Akshully: NI-3 and IN-3, the black trigger 'scab' :-\ufffd
Yup - that's the kind of stuff, alright..
Difference - my HS chem teach *Helped* !!
Sodium metal cut up into small chunks (under kerosene) - in bottle. In field. Rubber tube with funnel. Add water: watch white cloud slowly move across field.
No luck with the nitro (either). We at least realized that you either make very tiny qty (improbable) OR the whole hog + postage:
Fuming Sulfuric (Usual conc., but saturated with SO3). Hard to get and transport. Similar re the Nitroso- HNO3 - and Cooling Coils! to moderate the action. You just Can't get this (and the lore) together with any semblance of an excuse of saving lab, student + teacher-job.. y'know? (Which is why I hardly ever believe the "I made nitro" stories.)
And when I finally landed a summer+ job at Atlas Powder (not in Nitrating house) and first approached a loaded Angel Buggy .. an all-wood cart, squarish box (lined with ?), canvas hose with wooden pinch-cock: and realized fully the contained ENERGY, 'twas a Boom-geek's satori. Imagine *gallons* !!
Watching as the nitro was added to the mixer (for mere dynamite, Gelodyne IIRC) - through a plastic window. .. .. .. I could see it
over the powder already in the drum. Only the knowledge/faith? that this was routine.. routine.. routine..
kept the feets from sprint mode.
I attribute continued existence to:
A small tract some sharp (Insurance Co? - gotta see if I can find that) author assembled. Aptly titled, Challenge to Maturity it described some young .. alas-not-ept .. kiddies of similar bent, and a pipe bomb. Which exploded as the cap was screwed on. The carnage described delicately, incl. the relatively undamaged body of one miscreant - at the hospital. Until - -
they noted a red stain appearing on his side.. Bummer.
(I had never been reckless, in any case - but this did remind about overconfidence. Still, in the end, Luck is ever present. As with the phosgene generator. Or not. ;-)
Fulminates. Lead azide - Ah.. and I still have a couple pill bottles with various colorful yellow picrates, which time has proven to be - stable enough. What to do with the small sealed-in-glass bit of Rubidium metal? - and never forget the wondrous things you can do with a roll of thin Mg tape - either 'neat' or in combo. Entropy: there's the Thing.
{{cackle}} In the Lawyer Kultur - I suspect that our varied experiences shall be granted unto only a miniscule few of today's crop; maybe just as well - so many can't even add - let alone balance chem equations. What's in a MOL?
Ashton
Still regret letting someone have my Davis, [link|http://james-bond.cebru.com/books/P000gm8ggf9ngh/The_Chemistry_of_Powder_and_Explosives/| Chemistry of Powder and Explosives] :( in exchange for making a Ti part for my motorsickle.
