My wife and I had a discussion about this very thing (well, making explosives in general, I think it was thermite, in particular) not long ago.
"Why would you want to do that?", she asked.
"It's fun. Why wouldn't you?", I answered.
"Well, I don't know anyone who did that as a kid."
"Well, I don't know anyone who didn't."
Different sexes, different mindsets. I don't know too many guys who had tea parties with their other guy friends, either.
When I was 13, I was trying to fix a lawnmower engine that was dead. I went to drain the gasoline into a styrofoam cup and...it dissolved in my hand (as we all know it does...now)
So I got another Styrofoam cup and dropped some gas into it…same thing. I grabbed a Maxwell House coffee can and drained the gas into it, filling it ¾ full. There was a bag of Styrofoam pellets nearby, and out of curiosity, I dropped one in.
It disappeared.
So I grabbed a handful and dropped them in…poof…they were gone. This was fascinating. I began throwing handfuls in, just to see how many would go in. Eventually, it turned into a thick goo, and the pellets stopped disintegrating so quickly.
Now I had this coffee can full of thick goo, and had no idea what to do with it. I couldn’t throw it in the trash, so I just stuck it, paint stirrer and all in back of some cabinet and forgot all about it.
When we moved out of that house a few years later and were cleaning out the garage, I walked over and saw my dad through the window, holding this can in his hand, looking at it quizzically, his countenance a picture of pure bewilderment.