Seasonal Explosives Applications

[Lady Lavinea Dreadful]

this happens to be my fathers favorite holiday... and my grandfathers as well and since he was the powder monkey for the local mines... every year was very entertaining. he would buy fire works in mass then reassemble them in a more pleasing fashion. he passed on some time ago but not before teaching my father all of his tricks. personally i have been terrified of fire as far back as i can remember so i leave the lighting to my husband and father. however...every year i get one large Chinese lantern and i light it and hang it in my home. i have quit a collection now.

in the state of MO to my knowledge, fireworks are only illegall in the "off" season ie after the 4th and new years... then again i have only lived in small towns(my home town has a pop of just over 2000 and my current town has a pop of 900) it may differ in larger cities.

[Zorch]

I grew up in Missouri where they are notably more lax in the firework laws (or at least they were during my childhood) 

Over here in California the only sparklers you can find are the cheap bamboo-handle ones

I live in CA now...  how dare they take away my fun!!  I would think bamboo would be just as effective (if more difficult to make legs out of!).  You would think wooden handles would be more dangerous, but I guess it would just char instead of catch on fire.  Way to let a few 3rd degree burns ruin the fun for everyone else!

[Hikaro Takayama]

Which state has trodden so violently on the rights of its citizens?

Here in the Indian Nations the only thing banned that I know of is bottle rockets (no it doesn't make any sense), but we just go over to Arkansas and get them and no one'll bother you in my experience.

ah, Pennsylvania has.  However, we do have the utterly weird law that allows people to sell the higher powered stuff but no resident of PA can buy it.    We can only have sparklers and things like "snakes" etc. 

Ironically, a quick trip to West Virginia, and they can sell you anything and everything as long as you're not a WVA resident (Plus they got those awesome roman candles with the mortar rounds instead of the usual glowy balls)....

Of course, you can turn me in to the PA state police all you want... The past several years, I've spent my 4th of July weekends down at my uncle's place in S. Carolina, where anything short of actual industrial/military grade explosives is legal, and I buy those roman candles in WVA because I can't get them in S. Carolina.....  I buy a couple packs, then buy a load of mortars and sky rockets in S. Carolina as my contribution to my uncles home fireworks display.

[T.Taylor the Third]

I love tennesse We can buy anything here all year round at the fireworks stores
from bottle rockets to thoes ones that explode in an awsome light show
me and my friends carey bottle rockets and lighters in our cars and throw them out the windows in rural areas (away from cops)

bad idea.  can we say "forest or field fire"?

true but it hasnt happend yet and their bottle rockets they barley explode causing minimal damage and maximum noise. around here people play russian roulet by throwing a bottle rocket into a fire and standing around it.

and they have bottle rocket wars wering paintball masks

[Prof Eumides Blakehurst]

Great picture of victorian vikings here ->

http://www.uphellyaa.org/3.html

The helmet being worn by the viking in the centre of the back row is seriously cool.

Unfortunately here in the Southern Penal Colony we are being treated as such - yet again the ACT gov is trying to ban everything saying how dangerous they are and how much death and destruction there was on the 8th June (for the record, none). The two territories are the only places you can set them off (on only a couple of days a year) and the NT get to play with bigger ones than us here in the ACT. I think because they shoot them at the crocodiles...

I now share with you my favorite holiday re purposing project - the sparkler rocket.

Over here they are called sparkler bombs, just to have the b-word in the name (they don't actually explode). In this case you bundle up a whole lot of sparklers, tie up the bundle neatly with some wire, poke a single sparkler into the middle of the thing - this is your fuse - and then find a suitable spot.

A suitable spot is non-flameable above and below. Set the bundle down on all its dear little legs, light the fuse sparkler and retire to a suitable viewing distance. All over in a couple of seconds when all the sparklers turn into a plasma jet of hot flame 5 or 6 metres high. 

If I can get the link right, here are some photos from one year at my place when someone had a camera (not me, I was in the midst of it all!)
http://is-apposite.livejournal.com/5058.html

[phineas sheridan]

[quote: Hikaro Takayama]
Ironically, a quick trip to West Virginia, and they can sell you anything and everything as long as you're not a WVA resident (Plus they got those awesome roman candles with the mortar rounds instead of the usual glowy balls)....

Of course, you can turn me in to the PA state police all you want... The past several years, I've spent my 4th of July weekends down at my uncle's place in S. Carolina, where anything short of actual industrial/military grade explosives is legal, and I buy those roman candles in WVA because I can't get them in S. Carolina.....  I buy a couple packs, then buy a load of mortars and sky rockets in S. Carolina as my contribution to my uncles home fireworks display.
[/quote]

*sigh* i love my state. we send out videos of dummies (the plastic kind, not the "close family" kind XD) getting blown to bits with X firework but havent banned but the M-80. anything else, fair game.

d

[Yvarg]

I live in CA now...  how dare they take away my fun!!  I would think bamboo would be just as effective (if more difficult to make legs out of!).  You would think wooden handles would be more dangerous, but I guess it would just char instead of catch on fire.  Way to let a few 3rd degree burns ruin the fun for everyone else!

Bamboo sparklers may be effective for a rocket, but for every other "modification" I've researched and tried they simply do not work the same as the wire-handled ones (different construction methods I believe). 

[Reverend Redmond Farrier]

Here in Georgia, it is a big deal that they just legalized sparkle fountians and the such, but still nothing that goes "boom" or shoots into the air.  They call it the "Safe and Sane" limit.  Little stuff like that just doesn't appeal to me.  Before the law change, the only thing legal around here was the snap'n'crack poppers (the little paper things that pop on impact) and sparklers.  Anything beyond that could result in a trip to the sheriff's office.

Rev. R. Farrier

[Yvarg]

You do realize that when accompanied by a little safety fuse, a pair of scissors, and an empty plastic soda bottle even a few of the mildest variant of sparklers can become a fairly effective explosive? Not like anyone such as myself would ever try such an idea, I'm just saying . . . 

[Isobel Copperfinch]

Someone else in Maine!
I never even got to play with sparklers until a couple of years ago. So they still seem kinda enjoyable to me. Sad, eh? Deprived childhood. Ha.
Oddly enough I do very much long to play with explosive-type things. Preferably after educating myself extensively on safety precautions. I'm one of those boring sorts who doesn't want to irresponsibly mess around at random with things likely to cause serious injury (I want to know exactly what I'm doing, be well-prepared, and then mess with things capable of causing serious injury). Should I ever find myself armed with the proper safety knowledge and with readily available fun explody things, though, I guarantee you there will be megalomaniacal cackling that'll be audible from the next county. Some day I need to make friends with somebody who has solid pyrotechnical knowledge and experience, and we can go on vacation somewhere with lax fireworks laws.

[Siliconous Skumins]

Bonfire night.

The night we celebrate the fact that the king didn't explode.

Yes, I've never quite understood that one either.

Actually those festivities allready went on before those events took place, it was an established 'Pagan' festival (think along the lines of "The Wicker Man" film or the Burning Man festival), which was hijacked and the date adjusted by a few days.  Same as many other seasonal festivities such as Christmas and Halloween which also coinside with Pagan events.  All to do with the church and religious leaders trying to erase / hide the Pagan practices of the time, rather than outright banning them - which would have caused a lot of "unrest" in the population...


To all others in this thread:

Speaking from experience, PLEASE BE CAREFULL WITH EXPLOSIVES !   I know first hand what terrible injuries can occur when they are mishandled (even by someone experienced in their use).  I'm lucky to still be alive, still have all my fingers......and still have sight remaining in ONE eye!

Loosing two pints of blood through your face - not fun. Very painfull.

I kid you not.

SS

[phineas sheridan]

eeshh, that does not sound like fun.
good thing i light one out of every 4-15. i like to maximize (not really) my safety
whatever

d

[Yvarg]

Speaking from experience, PLEASE BE CAREFULL WITH EXPLOSIVES !   I know first hand what terrible injuries can occur when they are mishandled (even by someone experienced in their use).  I'm lucky to still be alive, still have all my fingers......and still have sight remaining in ONE eye!

Ow, that sounds terrible.  I'd definitely agree with making safety being a high priority (the main reason I use a lot of fuse on experiments and tend to hide behind large objects as I watch (and the use of goggles is unnecessary to mention here  )).

[GentlemanCaller]

I'm not a fan of explosives in the hands of anyone except a small number of trained professionals, and this is discounting most of the police force and 90% of the military, let alone your average Joseph Bloggs. I will however say that I have a weak spot for firecrackers.

Still can't quite get over the time my Chinese friend burst into the room with a manic grin on her face and said "Happy New Year! Now wear knee-high boots, we're going to my parent's house!"

I was not in possesion of knee-high boots. Still, the burns faded eventually.

[Zorch]

Fireworks are just like any other force of nature like electricity and even steam.  It will kill you if you give it that chance and/or if you don't treat it with respect - and even then there is still a chance something unforeseen will happen and go terribly wrong.  The best you can do is treat it with respect, use your common sense, and apply your knowledge.   Everything else is out of your hands

I remember very distinctly setting up a mortar at my uncles cottage on the lake at the end of the dock. I lit the wick, only to have it burn down into the tube in half a second right before my eyes!  Good thing duck and covered or I probably would not be able to see right now. 

Made for a fun evening tho    You cant buy life and death experiences or the associated memories!

[Hikaro Takayama]

S. Skummins:

Relax, I am always careful... I've had training for and am qualified to handle much larger explosives than your garden variety fireworks.... Hell, in one day alone, I humped about 5 tons of 5-inch Naval gun projectiles and powder canisters (the projectiles ranged from High Explosive Fragmentation to Armor piercing and white phosporous), not to mention several 600 lb Sparrow III missiles, 20 mm rounds, etc.

[Zorch]

Wow.  I did get to help load and fire a cannon once...  that was about as big a boom as I can get outside of Hollywood 

[Siliconous Skumins]

S. Skummins:

Relax, I am always careful... I've had training for and am qualified to handle much larger explosives than your garden variety fireworks....

Glad to hear it, but I'm not sure if everyone else here knows what they're doing.


Due to the way things are these days (and not wanting to be mistaken for a Brazilian electrician...) I'm not going to post details about my little incident, which took place a number of years ago - but suffice it to say, I took precautions, and still got bitten. 

I have a few scars on my face and hands, but luckily they healed well and are barely noticeable. My eye was initially thought to have been destroyed by "shrapnel" (and had to undergo an operation to remove the fragments from my face and eye socket / sinus cavity) but by sheer luck the eye was still intact, but badly damaged the retina and optic nerve due to the impact - so lost about 80 - 90% sight in that eye.  The muscle that controls my eye is also damaged, so that eye tends to be a little 'lazy', though that may have been due to the fact my eye was removed from the socket during the op...
The pupil of that eye is also torn, so the pupil has an oval shape, and usually larger than the other eye (which usually makes people or the police suspect I'm on drugs or something). Surface of my eye was also slightly burned, but nothing serious - just uncomfortable.

I also severed an artery in my face, partially damaged a facial nerve, completely riped open my top lip from the corner of my mouth, to just under my nose (lip was actually detached on one side, and flapping about - yet somehow no damage to my teeth), and as a result of the fragment in my sinus cavity, my sense of smell has also been weakend somewhat.  To avoid worsening the scaring, most of the operation to remove the fragments was done from the inside of my mouth (cutting up through the cheek), so have scars inside my mouth too.
Also had a deep cut on one finger which was into the bone, so now a have a little bony lump under the scar on my finger.

One strange fact was that the blast seemed to have burst a lot of the capillaries (thin blood vessels) under my skin, so my face, arms and hands were covered with blood blisters, so I looked FAR worse that I really was (though I was bad enough...). They took a few weeks to clear up too.

Things could have been a LOT worse for me, the fragment that entered my sinus cavity stopped just short of going completely through the skull and entering my brain... 


So everyone please be carefull with homebrew fireworks, you seriously don't want to go through what I did !

SS

[A.G.Morgan]

Things could have been a LOT worse for me, the fragment that entered my sinus cavity stopped just short of going completely through the skull and entering my brain... 


So everyone please be carefull with homebrew fireworks, you seriously don't want to go through what I did !

SS

I was about to ask if you were sure you didn't buy "fireworks" from a shifty arms dealer by accident, but if you were rolling your own your experience makes more sense.

Kinda reminds me of Odin, who gave his right eye for wisdom.

[hexidecima]

So everyone please be carefull with homebrew fireworks, you seriously don't want to go through what I did !

SS

indeed!  My husband is trained with explosives via being a combat engineer/sapper.  He doesn't screw around with fireworks because they are simply too variable.  And he does agree with GentlemanCaller in that few even supposedly "trained" should be allowed to work with any type of explosive, being around too many people who have no idea how to cut fuses that are actually the time they are supposed to be.