Flammable Fun!

[Subdeacon Joe]

 

 

 

[watab kid]

OK , ill admit  that was fun , 

[Alpo]

So if I took a box of rocks, and pour gasoline over them, and set the gasoline on fire - I would have flammable rocks?

 

It looks to me like the gas is burning. Not the ice.

 

Neat, and an interesting thing. But the ice is not on fire.

[Sagebrush Burns, SASS # 14226]

Where can I get calcium carbide?

[Alpo]

49 minutes ago, Sagebrush Burns, SASS # 14226 said:

Where can I get calcium carbide?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=buy+calcium+chloride&t=fpas&ia=web

[watab kid]

Used to be readily available - we used it in the carbide lamps we employed everywhere , 

 

i miss having that old dry cell battery that you could reclaim the carbon rod from , if you hooked tow to a model train transformer and had tapered the ends to a point you could create a really cool bright light , 

much like playing with mercury , life was fun back then , 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Aren't you glad all the screwball do-gooders and politicians stepped in to save you from all that fun?

 

Good Lord, son, did you WANT to die happy?

 

What's the matter with you? 

[Blackwater 53393]

My dad would pull that carbon rod and use it to solder stuff on the side of the road!

 

A set of jumper cables and a hot battery with the carbon rod on the plus side.  Watched him repair the radiator on our car one afternoon with that trick!!

 

 

[Eyesa Horg]

6 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

My dad would pull that carbon rod and use it to solder stuff on the side of the road!

 

A set of jumper cables and a hot battery with the carbon rod on the plus side.  Watched him repair the radiator on our car one afternoon with that trick!!

 

 

That's pretty damn ingenious!

[Alpo]

1 hour ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

My dad would pull that carbon rod and use it to solder stuff on the side of the road!

 

A set of jumper cables and a hot battery with the carbon rod on the plus side.  Watched him repair the radiator on our car one afternoon with that trick!!

 

 

I used to have a book from the 40s. Popular Mechanics farm tricks. That wasn't the title, but that was basically it. It was showing you how to do all kinds of stuff on the farm. Showed how to build an air compressor. How to build a deep freezer.

 

And it showed how to weld using the carbon rod out of a D battery, your car battery, jumper cables and a coat hanger.

 

Basically TIGging.

[Alpo]

 

Without the inert gas

[Subdeacon Joe]

I think it was Cal-Poly, back in the '60s.  After home football games there were often street parties on frat row.  Said parties usually involved bonfires in the street.   Fire Department would show up and hose down the fire.

 

A couple of times some inventive students put a can of calcium carbide in the middle of the pile of wood.   Fire got lit, FD showed up and started hosing it down.   Fire flares up.  Firemen back off, try again.   Same thing.   Firemen realized that the bonfire was in front of the house inhabited by Chem majors.  That,  and the faint but telltale smell of the carbide-water reaction, made them realize what was happening.   So they hosed down the edges and hung around until the fire burned out.

[Sagebrush Burns, SASS # 14226]

22 hours ago, Alpo said:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=buy+calcium+chloride&t=fpas&ia=web

thank you

[Texas Joker]

9 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

I think it was Cal-Poly, back in the '60s.  After home football games there were often street parties on frat row.  Said parties usually involved bonfires in the street.   Fire Department would show up and hose down the fire.

 

A couple of times some inventive students put a can of calcium carbide in the middle of the pile of wood.   Fire got lit, FD showed up and started hosing it down.   Fire flares up.  Firemen back off, try again.   Same thing.   Firemen realized that the bonfire was in front of the house inhabited by Chem majors.  That,  and the faint but telltale smell of the carbide-water reaction, made them realize what was happening.   So they hosed down the edges and hung around until the fire burned out.

These days that is literally the definition of creating a terroristic threat. 

 

Just like making dry ice bombs will get you arrested.

 

Our childhood is illegal.