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Author Topic: Ask Lit  (Read 16205 times)

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TheoK

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #45 on: December 25, 2008, 09:17:27 AM »
Quote from: Peter on December 24, 2008, 06:46:29 PM
It sounds like he made flash powder, not thermite.  Thermite is very stable and difficult to ignite, and it doesn't explode under normal conditions, while flash power is fairly unstable and can easily cause powerful explosions.  He might have confused them, since they both often contain aluminium powder.

I know. I'm familiar with flash.  8)
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Offline Peter

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #46 on: December 25, 2008, 01:05:22 PM »
Quote from: TheoK on December 25, 2008, 09:17:27 AM
Quote from: Peter on December 24, 2008, 06:46:29 PM
It sounds like he made flash powder, not thermite.  Thermite is very stable and difficult to ignite, and it doesn't explode under normal conditions, while flash power is fairly unstable and can easily cause powerful explosions.  He might have confused them, since they both often contain aluminium powder.

I know. I'm familiar with flash.  8)

Have you played around with thermite?  I should really give it a go sometime; it's one of the few 'fun' things for which the ingredients are still readily available in this country.
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14:10 - Moarskrillex42: She said something about knowing why I wanted to move to Glasgow when she came in. She plopped down on my bed and told me to go ahead and open it for her.

14:11 - Peter5930: So, she thought I was your lover and that I was sending you a box full of sex toys, and that you wanted to move to Glasgow to be with me?

TheoK

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #47 on: December 25, 2008, 01:09:15 PM »
I tried to melt down a parking machine with it once when I was unjustly fined for parking in a private place (it wasn't obvious that it was a private place). Though the steel in the machine proved too thick. I didn't dare to blow it up in the middle of town, though.  :angel:
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TheoK

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #48 on: December 25, 2008, 01:13:27 PM »
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Offline punkdrew

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #49 on: December 29, 2008, 07:22:46 PM »
Quote from: Peter on December 24, 2008, 06:46:29 PM
Quote from: spunkdrew on December 23, 2008, 09:21:08 PM
Quote from: TheoK on December 23, 2008, 09:08:13 AM
I've created thermite, yup.  8)

My dad created thermite in high school. It detonated prematurely, blew him across the room and burned his eyebrows off. No other damage to him, fortunately.
Unfortunately, I did not inherit his talents in chemistry, physics, etc. So I have no similar stories to report.

It sounds like he made flash powder, not thermite.  Thermite is very stable and difficult to ignite, and it doesn't explode under normal conditions, while flash power is fairly unstable and can easily cause powerful explosions.  He might have confused them, since they both often contain aluminium powder.

Well, he told me it was thermite. And he's dead, so I have no way of confirming it, although the story details might be on one of the tapes I recorded with him before his death.
Dad was one of those science whiz kids: made pure chlorine with his Jr Chemistry kit @ age 5, built a Tesla coil in high school, ran lights and sound for student productions...you get the idea. There's also a story involving ether, but that will have to wait for another time.... :P
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TheoK

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #50 on: December 29, 2008, 07:25:07 PM »
It might also have been Thermate, which probably reacts more violently.
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P7PSP

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #51 on: December 30, 2008, 03:38:00 AM »
Okay , why did your boy T.K. use low powered shit instead of Methyl Nitrate or some other nitric ester thickened with gun cotton dissolved in methyl alcohol which would have provided more bristance?
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TheoK

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #52 on: December 30, 2008, 03:42:56 AM »
He used perchlorate based flash, which is pretty strong. The chemicals are also easier available.

Check this out. I have actually made a bigger load than the first one. Pretty powerful, isn't it?

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P7PSP

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #53 on: December 30, 2008, 03:56:36 AM »
Well since he was willing to go to the trouble he did it just seems to me that making his own red nitric acid to mix with the methyl alcohol and using a single based powder would not have been that much trouble to work out. It would have provided more bang for the buck with ingredients still readily available.
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TheoK

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #54 on: December 30, 2008, 04:01:06 AM »
It is hard shit to work with fuming nitric acid. It took a friend of mine two days to make 80 ml from sulphuric acid and potassium nitrate. If you don't have the right equipment you must do it outdoors.
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Frolic_Fun

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #55 on: December 30, 2008, 04:15:10 AM »
Why hasn't your balls dropped?
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TheoK

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #56 on: December 30, 2008, 04:16:33 AM »
 ???
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P7PSP

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #57 on: December 30, 2008, 04:37:35 AM »
One thing that just occurred to me is T.K. did not have a freezer to make ice in and keeping the mixing bowl in an ice bath is a damn good idea with nitric esters. Another drawback to that Luddite stuff. Also ice under the receiving bottle for the HNO3. Had he practiced a different faith other options would have been open to him, including not mailing bombs. TheoK he changed nothing except the lives he adversely affected, when he began his anti social crusade there was no operational space shuttle, International Space Station, home computers, cell phones or IPODs.
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TheoK

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #58 on: December 30, 2008, 04:43:33 AM »
If he had had fuming nitric acid, he could as well have made RDX, HMX or PETN. I can even buy hexamine and pentaeritrythol in Sweden without an age limit. But without ice that would have been difficult.

Yes, I know, he failed, poor man. I hope he will get out alive some way despite the very, very bad odds.  :(

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Offline DirtDawg

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Re: Ask Lit
« Reply #59 on: December 30, 2008, 12:42:29 PM »
Quote from: Shleeeeed on December 30, 2008, 04:15:10 AM
Why hasn't your balls dropped?

It's not New Year's, yet?




(I know that's a stretch.)
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