It's the fireworks party thread !!! Woo-hoo!

[d000hg]

[Troll]

For those of you attending out-of-town firework parties tonight

Please remember to fill your car up with fuel before you go...

[DaveB]

Indeed. One of these in a glass milk bottle made a passable grenade. Alternatively one could be put in the open end of some cowhormn handle bars followed by a handfull of fine gravel and a grass plug to make a rudimentary blunderbuss. Don't start me on cow pat landmines.

Kids today have no idea how to make their own fun.

A section of metal tubing, two bangers (and some practice with the timing) could be pressed into use as a serviceable mortar.

The same tube + a suitably sized marble produced a passable (though inaccurate) musket.

Non of them were as good as the leaf-spring ballista though

[RichardCranium]

None of them were as good as the leaf-spring ballista though

I thought a ballista was a one or two man weapon that fired heavy darts. Then I saw this monster.

[DaveB]

I thought a ballista was a one or two man weapon that fired heavy darts. Then I saw this monster.

Ours was closer to the former than the latter

Timber frame made up of scavenged railway sleepers and other bits with the long spring from the suspension of an old lorry strapped across the front of it. It took three of us to load the thing - One on each end of the spring pushing back, the third pulling on the rope to get it over the firing hook. We used it to fire lengths of re-bar. How we didn't kill or maim ourselves in the process remains a mystery.

[Alf W]

Interesting forum thread here from Jimjim regarding French bangers.

On being told they are illegal to sell in the UK he starts enquiring if anyone knows how he can make his own ... out of stuff available around the house or in hardware stores!

Visit anyone?

[Mich the Tester]

woohoo! eek!

[bogeyman]

Meanwhile in Pulham St. Mary, Norfolk, they are having a 'Nonfire'.

A burning fiery bonfire - Telegraph

So much safer

[CheeseSlice]

Is that a UFO in the bottom right of that photo?

[OrangeHopper]

Is that a UFO in the bottom right of that photo?

It's the ones on the left with the single red eye that are worrying me!