Reply to: Dangerous games for boys

[hyperD]

Right, found ou it was a tunderflash that blew up his dads cabbages. Apparantly it is usually used in a rather ristricted environment in training exercises.

Yeah, saw a steel WW2 army helmet placed over a thunderflash and watched it launch 100ft in the air. Impressive incendaries.

[conned tractor]

I didn't make anything that good but my old man tells stories of blowing up his dads cabbages - not sure what he used, I will ask him at dinner in a bit. Apparantly his dad, my grandad, was not too pleased.

Right, found ou it was a tunderflash that blew up his dads cabbages. Apparantly it is usually used in a rather ristricted environment in training exercises.

[EternalOptimist]

The local toughs went through a phase of building rafts on the canal. They would arm themselves with cudgels, bows and arrows, and play pirates all day instead of going to school.
The trick was to batter the enemy before your raft disintegrated, which was inevitable, given the materials and ship-building skills we had.
Everyone knew, that a good raft would mean victory, even over the toughs.

Then my mate, who lived by the canal, told us about this Vat he had found. It was a massive fibre glass struture that bobbled about on the surface of the cut. He reckoned that if we got in it, acting like ballast, it would be stable. It was . We battered those louts, thugs , layabouts and toughs. We were unsinkable.

[Zippy]

We tried making gunpowder but couldn't get a decent explosion out of it.

Surfing down steep hills on tea trays (or bits of cardboard).

[TimberWolf]

I'm reminded of the saying that you begin in life with a big bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick to to fill the bag of experiernce before you empty the bag of luck. Growing up seems like that. On many, many occasions things could easily have turned out very differently.

[hyperD]

I was about 11 and was attempting to help this older kid build a makeshift gun out of a steel tube. He was a bit of a nutter this kid but that didn't stop us hanging out with him for laughs.

He crimped one end of the tube, made a small touch hole and fuse, filled it with gunpowder (from bangers or fireworks, can't remember) and put a handful of small ball bearings in there. He secured this in the ground and pointed it at his elderly neighbours fence. He peered over the fence to see if it was clear.

Instinctively, I thought this was pretty dangerous so cowered behind the tree. He kept trying to light the fuse but nothing was happening for ages.

Suddenly, a HUGE explosion caught him and he swore and flew to the ground as the makeshift canon fired. It was the loudest noise I'd ever heard and made a huge flash and I was crapping myself. The neighbour's fence had been peppered with ball bearings.

Next thing we knew, his elderly neighbour's ashen face had appeared over the fence and she said "Are you alright, John?". FFS, she had only been in the garden doing the gardening when the gun had gone off.... very, very lucky and the poor dear hadn't a clue...

[xoggoth]

Made a sugar and soidum chlorate gun from some old pipe, fired with a wire from an iron element attached to battery. It would probably have been pretty lethal although it was pretty hard to actually hit anything.

[EternalOptimist]

Did anyone manage to make any decent gun power as a kid? The stuff we made wasn't all that good, but we could launch a feeble rocket.

my older brother and his mates got a brylcreem jar and a big 24 box of bangers. The plan was to break open the bangers and fill the jar with gummy, then put one of the fuses through the lid and set it off in the local brickworks.
They were totally peed off when they found that all those bangers didnt anywhere near fill the jar.
So they got another couple of dozen
then another couple of dozen.

Us younger kids wernt allowed in to see the fun, but they placed some paving slabs over the bomb, so as to protect the nearby estate from damage.

They lit it, and the subsequent explosion blew the bits of conctrete all over the estate, smashing windows and causing real terror.

he must have been twelve or so, but he came home white as a sheet and hid under the bed till the next day

[TykeMerc]

Did anyone manage to make any decent gun power as a kid? The stuff we made wasn't all that good, but we could launch a feeble rocket.

Yes, you need decent materials and to grind it fine.
Also ammonium iodide which is quite entertaining.

Made nitro glycerine in A Level chemistry, the teacher used to be in demolitions and there were some tree stumps in his garden he wanted to shift. It took half of a double period to plunder enough ice from various freezers in the labs.

[conned tractor]

Did anyone manage to make any decent gun power as a kid? The stuff we made wasn't all that good, but we could launch a feeble rocket.

I didn't make anything that good but my old man tells stories of blowing up his dads cabbages - not sure what he used, I will ask him at dinner in a bit. Apparantly his dad, my grandad, was not too pleased.

[conned tractor]

Suicidal cycle leaps and jumping off garage roofs are the only other things I remember.

Yep, I reckon I would break something if I did that now, but when I was about 4 foot in height I could jump off a 7 foot high garage roof and not think anything of it. I wonder if kids still do these things.

[TimberWolf]

Did anyone manage to make any decent gun power as a kid? The stuff we made wasn't all that good, but we could launch a feeble rocket.

[Sysman]

A college mate did that cap trick on cigs with match heads. He went mental when I did it to him, which only encouraged me more (he was a prat anyway).

Lots of stuff with fireworks and indeed bonfires. Suicidal cycle leaps and jumping off garage roofs are the only other things I remember.

[rhubarb]

Cor, look at the wheels on that tractor! Do you have a larger image of your avatar?

edit: Getting back on topic, I nicked a large bottle of sodium from the chemistry lab at school.

Same here, but used to throw chunks of it into the urinal while people were standing there having a pee. They couldn't move away and so had to finish while small explosions went off in front of them.

Rhubarb

[conned tractor]

Cor, look at the wheels on that tractor! Do you have a larger image of your avatar?

edit: Getting back on topic, I nicked a large bottle of sodium from the chemistry lab at school and with a couple of friends headed to a lake in some woods. After tipping the whole lot in and legging it we heard bangs and blasts for several minutes.

Very good OH, that made me laugh.

Sorry, no larger image.