[TheForge] Re: Fun with thermite anyone?

[Mike Spencer]

> One piece of advice for those that want to mess with the nitric and
> the glycerin, the heat of formation is greater than the heat of
> detonation.  As in just mixing them together produces enough heat to
> set it off.

When I was around 14, I, like Ol' Demon Bud there, experimented with a
number of materials not normally found in kitchens, some of which had
to ordered under a pseudonym from distant places with more liberal
regulations than Massachusetts.  At that time I carefully read a
technical book on making nitroglycerine and dynamite, one printed
about 1900.  (I have no idea why the librarian gave it to me from the
locked case.)

A great deal of instruction was directed at temperature measurement,
mixing to avoid local heating and the operation of immersion cooling
coils to maintain temp within a narrow range.  Another chapter was
devoted to the number of acres of open ground for constructing the
reactor vessel, the proper construction of containment berms and the
restriction of numbers of personel within a certain radius. Hmmmmm....

I forwent that particular project, probably all to the good, as I
managed to very nearly kill myself and blow off a hand with far less
esoteric materials.

Thermite isn't too scary if you don't play with it in the house.  But
a Pyrex coffee pot of nitroglyerine taking shape on the back of the
stove is a serious investigation into the existence and nature of the
afterlife.

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^