Posted on 07/04/2010 11:35:40 AM PDT by llevrok
KIRKLAND, Wash. - Homemade fireworks caused an explosion inside a vehicle on Interstate 405 in Kirkland on Saturday.
The Washington State Patrol says a man filled some balloons with welding gas - a combination of oxygen and acetylene gas - which is normally stored in steel cylinders.
They rubbed together, causing static electricity, and exploded. Troopers say the blast blew out the back window of the pickup truck.
They say the man, woman and 3-year-old girl in the vehicle are lucky they were not injured or even killed in the blast.
Never thought of this.
Then again, i didn’t learn of the Potato cannon until i was 35.....probably a good thing.
I have a friend on the “no fly” list because of doing something like this when he was a teenager.
What the article doesn’t say is why did the guy fill those tanks? Was he preparting a bomb for the party later and it exploded prematurely?
What we used to do as kids was poke a small hole in the bottom of a tin can and insert a firecracker. Put some water in a can that’s a little bit larger and put the smaller can inside..firecracker up, of course. When it explodes you’ll be surprised at how high the can will go.
At least, that's what you heard, right?
I agree.
Comment #15, the famous Bangsite cannon. I had one for decades and used it every July 4th. The thing worked great for 40 years or so.
>> Here’s a fun one: <<
“If it is raining is this safe to do inside the house?”
Sure. I do it all the time....lol /s
Thought it said “wedding gas.” LOL With the balloons my brain believed it to be totally logical.
Good old cast iron, brass and steel.Can't be beat. A friend's dad had one of these, now that was God's own loud. Excellent smoke as well. I think I need to get one...
The stories I could tell describing the delights of stoichiometry.
Sure. Had lots of fun with calcium carbide as a kid.
Yup
Did you ever have a carbide cannon?
Even luckier they weren’t transiting a tunnel when this went off. That would’ve been quite the 4th-of-July sparkler.
NOT my fault.
I’d have used bigger ballons.
We used to fill metal 16 oz food cans with oxy/acetylene mixture, set them into a pan filled with water and had a hole in the top, stick a long fuse into the hole. Light that bugger and run and get behind a tree trunk. Those cans flew over 100 feet straight up.
“After WW-2 we used to buy weather baloons at the Surplus store, fill them with oxygen/acetylene, put a long fuse on them and release them at dusk at evening rush hour and blow out a lot of windows when it went off at about 10,000’.”
Basically, that’s a fuel-air bomb.
The following contains a possible ethnic slur, but consider where I’m from and the times described: in the 1960’s, my neighbor made a “Polish cannon” - which was 3 or 4 beer cans (how to make one is described on the ‘Net). Very loud, and cheap!
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