Various Accidents and Injuries

[al93535]

50% humidity is plenty to really kill static build up. From 10% to about 40% I can charge lyden jars quite easily with PVC pipe and a wool sock. 50% and up makes it very difficult! The jars bleed what small amount of static you can generate almost as fast as they are being charged.

 

50% is not really dry. Where I live its common to have 10% humidity most of the time. I have a hygrometer outside and I check it always before mixing flash. Sometimes at night it will get to 50%, but usually only like 30%. I try to do most mixing after a rain. But I also will use a humidifier in a small shed outside.

 

Anything that will prevent accidents needs to be utilized!

[ltf]

LOL In my country and in my area the humidity is low when it's 50% most of the time it's about 70%-80%.

May be that's why I never had problems with flash I even press it from time to time...

[RUUUUUN]

I had about 1 kilo of BP go off because I was drying it on low heat, and it went kapoof! Don't try heat dry your BP let it air dry!

 

Thx mods

[artificier]

this is my injuries of my thumb with HE :

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/4246/explosifblessure1pe.png

[WV-Pyro]

Well, I'm lucky to have my left hand right now. I couldn't get none of my KNO4 Sugar rockets to work, because I don't have a scale and was just eye-balling it, so I tried to use Potassium Chlorate to see if it would work better. For some weird reason, I wasn't thinking, and began ramming the mixture in the tube with the blunt end of drill bit the same ID as the tube and a hammer, then on about the 10th ram it exploded. My first three fingers on my left hand instantly went numb and my left ear started ringing and I couldn't hear out of it. It is still ringing a little even after 2 days. This is an example of why you should be well rested so you can think properly before you make something. DO NOT make rockets at 2 A.M. in the morning, or with KCLO3 for that matter. Please excuse my idiocy.

 

Lesson learned: KCLO3 is friction/shock sensitive (which I already knew).

[Dr Boom]

In my 12 years of dealing with things that explode i've had only one accident that was gross negligence on my part.

 

Anyone familiar with or heard of Neg-X? More commonly known for its ability to burst into flames from a drop of water on it.

Here's some good info on it @ Water Starts a Fire

Well- I got my recipe from an old manual on pyrotechnic mixtures and thought- "huh, sounds cool! Let's whip some up!"

 

Now, dumb on my part? Not have proper protection at 1100 at night in my shop trying to mix 300 grams of this in a coffee blender.

 

In short, I galvenized both my hands with molten zinc when the mixture adsorbed too much moisture from the air in the blender and exploded in my face. Thankfully my hands took the brunt of it and I received very nice 2 degree burns on 70% of both my hands. My shirt I was wearing, (and I still have it to remind me) looks like someone shot it was a shotgun.

 

That was 2 weeks before the 4th of July and fortunately the swelling and pain went away enough for me to hold a few sparklers and "watch" the rest of the fun. That was a hard lesson learned, not only did I injure myself and burden others with having to tend to me for a month- I lost out on shooting fireworks that year.

 

An ounce of prevention and safety will dillute a pound of trouble...

[BigBang]

Well Dr Boom, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that has been injured by Negative X. Read the first post of this thread to know what happened to me. Mine happened June 24, 2005, almost 2 weeks before the fourth.

 

Such accidents give us respect for seemingly mild compositions whether in be smokes, negative X, and others. I hope we can all learn from these mishaps, lest they only bring us pain, and not enlightenment.

[delta_echo]

This is a post I made on rec.pyrotechnics around the end of march:

 

"

Hey folks,

Just wanted to report on an accidental ignition I had today.

Last night I mixed up a composition from Introductory Pyrotechnics for

green stars:

 

Source: Composition from Shimizu

Comments: Bind with 25% alc

Preparation:

 

 

Barium nitrate....................................28

Potassium Perchlorate.............................48

Parlon............................................5

Red Gum...........................................14

Dextrin.....................5

 

 

Rolled about 300 grams of composition into small round stars for use in

2" shells. Put them outside to dry today and did two things wrong.

First off, I left them sitting in the stainless steel mixing bowl and,

second, they came into direct sunlight for several hours. Anyhow, the

stars ingnited and sputtered a few feet. Didn't cause any damage (I

have everything well away from flammables/people). "

 

The whole discussion can be found here

 

On a latter note, I made a batch of these stars again and did not have any problems.

[hst45]

Years ago, in a land far away, when i was young, I was visiting my mother-in-law for a 4th of july party. Being the family ordinance officer, i naturally brought some munitions to delight the assembled crowd. During the day i fired various rockets, salutes, fountains and sparkelers. As the day wore on, large quantities of adult beverages were consumed, leaving yours truely slightly less safety oriented.

 

At this point i was having a difficult time maintaing equilibrium, so, being the genius that I am, i decided to shoot off my few remaining munitions from a sitting position. Here's my firing protocol:

 

1) Place aproximatly 10 packs (of 12 each) bottle rockets on the picnic table in front of me.

2) Place a long-neck Budweiser bottle in front or me (naturally i took it upon myself to empty it)

3) Insert one single bottle rocket in said Budweiser bottle, and light fuse.

4) Look upwards as aforementioned bottlerocket reached a height of perhaps 75 feet, and report blows.

 

Here is where the law of unintended consequenses came in, and i had to modify the remaining firing protocol as follows:

 

5) Sparks from step 3) above sent glowing embers into the step 1) (120 minus 1 bottlerockets.)

6) Since the 119 remaining bottlerockets are now starting, one by one, to light, and they are pointing to perhaps a dozen kids aroung the pool, grab the sticks of the bottle rockets and point upwards.

7) Hold on to the fucking batch of rockets as they light off, sending a really REALLY, REALLLY painfuly hot burn down onto the top of my hand.

8) Once they seem to be all lit, throw the whole mess into the air. They scream skyward and report with a wonderful series off salutes, to the great delight of the crowd, who thinks that they have just witnessed the most professional, artistic pyrotechnic display ever seen on planet earth.

 

Moral of the story: never be affraid of third degree burns so long as the audience likes the show.

 

PS, does anyone know a good cure for burn marks?

[Swany]

...PS, does anyone know a good cure for burn marks?

How about 'lets show each other our scars and then have sex'.

 

I'll ask a friend who may know, but that makes a good temperary cure, perhaps.

 

I am going to attempt ethyl perchlorate soonish, so I just thought I'd reserve a space here, as well as in the obituary section of the local paper.

 

I was in the lab with a friend of mine, and he decided he would make a small batch of stars. Ok, sure. Get a person into the hobby in a fairly safe enviroment. He knew some stuff, and wanted to try some blue (of his own formula), he had done a bit of reading, and knew approximate formulas from some comps he had been helping me with earlier so I said 'ok', and told him to keep it fairly small, say 50 grams. He knew the basics, and I have a fairly well-stocked shelf (though I do say so myself) and he had fun, a few questions here and there (I was preocupied with my own endeavors). Fast forward a few minutes, he mixes it, tests a bit, and lo and behold he has a decent green/blue, okey, go ahead and bind it up, dextrin? Use water for that.

 

He dampened it, began mashing it togeather with a spoon, and the whole lot erupted into flames! I heard a slight sizzle, and then it was off to the races and we watched fairly awe-struck at this greenish volcano erupted on my work bench, happily burning away. Luckily, I only got some scorch marks/slag on my bench, we both evacuated, him slightly in shock.

 

The composition? Ammonium nitrate, copper chloride, zinc, sulfur and PVC. Oh, yes, bound with dextrin and water!

 

I suggest you all try it.

[Rogue Chemist]

I must wish you luck with the ethyl perchlorate. I intend to try myself one day. I have the chems, but havent been able to find my ethylsulfate, it is somewhere. I had the reaction all set up one day, but then I realized it really was not the best to do it at 2am.

[BigBang]

I finally have the picture of my negative X burns, although they don't do the burn justice. Here you can see the 2nd degree burns covering most of my left thigh. NEVER EVER underestimate the potetncy of ANY pyrotechnic composition, no matter how tame it my seem!

[nitriees]

One of my injuries happen when I'm 13, pack arround 8g of flash power into small Al tube with confinement and use chinese paper fuse (which is burn as fast as quick match taken from chinese firecracker).

The device was water proof with wax coating and I decide to make it goes off under water, the most serious mistake I make was light it on my hand and throw it into small pond. The fuse burn too fast, it goes off 4 feet from me before drop into pond, I saw a huge fireball infront of me and feel the pressure hit my body, the next Im lay on the earth

with ear ringing for about 5 minutes.

I'm lucky that no injuries on me just some Al shrapnel cut my shirt on right corner and some burn mark all over my shirt.

After that incident, I start to roll my own fuse by experiment to slow down the burn time and finally use e-mtach for underwater device.

That time 1983, I don't have any information on explosive and safety,

no book, no internet access and government banned all the firearm and explosive information on education.

Im only start to get access to this kind of information from internet 4 years ago.

[ActionTekJackson]

Ok... well, this isn't the easiest thing for me to do, since it really shows my occasional idiocy, but... hopefully it keeps anyone else from trying it, or at least doing so with the proper precautions *unlike me*. So here's the story... My dad has a crapload of wood that needs to be split right? Well, I happen to have a pretty nice stock to make fair amount of flash, so I figured I'd see if I could split the wood with the flash *I know... should have been a red flag right there* Like the idiot I was that day, I envisioned a pop, and the log to basically just fall apart, possibly have a few chunks fly out a couple feet or so... Here.... is where I don't know what the hell I was thinking, I remembered burying a 20g flash salute, and noting really the lack of dirt that was flung about, so I figured this amount would work for the log *which was about 1 1/2' in Diameter*. I realize now, that the dirt I buried it in was basically all silt, so all it's gonna do is put out a little dust could and settle right back into place *durrr*. So anyway, the log split all right, split right to hell, and hell flung the biggest chunk right back at us *about 250' away!* This was THE stupidest thing I have ever done... see the vid for what I mean. The part that really really really bugs me is that hit my parents, my dad blocked most of it with his arm, but it still managed to get my mother *filming* right in the ribs. This was by far one of the shittiest days of my life....

[hst45]

Action, sorry for the mishap. Yeah, dumb. I'm glad that you shared this with the rest of us though.

 

It's easy to forget the dangerous side of the things we do, or not post the embarassing fuck-ups, and beleive me I have a file full of those myself. But it helps all the rest of us to remember to take one more safety check, re-think the experiment, make sure the fire extinguisher is handy, etc. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others, and it shows character to share your experiences, good as well as bad, with us so we can all learn from them. Hope your folks are o.k., and not too pissed.

[ActionTekJackson]

Luckily my dad knew exactly what I was doing, and it didn't cross his mind either *stupidity runs in the family?* They are both just fine, my dads arm has a nice scab and is still a little swollen, I'm just glad it didn't get anyone in the head... It's one thing when you hurt yourself, you can just shrug it off "well that was stupid" kinda thing, but it really opens ur eyes when its someone else you love and care about. Thank you for your concern.

[inkjet]

Well today, I was messing with the pull ignition found on the member tutorials section. First i just tried it with some 3/32" american, worked, tried it with some 1/16" chinese, worked. So i decided to fuse a commercial safe n' sane smoke ball with it. I wrapped the matches around the fuse, but instead of wrapping the striker from my previous strikers around it, I tried to slide it on. I had figured that if i went slowly, it would have been fine, and book matches always seemed pretty unsensitive to me.

 

BOY WAS I WRONG!!! I started to slide it on when I heard a "phhhht" and knew what had just happened. I froze for about 1 second, thought to throw it out the window, oops, windows closed, so i decide to run through the house and throw it out the back door. So by the time i reach the doorway of my room, the smoke starts pouring out. I'm running down the hall yelling "Fuck fuck fuck fuck" and have a green trail of smoke behind me.

 

 

Finally i make it to the back door, and toss it out. I turn around and the whole path i ran on has a greenish haze rising. I open all the windows and doors, and it's ok. No smell left, but i definitely learned a lesson. All i have from that is a lil green spot on my desk and a burn mark from the fuse on the desk. From now, ALL, no matter how small, pyrotechnic activities are going to take place in the workshop.

 

Now that i look back on it it was very funny though.

[Mephistos Minion]

Lololololol, Reminds me when I had a reaction go up on me (a certain Methyl keytone turning to a peroxide) Becasue I used 98.8% H2SO4... Had me running with a jar of bubbling liquid spewing horrid fumes out the top all through my house.

 

Remember:

 

DO REACTIONS OUTDOORS PEOPLE!

[pa_pyro]

The worst thing I've had happen is n-starch runaway...it billowed black fumes for a few minutes(cracking the pyrex beaker it was in ), good thing I do everything in the backyard.

[maximusg]

I just copped a face full of 3/4" rocket thrust. pretty much burnt off every hair on my face and a little of my fringe. the fuse fell into the core while i was doing some static tests (stupid of me i was rushing it). eye protection saves my sight once again

[jacob]

hi i thought i would kick this topic up again. so i go out to my garage and look at that, a black powder puck sitting on my work table [enters stooooopid mode] duuuuhh i thank i'd beter crush it up on the flor with out eiy thinges and with a slej hamer, wow naw its litil pises pater take it out side and lite it, oops liter don't work looks like i'l hav to use the blow torch wate i shoud get a wick thing, [cuts 1 1/2 long pice] ok now to lite it [puts on ground and sticks in fuse] click FOOOMP wow!!! [stops idiot mode] there is't any heare on my arm [go's inside] mom i bernt my arm. mom. ok well go and get something cold on it. at the time i wrote this my arm has a bag of pees on it. so do your self some good and don't lite stuff with a blow torch. man that was duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum edit.sorry about my spelling.

[ActionTekJackson]

hi i thought i would kick this topic up again. so i go out to my garage and look at that, a black powder puck sitting on my work table [enters stooooopid mode] duuuuhh i thank i'd beter crush it up on the flor with out eiy thinges and with a slej hamer, wow naw its litil pises pater take it out side and lite it, oops liter don't work looks like i'l hav to use the blow torch wate i shoud get a wick thing, [cuts 1 1/2 long pice] ok now to lite it [puts on ground and sticks in fuse] click FOOOMP wow!!! [stops idiot mode] there is't any heare on my arm [go's inside] mom i bernt my arm. mom. ok well go and get something cold on it. at the time i wrote this my arm has a bag of pees on it. so do your self some good and don't lite stuff with a blow torch. man that was duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum

Blow torch + fuse

_______________ = Happy unharmed pyro

Time to retreat to

safe distance.

[FrankRizzo]

hi i thought i would kick this topic up again. so i go out to my garage and look at that, a black powder puck sitting on my work table [enters stooooopid mode] duuuuhh i thank i'd beter crush it up on the flor with out eiy thinges and with a slej hamer, wow naw its litil pises pater take it out side and lite it, oops liter don't work looks like i'l hav to use the blow torch wate i shoud get a wick thing, [cuts 1 1/2 long pice] ok now to lite it [puts on ground and sticks in fuse] click FOOOMP wow!!! [stops idiot mode] there is't any heare on my arm [go's inside] mom i bernt my arm. mom. ok well go and get something cold on it. at the time i wrote this my arm has a bag of pees on it. so do your self some good and don't lite stuff with a blow torch. man that was duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum

Ok..now where did I put that decoder ring...

[styropyro]

I got this mixture off of cannonfuse, and I am SO glad I did my "tests" on it:

 

Potassium nitrate.................................3

Potassium perchlorate.............................3

Dark aluminum (USB 809)...........................3

Barium nitrate....................................1

Antimony sulfide (CN).............................1

Sulfur............................................1

Dextrin...........................................1/2

 

It is said to be useful in 3-5 gram amounts inside a 3 inch shell, and it tells you to granulate with water. Well here is my acciedent: I always test out compisitions by mixing them with water (now i have diffent methods lol). Well, i took my fingers and dipped them in a puddle (stupid idea) and took my hand and sprayed the water on the pile of compisition (more stupid!). It INSTANTLY exploded with my hand above it! It wasn't really an explosion, it was more of a blinding poof. I am so lucky it didn't self confine on me. But I got some minor burns but nothing serious because it burned so fast and my hand was far enough away from it. I am not sure what made it ignite, I added citric acid to surpress the nitrate/aluminum reaction, so maybe that had something to do with it? But that was a year ago and that was before I knew about the perchlorate-sulfur/sulfide incompatablilty, so I wonder if the acid caused a rection. I wonder if anybody else on the forum has tried this and had this happen to them. So that was the last time I decided to use other stuff than BP coated rice crispies with a little whistle...

[h&k machineguns]

Okay in 1997 when I was 22 a friend convinced me that since my mom was out of town for a few weeks we should do stuff in her swimming pool. I had already been out of the house and on my own for 3 years and was visiting the small town that I was from(Globe Arizona).

I was purely trusting my friend that WAS and still IS a sheriff of that town. He mentioned that he had some powder(Turned out years later it was Flash) and that we should do a few little charges of it in the pool.

 

Keep in mind this was at night so it wasn't as easy to see results as you may call them.We started off with pill vial size plastic bottles in the shallow end,and by the end of the night we were doing multi vitamin sized ones attached to weights that would sink to the bottom of the deep end with string that was making the charge float half way up.

 

The results were HUGE splashes,probably the same as if a 400 pound man were to cannonball in from 10 foot high up.

 

The next morning we were cleaning up little bits and pieces of plastic that was in and out of the pool,when I noticed small cracks and little craters in the plaster. At first we though maybe we could patch them and my mom would never know.We had 2 weeks to fix it before she got home.

 

Very long story short. I told my mom a few days later on the phone what had happend and we said we would pay for it to be fixed and to not worry . $5200 later we had it completely replastered.

Since it was an old pool it cost extra to have the asbestos taking to a special place since these days it's considered hazzardest. Since the town was 60 miles east of anyone that could fix the pool that cost extra. Basically 2 crews. One to completely crack out all the old stuff and a second to replaster.

Even though it was really all my buddy doing everything at the time and I just watched from a distance,I still had to pay half the cost of $5200.

I still think of what I could have bought with that money,even today.