Random Thread #1

[tentacles]

It's made of the mythical "aerospace grade" aluminum! That must be why it's so expensive.. They used pieces of a scrapped 747 to make them, or something. For that price it should be made out of solid Ti rod.

 

I love how these premium flashlight companies created their own market.. There are whole sites and forums bigger than here dedicated to discussing these things. To me it's like trainspotting or something - either your handlight works or it doesn't, who gives two shits if you were dumb enough to pay $500 for it?

[Swede]

It's made of the mythical "aerospace grade" aluminum! That must be why it's so expensive.. They used pieces of a scrapped 747 to make them, or something. For that price it should be made out of solid Ti rod.

 

I love how these premium flashlight companies created their own market.. There are whole sites and forums bigger than here dedicated to discussing these things. To me it's like trainspotting or something - either your handlight works or it doesn't, who gives two shits if you were dumb enough to pay $500 for it?

 

Hey, aircraft aluminum IS better. You know it, deep in your soul... that's some superior metal flexing out there in that turbulence. Secret alloys and all that.

 

Actually I think the term came from the days when the only aluminum that was truly alloyed, and that had real QC, was for aircraft. Consumer junk at that time I'm gambling was 99.8% Al. Soft, gummy. If Al had a proper copper, zinc, Mg alloy AND heat treatment, then it became aircraft Al. Now, all Al (with rare exception) is alloyed.

 

I will say this, aircraft grade wire is the bomb. It is truly superior stuff, usually with multiple sheathes, a very thin inner, and an outer normally made of PTFE. It ain't soft and crappy PVC or neoprene. If I'm wiring something important, I''ll often use aircraft wire. Same deal with hardware. Top-notch stuff.

 

Now, I feel I must discuss the lowly test tube, that piece of glassware that screams CHEMIST to everybody - I want some GOOD ONES. Not the currently made cheapos that are super thin and made of soda glass. Those, you can buy for about 15 cents apiece. I want the thick borosilicate stuff, with the thick rim as well. REAL old-school test tubes. Any brand name suggestions? Price has no (well, very little) bearing, I'd rather pay now than have some cheapo explode in my hands; then I'd be paying the doctor. Need a cool rack as well, plastic or stainless, not wood. Thanks!

[Brakkie]

Swede, some brands to look out for are Fiolax or Duran. I'm not completely sure about what brand my test tubes are since I got a bunch of old ones from my chemistry teacher since they were gonna get replacements anyway. But these are the brands that I know of. Not sure if they're available on the American market though...

[FrankRizzo]

I wish I hadn't seen this:

 

http://www.mindyourfingers.co.uk/P3414.html

 

Now I'm going to have to convince myself that I need it/can afford it!

 

Get an LED Lenser P7 instead. My buddy has a German-made version that has a battery carrier for either (4)AAA cells or (2) CR123 lithium cells. That advertised 700ft throw is no lie, and the build quality on both the focusable optics and body is top notch.

 

Granted, it doesn't have the flashing, SOS, or 11 different brightness modes (P7 has 2), but you're never going to use that anyway. For the amount of cash SureFire wants, you should be getting head every time you turn the damn thing on.

[tentacles]

Swede, the test tubes I recently purchased were Pyrex 9800 series. Looking on corning's site, even their super cheap disposable culture tubes are borosilicate glass to reduce contamination from soda glass. The picture on prolab's website of the 'VISTA' series test tubes looks like they're thicker than the average bear, but could be a bad/distorted pic. I've never heard of heavy wall test tubes. If you're going to be heating them the thin wall is safer.

 

http://www.prolabscientific.com/popup_imag...0800&area=C

[mormanman]

I think that I'm going to buy:

One 3in mortar fiberglass

one 4in " " " "

one 6in " " " "

 

and some 6in plastic shells of course.

[DeAdFX]

Now, I feel I must discuss the lowly test tube, that piece of glassware that screams CHEMIST to everybody - I want some GOOD ONES. Not the currently made cheapos that are super thin and made of soda glass. Those, you can buy for about 15 cents apiece. I want the thick borosilicate stuff, with the thick rim as well. REAL old-school test tubes. Any brand name suggestions? Price has no (well, very little) bearing, I'd rather pay now than have some cheapo explode in my hands; then I'd be paying the doctor. Need a cool rack as well, plastic or stainless, not wood. Thanks!

 

 

Kimax, kimble, pyrex, UGT (don't know if they do test tubes or not but they make good glass) are a great start..

[Yankie]

Nice looking machine, Yankie! Do you fill the outer area with slurry, or the inner? Or both? What is the purpose of the inner tubing? Couldn't you simply run a dowel rod down there to cause the match to change direction?

 

That machine is going to make a LOT of BM.

 

you fill the outer tube, the inner one is suspended a few mms from the bottom, it is to feed the string all the way to the bottom, then it acts as a die when the two threads come out the hole in the top.

 

I need alot of BM I used 60m for new years eve!

[Swede]

Guys, thanks for the test tube suggestions. I will investigate the brands mentioned.

 

Lead dioxide plating is officially underway! The first tank is a measly 2.5L and too small...

http://www.5bears.com/chem1/rig01.jpg

 

I hope to have a good blog entry up in a day or two. I will say this - it's NOT FUN when working with 6.5 liter baths, but the bigger the bath, the more stable the chemistry, and the better the plate job. The plating on anode 1 is thick, seems strong, and hopefully will do the job. Anode #2, from the 6.5 liter bath, should be better. It's just about done...

[WarezWally]

How much have you spent all up on your various setups?

 

I admire your dedication, when you make your high quality PbO2 electrode will you be selling them onwards? I've still got all my gear sitting around and electricity is cheap

[tentacles]

Wally, I don't think he will - but you might ask him - as we're using information from patents (some still valid) it would be illegal to sell them. Not to mention an absolute shipping nightmare. How would you package one to ship?

 

If you can get calcium nitrate, copper sulfate and lead metal you can make your own lead nitrate easily.

[WarezWally]

I have tried making a PbO2 electrode to no avail, the best one I made was a GSLD that lasted a few days.

[asilentbob]

&TOTSE is going down for good. Jeff is burnt out. 20 years is 20 years.

Officially down Jan 17th. Less than a day from now. Or so he posted. Could have been a hacked account... Time will tell.

http://www.totse.com/community/showthread.php?t=2188554

Chances are totse will come back in some form or another either way...

 

HOWEVER, IF it is indeed going down for good the regulars of Backyard Ballistics invite any past purveyors of BB to join the IRC chatroom to discuss options for moving BB to another forum up somewhere or to a completely new site/forum all together. About 5 years of my life I have posted there and checked to read threads nearly every day. For some of us BB is nearly as close as family. I know some of the regular guys there in that small forum better than I know most of the people here atleast... There is also talk of the possibility of some kind of get together on skype or stickam or something and get wasted and talk of the good 'ol times... possibly this weekend... dunno really its all up in the air... but yeah if BB was a part of your life we would love to hear from you... we are trying to get as many into the IRC as we can. A family re-union if you will. I'm about to go to sleep dunno about DD, so if no one replies then we might have all gone to sleep. Either way you can say whatever and we will see it whenever we wake up.

 

irc://slashnet.org/#totsebb

or:

/server irc.slashnet.org

/join #totsebb

(You need an IRC client like x-chat2, mIRC, chatzilla add-on for firefox, or you can use

mibbit which uses your browsers flash pluggin:

http://www.mibbit.com/chat/ ... then set "IRC" to SlashNET, choose a nick, enter in channel "#totsebb", and click go.)

 

If you want to knock it thats fine too, just speak for yourself and no-one else... For some of your fellow forum friends did get their start at &Totse Backyard Ballistics, and might have still been actively posting there... or elsewhere on &Totse.

 

 

...

In other news I took apart a microwave today. More electronic parts hurray! I could get another to take apart and do the whole microwave welder thing, but its not as appealing when you already have a welder. So dunno. But the fan will go to a shop ventilation system. Perhaps I'll re-wind the secondary of the transformer then rectify it for a power supply... it takes a bit more than that... but yeah... then theres the big cap... dunno...

 

HAM exam Saturday... I'll pass to get General class for sure... yet I'm cramming to try to skip up to the top, Extra class... because I can.

 

Need to remember to re-new PGI, PAT, get WIRED subscription, etc...

[WarezWally]

Goodbye totse, I hope the door doesn't hit you on the way out.

 

Lets look at a fine example posted recently:

 

so i have a few ounces of erythritol laying around, and would like to nitrate it. I have a nitrate salt and can distill nitric acid, but have no sulfuric acid. Do you guys buy from chem suppliers or hardware stores? I've looked hard at hardware stored...

Also, would this mix well with petroleum jelies and such, making a decent plastic explosite?

Lastly, could someone explain why hydrochloric acid (gas even) cannot catalyze nitrations of hydrocarbons?

 

Thank Zenu E&W doesn't tolerate this kind of crap.

[WarezWally]

I found another shining example of why the place should be shut down.

 

Hey,

 

i live way out in the country.. and have huge fields that are dissed up right now with nothing growing in them so were looking to make some fire works.

 

We had two ideas..

 

 

1. Mix ammonia nitrate and diesel fuel to a slur and have a sparkler bomb ignite it (we have mastered the sparkler bomb in galvanized pipe haha) or

 

2. Mix nitrogen (from fertilizer) and diesel fuel to a slur and have a sparkler bomb ignite it as well.

 

 

 

NOW, we have never set either off, and i know that the nitrogen one should work since thats what they use around here to get rid of stumps to make fields lol but would the ammonia nitrate work as well? Or would either work? And if so how large are we looking at ( so i know how far to stand away haha)

Edited January 16, 2009 by WarezWally

[Swede]

WW, I have no idea how much I've spent. I refuse to mentally add it up or think about it. Most of it has been chems, though. With the exception of the heaters and controller, it's all stuff I had lying around the shop.

 

There's no doubt that I could have bought a half-dozen Pt anodes for what I've spent so far. But the thrill is in the experimental hunt... getting one of these to work, and to last.

 

Anode #2 is AWESOME; thick, heavy, smooth and shiny. I can't wait to try it. I'm going to do a big blog entry today... I'll get some pics up. It's too cold to do any work out there today.

[WarezWally]

I may have missed it but what are you plating the lead dioxide onto?

[BPinthemorning]

You think its a keeper swede??? It would be quite a breakthrough.

[tentacles]

Wally: He's plating LD over MMO. The MMO he's got is very tough stuff, it definitely won't get oxidized by the LD and shouldn't passivate in perc cell environment.

[Swede]

Blog is up. 182 grams of shiny, hard PbO2 onto an 8 cm X 4 cm anode!

[WarezWally]

Amazing work, assuming you can get all of the materials and reagents it looks to be easily doable provided you have an attention for perfection. Pending cell results I'm highly tempted to give it a shot, the ability to run chloride to perchlorate is highly tempting. Ignore the fact that I don't even need perchlorate salts

 

I have a MMO coated Ti anode, its yours if you want it.

Edited January 17, 2009 by WarezWally

[WarezWally]

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/2292/18012009nb4.jpg

 

Also got some CP Ti tubing you can have

[asilentbob]

Wally, if the value of a forum to you is measured by how many retarded threads noobs and passing through trolls post, no forum would be good... really look at how many noob threads and posts there are at SMDB, RS, APC, UKR, hell I'm sure even Passfire has them... and its kinda funny that you mention E&W not tolerating retarded posts... as E&W IS in fact being over ran by noobs and has been in this situation for years. One of E&Ws mods and a member or two actually dropped by the IRC for a nice long and varied conversation and extended invitation to the regulars to join RS...

 

Just remember that with big pyro/chem/etc forums with many members... the popular threads stay at the top and the noob ones quickly disappear due to so many members bumping the good threads. Make no mistake, the noob threads and posts are still there and in great numbers.

 

Hundreds of thousands of the posters from &T have just been displaced. This is a big ripple in the pond. These people have to go somewhere... and that somewhere is going to be Zok's forum which will probably take a big portion of the normal &T traffic and probably buckle under it (correction, HAS already buckled under it as of earlier today), WW's forum with superior servers which will probably take many of the pyro noobs and possibly some of the hacking guys, E&W which will probably take alot of the bad ideas / politics / and some drug weapon and chemistry guys, 4chan and other image boards taking some of the random guys... only some because they probably already posted there before... just now will be posting there much more, SMDB which will take a big hit from the drug chem guys flood, and other forums.

 

If/When your page loading times slow down for seemingly no reason and you see a increase in noob threads, remember the ripple. This is a big deal.

 

I guess you couldn't really understand it from my perspective without having been in my shoes all this time...

 

I still don't know for sure if we are going to get together on skype or something, but the invitation still stands and always will stand for anyone to come visit the IRC at any time. Theres usually someone there and you can talk about pretty much anything.

========

 

Got 35/35 on the General class amateur radio exam and 46/50 on the Extra class exam! So now I have full privileges on all amateur radio bands! Also saw one of the guys from the local pyro club there, I didn't know he was a HAM, so thats pretty cool, he got his Extra class license too, I think he got 100%, can't remember quite. It was odd, lots of people were getting 100% on their exams, I guess we were just a well studied-up bunch.

[WarezWally]

I am smart enough not to paint everyone with the same brush but there are more are a lot more posts by idiots on TOTSE than anywhere else. Sure if we are talking about anything else aside energetics I wouldn't really care but people have to treat it seriously or they wont be around for long. If someone cannot work out something so simple as the amount of acetone he needs to make his shitty pipe bomb why should we help him kill himself?

[asilentbob]

True, for being around for 20 years its accumulated more posts than any of the other common forums and therefor a total greater number of stupid posts.