Various Accidents and Injuries

[Boomer]

"That's all from my side I hope I won't have any accidents anymore."

 

That's unlike given the history.

 

It's surviving and telling it that counts, so always plan what-if ahead.

 

"..so I guess nothing happened to them?"

 

It did not happen, it's the nightmare that makes me use e-dets in real world.

 

Wanna have a laugh? Some may know this story from E-W, but anyway:

 

When using the food processor to grind a few pounds of dope material for AN dynamite (O-balanced AN + flour, to soak up the NG), after some batches mom said 'stop for today it's loud, think of the neighbors'. When coming from university next evening, the pot was cleaned. WTF?

Long story short, mom had forgotten about my doings and had mistaken the stuff still sticking to the mixers sides and bottom for powdered bread (She makes her own from dry bread - you know the crumbles to coat meat with in conjunction with eggs). She had used the mixer as-is to process a veggie soup for an old lady next door who can't chew, thinking a little bread crumbs in the soup can't hurt granny.

 

And that's when I thought of the neighbors, one in particular.

 

Turned out eating a quarter stick worth did not hurt her, we got no complaints of cramps or something. Her luck was that I always add the NG later, there are limits to what I put through a blender. Hopefully she wasn't constipated next day - speaking of explosive diarrhea.

 

So much about history, you can guess this was only one in a row of 'strange' things happening to me. People who feed granny explosives are bound to go to ER themselves twice per decade. Starting at 10 this means 6 visits for me up to now. That's why I preach safety all the time, if I did not play the what-if-game before experimenting, I would not be here to tell. Of course it was me to report spontaneous detonation when plasticising HMTD with nitroaromatics. But I could report it because I used 200mg of each. Today I would recommend 20mg.

[50AE]

Last year, I got an accident with BP.

 

It was my first manufacture of BP. I was milling it with a mortar&pestle and finally, the quality was horrible. There were white drops. I tried to re-mill it, nothing changed. Then, I put it in hot water, mixed it and let it evaporate on a hot plate. The goal was to dissolve the KNO3.

When the BP had dried, I took 2 grams and I placed on a cardboard to see if it will burn. But I was such a pesimist, that I thought it will still suck, so I forgot the sauce pan filled with BP near the test area. Then I lit the BP, it burnt very fast, releasing sparks, one spark dropped in the sauce pan, and - POUF.

I was lucky it was only 20 grams and sulfurless. The kitchen was in smoke.

[psyco_1322]

Testing in the kitchen is not a good idea.

 

I was drying some ammonium nitrate/newspaper smoke paper in the oven to put into storage so it would be dry. Well someone just had to destract me and all the sudden heard this woof sound coming from the stove. Looked inside and it was a flaming! Smoked the hell out of the kitchen but I blocked off the rest of the house. Took a good 20-30minutes to clear it all out. Dad didnt like that, Mother understood, kinda.

[oskarchem]

Yeah, The same thing happened to me whilst I was metling KNO3+Su in the kitchen, and well we have induction plates, they heat up very fast and I didn't put any water into it.. The smokebomb worked fine, but the kitchen was filled with smoke...

[crazyboy25]

well moments ago i had my first real and scary accident i had close to 1200 grams of BP, veline super prime, AL's hexmine fueled blue and ruby red go up in a massive fireball. i have almost zero injuries (lost some hair plus minor burns on hands) i was SCARED nothing else lit and nothing really got destroyed i was LUCKY will post pics tomorrow.

[oskarchem]

wow you hade some "luck" that your house didn't burn, but I guess it was milled BP?

[crazyboy25]

well it happened in the garage which is about 25 feet away. and like i said milled BP veline super prime and several hundred grams of stars.

[oskarchem]

Ah, sorry didn't see.

[Bonny]

When the BP had dried, I took 2 grams and I placed on a cardboard to see if it will burn. But I was such a pesimist, that I thought it will still suck, so I forgot the sauce pan filled with BP near the test area. Then I lit the BP, it burnt very fast, releasing sparks, one spark dropped in the sauce pan, and - POUF.

I was lucky it was only 20 grams and sulfurless. The kitchen was in smoke.

I had a very similar experience 1-1/2 years ago. I was testing my first pressed and corned BP on my deck (outside). I lit a small pile and a spark leaped about 10 ft, to a pan with a couple hundred grams of corned BP. My GF was suntanning and heard a woomp sound,and opened her eyes to a big cloud of smoke. Was kind of scary, but really pissed me off as it consumed all my BP.

[Boomer]

I guess most of us learned the hard way that sparks have the habit to fly ten times further than ever before, only because there's some open composition around for them to land on.

 

The smoking oven reminds me of when I wanted to use the residual warmth (hardly above room temp) of my combined oven/micro combo to get a frozen quarter-pound block of RDX plastique kneedable, and forgot I had used the micro to heat coffee water in between.

 

The moment I closed the door was the moment I realized the humming of the magnetron, followed by angry hissing and yellow light from inside, before diving for cover of course.

 

I had to get a new microwave, and can confirm the GI stories from 'Nam veterans of using C-4 blocks to cook meals on. No it won't explode, but it does burn hot, hot enough to melt steel.

[WarezWally]

You microwaved a block of RDX

 

Even though its relatively stable, you got some balls

[h0lx]

Reminds me of when I tried to dry NC in a microwave. Never ignited before, but this batch was badly washed I think. Luckyly it was pretty wet and it only burnt on the outside, while the microwave was on. It filled my kitchen with smoke and NO smells. The smoke was from the paper it was on.

 

EDIT: NO smells as in nitrogen oxides smells, not lack of smells. Just noticed it could be understood otherwise.

[Boomer]

The magnetron should not have been on of course, it came on with the door switch. I just wanted to use the rest of warmth there was from the meal before, maybe 15C above room air. Its funny now but I would not have done that on purpose for all the money in the world. It's one thing to be 3 meters from a quarter pound behind a tree to feel the shock wave, but one foot from your face sounds lethal, even without the glass door in between.

 

I do wounder now what got *so* hot within a second to *ignite*, there was no water in the comp. Even a syringe with water takes *twenty* times longer to barely reach *boiling*.

 

It can't be water, it can't be conductivity (as in some ceramics that also get hot, unlike glass and porcelain). But something in there does resonate at 2.45 GHz that's for sure. Maybe it was the same with your NC, not bad washing. While wet, it cannot go above 100C. When dry, how does it heat up? I think the -ONO2 does not like to be nuked, just like O-H-O.

 

I do tell all those stories to make a point. They are *not* meant as examples, I could have died every single time.

 

But the reason I survived repeatedly is that I did *not* make a kilo-batch when first plasticising HMTD - only 200mg was bad enough. And the stuff in the micro was *not* some kewl APAN mix but RDX, something that belongs into the main charge, unlike peroxides.

Both mistakes would have killed me otherwise, and had I kept scientific experiments and new-years-eve fun better apart, I would be typing a lot faster now.

[WarezWally]

I can picture the cops when they figure out what happened.

 

Cop 1 - It appears he attempted to microwave a block of RDX, unfortunately for him it detonated.

Cop 2 - *mutters something about k3wls and shakes his head*

Cop 3 - Fellas, why are the walls painted red?

[Pyroblast]

I just had 150 grams of black powder go off two feet away from me. Never use crackling visco fuse to test compositions. It throws sparks all over the place...

Luckily I was far enough away to avoid any burns.

[hst45]

I just had 150 grams of black powder go off two feet away from me. Never use crackling visco fuse to test compositions. It throws sparks all over the place...

Luckily I was far enough away to avoid any burns.

Another good thought is not to use sparklers as fuse, for just the same reason; they throw sparks which light stuff on fire. I'm not bitching at you, I'm just posting this as a safety idea.

 

Glad you weren't hurt. Damned, but that sudden "WHOOFFFF" with the heat blast and smoke cloud will make your heart skip a beat. I'm glad that that has never happened to me... ,..uh...lately.

 

Yet again another reason to work with SMALL batchs of compounds boys and girls. Note that Pyroblast was able to post this because he had 150 gms. of BP, not 150 gms. of AP, or we'd be reading this post written by the next of kin........(phone).

 

Thanks for sharing the incident.

[Badnews]

I remeber about for the change of the milennium I thought It would be cool to unravel a bunch of snaps and put them into a paper towel and throw them. I was only 9 years old at the time. I didn't know that after about 100 or so snaps, that stuff is no longer a little toy. So we (My little 7 year old sister and I) are on our 4th or 5th box (Probably around 200-250 snaps) When I see in my sister start to drop one. In the pile.

My mom and dad came running into my kitchen to find the glass table we were working on shattered, my sister with small piece of glass in her foot (Small as in no larger that a dime, mass wise, not very deep either) and me tipped over in my chair, deafened and dumb for a while.

Scariest experience, ever. In my entire life.

[WarezWally]

Sparklers = bad

 

Nearly lost half my face using one to light a fountain

[oskarchem]

Well today, I lited a composition that I didn't think that was going to burn so quickly, a,d burnt my finger, and now it is hard (the top of my finger) but it didn't really hurt...

[50AE]

Reminds me my first try to ignite my homemade flash powder. I didn't know that it was so powerfull, so I rushed a lit match in 1 gram and I burned a little my finger. It smelled like fried chicken for some time, then it started to hurt for about an hour.

[oskarchem]

Wow, just had more of a fright just now some time ago, like 1 year I opened a commercial foutaine to see how they are made, and there was a small tube with some blackmatch at the end, so I decided to keep it. And today I fired the blackmatch up ans put it just lying in a coke can (the can was half cut) btw this was done onthe window sill at the window in my lab. So I fire the BM up, quickly close the window and then I see some flame, and BANG a massive report! and some stars flying around, I'm wondering if that was supposed to happen since there were about 8 of them fused together (foutaine there were 8 tubes fused together) so I don't think that there was ment to be a report... BTW I didn't fire the otherones because I don't know where they are...

[they call me 9 fingers]

Well I learned to be very careful when smoking at the door to my shop when I have 200g of bp drying. Somehow the cherry flew 7 feet and magically landed in my pan of bp. Of course it went up( it was faster than i was expecting) threw sparks and ignited my dirty containers and tools, they went up then my bag of freshly made e matches went up(there were like 30) so needless to say I was a little upset. It might be time to stop smoking. And here is a random question for every one. Has anyone actually had a coffee grinder blow on them. I know it is a potential but has anyone actually experienced it first hand. Maybe some one can sacrifice a old grinder to science. Use a long extension cord and run it till it blows. It would be nice to have a crude benchmark just to know how long and how bad it would be. hmmm i might have to make a trip to the thrift store.

[Frozentech]

And here is a random question for every one. Has anyone actually had a coffee grinder blow on them. I know it is a potential but has anyone actually experienced it first hand. Maybe some one can sacrifice a old grinder to science. Use a long extension cord and run it till it blows. It would be nice to have a crude benchmark just to know how long and how bad it would be. hmmm i might have to make a trip to the thrift store.

I had a Black & Decker brand coffee grinder flare up inside while grinding some charcoal. The white plastic body glowed like an orange lamp, but the airfloat C in the grinder cup didn't ignite. Had it been BP I am certain it would have taken my face off.

[FrankRizzo]

Well I learned to be very careful when smoking at the door to my shop when I have 200g of bp drying.  Somehow the cherry flew 7 feet and magically landed in my pan of bp.  Of course it went up( it was faster than i was expecting)  threw sparks and ignited my dirty containers and tools, they went up then my bag of freshly made e matches went up(there were like 30) so needless to say I was a little upset.  It might be time to stop smoking.  And here is a random question for every one.  Has anyone actually had a coffee grinder  blow on them.  I know it is a potential but has anyone actually experienced it first hand.  Maybe some one can sacrifice a old grinder to science. Use a long extension cord and run it till it blows.  It would be nice to have a crude benchmark just to know how long and how bad it would be. hmmm i might have to make a trip to the thrift store.

YOU ARE A GODDAMN FOOL. SMOKING near where you have live composition or finished items? I'm speechless.

 

Blowing up a coffee grinder should never even be a remote possibility. To ponder such an effect suggests that maybe you're grinding something other than INDIVIDUAL INGREDIENTS. A coffee grinder is NOT an alternative to a properly constructed ball mill.

 

It's time to re-evaluate your operation and its relative safety. Read this before you become crispy: FIREWORKS SAFETY MANUAL - Bill Ofca

[WarezWally]

Hot motor + airfloat charcoal / sulfur / metal powders can easily cause something to blow up.