/pyro/ - Kaboom

Sounds good to me.

First things first, there are a few things you're going to want.

Safety:

Fire extinguishers, proper storage areas, good glassware, a good fume mask, proper ventilation, and good sources for your chemicals. A "GOOD" SCALE!

A test site.

Blowing up your neighbours backyard is not a good idea.

I recommend finding a wide flat area with minimal grass, or a small valley type area.

It's important that no one lives nearby nor commonly walks there.

I further recommend that if you have a wide open space, you should get a shovel, Walk roughly to the center, and dig a 2x2x2 pit.

This is your blast pit. Don't blow up anything outside of it, no matter how bad you want to.

Finally; Start with flash and low explosives. It's more forgiving and helps you respect the material from the get go.

I recommend getting some Potassium Perchlorate from united nuclear, and some Pyro grade aluminum from Star Molecule.

Get some printer paper.

Make SMALL batches of flash powder using your scale and the diaper method. It's important to wear a mask when handling fine aluminum.

Before you make your first batch, do some reading and figure out roughly how the reaction you're about to do goes.

Before you move on from flashpowder, I HIGHLY recommend that you look into sourcing either professional fuse, or making electrical ingition systems.

Finally, browse wikipedia. It's helpful to understand various rough molecular patterns of what explosives look like, and how they get their energy.

I'll happy try to do a rough outline of the physics of an explosive and how it works energetically, but I don't think I'll do as good a job as a few writers out there who have much more experience.

If you've got any questions feel free to ask me and I'll be back to you within 24 hours with whatever information I can give.

Also this is a little tid bit of advise, but its pretty damn important, and that's to avoid any casings that are metal, because shrapnel is a bitch and it can kill. If you have to use a metal casing make sure you have a long enough delay and some good cover to hide behind like a thick tree or a large pile of dirt. And the general rule when it comes to shrapnel is that if you can see it go off, it can kill you.

>>19

The other thing is that metal casings can react with some explosives to cause all sorts of NASTY things to happen.

Paper or soft plastic is best.

>>20

>plastic

this also reminds me that IIRC hobby syringes can be used as non metal casings for blasting caps for HE uses, which is good if you're dealing with primaries that don't like certain kinds of metal

>>18

Alright, I'm realizing most of you will have no clue what the diaper method actually is.

So heres the basics of it.

Once you've measured out your two powders into two different containers with your scale, you very carefully pour them out onto a piece of printer or other clean paper. you can do it bit bit bit, that's fine as well. Once you've got a comfortable amount on the paper, you gently fold it around , so that the powders are forced to mix with one another. you basically keep folding the paper and carefully pressing the two powders together until they are evenly mixed.

Don't be afraid to squish any big chunks through the paper to get a more even mixture.

You can get away with doing small amounts of flash outside of a blast pit, provided it's an open area, and there is no loose gravel or other similar things.

>>33

Probably a flash powder.

Either that, or a simple black powder or rocket fuel.

These all rely either on chlorates or nitrates, which are very common and easily accessed.

That said, be aware that chlorates and magnesium (imo the easiest variety to make with limited chemical access) is particularly dangerous.

>>34

Which chlorate do you recommend? Potassium? And should I buy off ebay or find a shop? for reference I can't even find potassium nitrate in products in shops because the government is so scared.

>>36

Well, you may be able to get ammonium nitrate from the water based cold packs, but that's a bit more difficult….

Match heads are potassium chlorate and chlorate is very soluble in water. You can dissolve it off and then dry it slowly for a decent yield. Even when it stops dissolving directly into a water solution it will still peel off very easy wet.

So yes, to clarify, Potassium Chlorate is a good choice for your initial oxidizer. Normally I'd reccomend something like black powder which uses safer to handle nitrates, but if you can't get at it there's no point.

You should definitely read up on the potency of chlorate first however; it's potent enough to turn lint into an incendiary.

Outside of pen and paper calculations is there a way to test the conflagration of slower burning explosives like Cordite?

>>44

Yes, but it takes either highly specialized equipment, or a lot of confusing physics, AFAIK.

>>18

Dear god. I forgot the most important rules of all:

WEAR MOTHERFUCKING EYE PROTECTION.

If you don't know the properties of something, either read up on them, or assume it's deadly poison, highly flammable, and melts on contact with most non-inert substances, ok?