[Myrddin]

Fine aluminum dust and fine iron dust are typically employed to make flash powder. The iron makes a yellow colored shower of sparks. Aluminum tends to bright white. It's not surprising that you ended up with a "flare" instead of the typical smoldering, smoking blob of a thermite reaction. A little strontium nitrate makes for a red color. That's what is used in road flares. Once upon a time, I was a bit more fluent in which compounds produce specific colors.

[mills044]

When we were 10, my buddies and I ordered 2 books out of a back of a boyscout magazine entitled:

1) Improvised Munitions, and
2) Boobytraps & Incindiary Devices

Within a week we had made 2 batches of napalm (1 using styrofoam, the other using lye), a crude claymore landmine, a bazooka, and some other nifty gadgets...the coolest of which was an improvised gasoline-filled supersoaker (squirtgun), outfitted with a wooden dowel & zippo lighter. Sure, our flamethrower only lasted for a few minutes, but man, the neighborhood bullies sure respected our block after that incident.

I even wrote a fictional book based loosely on that incident, 20 years after the fact: three “inventive” kids take on Islamic terrorists bent on finding/destroying the Holy Grail. If there are any literary agents out there, send me some freepmail! :)