I'm still unsure about is the adverse health effect such chemicals my cause in the future, I'm still unsure about the mercuric nitrate or how much mercury is absorbed into my system.

[lumberjack]

Way back when I was fresh rookie to the world of clandestine chemistry, I thought I was going to concentrate some 3% H2O2 down to these peroxide flakes? my buddy had told me about by boiling it down in a clear Pyrex cake pan using an electric stove burner. BAAD IDEAL!! With 30ml or so left in the pan, it disintegrated in my hands and the scalding hot H202 covered my right leg. All I had on was a pair of those Umbro nylon shorts and they melted to my skin. When I woke up I had three large white patches covering around 40% of my leg resembling the type of burn you get from 30% H202 but without the sting. Funny thing is that the burns healed extremely fast with no additional first aid and left no scarring. I learned a lot that day about Pyrex and PPE!!

[meselfs]

I've been pretty safe...

... then again I haven't done much very serious chemistry (yet :D).


Very recently, I made an adapter (with my lathe) for a propane tank to power a small ceramic burner I made in ceramics class, as a very consistent and even heat source.

When I screwed in the adapter, liquid propane was visible soon (the adapter was made of acrylic). When I unscrewed it once I was done, I had trouble... the accumulated liquid propane spilled on my right hand, and I still hadn't unscrewed it all the way, so a mist of propane was all over. I did unscrew it, and my hand felt like rubber for half an hour, but thankfully no damage. I made a handle which solved this problem by letting me keep my hand clear.


Another time, I accidently touched some liquid nerve agent I was using to exterminate some coyotes. It was weak stuff, but I emptied half a gallon each of bleach and acetone on my hand anyway...



No real injuries yet, so I guess I'm not much of a cook for now :-<.

[kingspaz]

Another time, I accidently touched some liquid nerve agent I was using to exterminate some coyotes. It was weak stuff, but I emptied half a gallon each of bleach and acetone on my hand anyway...

What 'nerve agent' was this?

[nbk2000]

Sounds like "1080" to me.

[Bugger]

"1080" is sodium monofluoroacetate, CH2FCOONa. It is used extensively here in New Zealand in cereal pellets, dyed green to avoid the attentions of birds, and incorporating an attractant, to kill the country's number one pest, the introduced Australian brushtail opossum. It appears to be some sort of liver poison, and causes them to go into a coma in which they soon die. Carnivorous animals - mostly other introduced pests like wildcats, ferrets, stoats, feral dogs - which feed on the carcases of the poisoned opossums also die. Being a water-soluble salt, it is normally toxic only by ingestion. The principal treatment of accidental poisoning is stomach pumping, and it is doubtful whether there is any chemical antidote.

Bugger.

[simply RED]

Fluoroacetic acid and fluoroacetates inhibit the Krebs cycle. It stops the inter cellular berathing.
The breathing is inhibited because quantities of citrate can not be metabolised. Fluoroacetic acid is turned to fluoroacetyl-KoA, which condenses into oxalacetate and evolves fluorocitrate. Fluorocitrate inhibits the enzyme aconitase and the metabolism of citrate is suspended.
Only one of the four possible fluorocitrate isomers is aconitase inhibitor.