Misspent youth

[wdfifteen]

The Big Bertha thread got me thinking about fun stuff we did as kids. My best friend and I made a science of making realistic model car explosions and fires. It was quite a challenge to create a 1/25 scale explosion and fire. We experimented with kerosene, gasoline, lighter fluid, the power out of shotgun shells. As I recall a little gunpowder, kerosene, Kleenex, and crumbled up wax-based fire starters made a good combination. It looked pretty cool. We tried it on flying model airplanes too - see how long we could keep them in the air burning - but it was too expensive to keep up with. It's a hobby I may take up again.
Anybody else a Jr demolitions enthusiast?

[nynor]

dude. black powder at twelve, from chemicals purchased at the drug store. things got crazier from there. homemade plastique. you name it.

[bell]

i was always a fan of writing my name in gasoline in the driveway and lighting it ablaze
it also took me a few tries to figure out how to knock down small trees with m80s.....you must tape the explosive around the trunk evenly and BLAMO......downed tree

lets not forget the bb guns too.....but things "went downhill" when i learned how to build polish cannons

[Hugh R]

You mean like this?

[Jagshund]

My brothers and I were playing with black powder and cannon fuse before we hit high school. Nowdays you'd be shipped down to Gitmo for some of the things we built- and no one lost any digits.

[pwd72s]

Hugh...I laughed during the final scene of that movie...the only really clever writing in it...

(edit)

That said, wish I'd spent my youth in a pool hall...

[bell]

hugh.....was that "wild hogs"? LOL

[m21sniper]

At one time the Bell Telephone company redesigned (reduced in size) the coin return slots in their pay phones so that a quarter stick of dynamite would no longer perfectly slide right in there.

It had absolutely nothing to do with me, i swear.

[vonsmog]

And we all know what happens when you flush an M80 down the toilet at school! Boy was that ever fun!

[Hugh R]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Hugh...I laughed during the final scene of that movie...the only really clever writing in it...

(edit)

That said, wish I'd spent my youth in a pool hall...

Yeah, they were a last minute re-write. Helped the movie a whole bunch. We were going to do a "Wild Hogs II" but it got canned. It was to be in Europe, too bad.

[porsche4life]

We've been experimenting with Tannerite lately.... Makes powder out of microwaves, tvs, fridges, monitors, dishwashers.... you get the drift...

[BeyGon]

We got ahold of dynamite caps when I was in Junior High, boy were they fun, I think back at that and wonder. We would also get little co2 cartridges and small sterno cans, sit the cartridge on it, light it and walk away, I still wonder.

[HHI944]

Made napalm in the kitchen once, during my first time around at drinking....err, I mean college. It's a wonder none of us died or got convicted of anything during that year. I vividly remember shooting bottle rockets at the police station across the street, then proceeding to set off about 30lbs of various fireworks in one of the bathrooms. Good god, we drank way too much........................ And that tub was pretty much shrapnel when it was all said and done. We were all to happy to surrender our security deposit.

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by vonsmog

And we all know what happens when you flush an M80 down the toilet at school! Boy was that ever fun!

Yep, and alway do it on the 2nd floor for best results

We also use to cut the heads off matches, put them in glass bottles and ignite them with the stuff from rocket kits to set them off....

[Shaun @ Tru6]

do not blow up stinging jelly fish, it stings, everywhere.

[Schumi]

I made a ridiculous number of pipe bombs.


Ridiculous number.

[kycarguy 935]

One of our neighbors across the street had a bunch dynamite blasting caps. I was friends with his grand kids and we would always go shooting. This was when we were 8-12 years old.

The grandfather would tie these caps to a tree and we would shoot at it until one of us hit it. They would make a good explosion and rip up the tree.

Sorry tree. I volunteer for Arbor Day now and give out free tree's and help educate residents on how to plant them and take care of them.

It was a different time in the late 60's and early 70's. My dad told my of crazier times he had when he was a kid in the 40'sand 50's. I can't imagine my kids doing that today or what would happen if they did.

Good thread.

[porsche4life]

Originally Posted by Schumi

I made a ridiculous number of pipe bombs.


Ridiculous number.

Why does this not surprise me?

[Oh Haha]

We used to hang out in the girders of a bridge when we snuck out at night. Smokin' Old Gold Filters and drinkin' whatever our parents left within reach.

We didn't have access to fireworks or dynamite but the neighbors next door did.

They used to catch all sorts of animals and then blow them up with m-80s. Yeah, they were the psycho family of our suburb.

They blew up up an oil drum one night. Shook the entire street.

They always had dirty mags in the "fort" so our goal was to get them to let us younger kids in. They toldus it was booby-trapped and us younger kids were too afraid to find out.

[dipso]

We used to make hot air balloons.

You take six drinking straws. Attach 3 together by sliding the ends over each other. Then you have two long 3 straw straws.
Cross those over eachother and put a pin through the middle like a big X. Then poke 3 pins through each arm.
Now you have 13 pins sticking up through a big X of drinking straws.
Put birthday candles on each pin.

Then take a drycleaners bag and with wax paper iron the top shut, where the hanger used to go.
Cover the X with the bag and poke it through the ends of the straws in four even places at he bottom of the bag. Put a pin in each arm to hold the bag.
It takes a couple of kids to do this right, but you hold open the bag while one of your knucklehead buddies lights all the candles. Slowly the bag fills up with hot air and you let it go.

We chased one of these things about 5 miles on our little bicycles, down the traintracks one night and could not catch it.
It was either that or have bottle rocket fights in the park or sometimes soak a tennis ball in gasoline and kick it at eachother.

Never got into explosives.