Random Thread #1

[dragonman586]

^^^ Remember G.E.R. and L.E.o

 

G-ain

E-lectrons

R-reduction

 

L-ose

E-lectrons

O-Oxidation

 

So Swany was right

[Rogue Chemist]

oxidation is loss

reduction is gain

oxidizing agent gains electrons and is reduced

reducing agent looses electrons and is oxidized.

 

somebody was right

[Swany]

I am not sure whom is correct, though I will assume Rogue is correct. I can never remember, and I try to go through the logisitics of it in my head, and this time I seem to have drawn a blank.

 

In other news, my mom spilled an unknown amount of my 3lbs of Hg on the kitchen floor. I am not home, but she just said it was 'a lot'. Presuming she put it back in the container..... hrrm. well actually that was about a week ago, but I am going home on monday and then I will know for sure.

 

I have been away from my chems for a month, nearly.

 

Oh the agony.

[Rogue Chemist]

From your tone about the Hg spill, I think you should be a bit more worried...

 

I would be shitting myself....

[Pyrohawk]

Uhhh...yeah I'd be worried if my mom spilled my KNO3!! Hg would be tragic!!

 

Heheheh its funny how things change....my Mom told me she used to play with Hg when she was a kid. Her and her brothers would toss it back and forth for fun. She said it felt cool!! Now it causes all sorts of bad junk...

[weknowpyro]

I recently made a trip to the Royal Gunpowder Mills at waltham abbey in north london. Put me back by a couple of quid to get in but it was defintly worth it. The buildings were built in 19th century and they orginally were made for milling bp but over the years the mills shut down and the production of guncotton,nitrogylcerin,cordite and rocket fuels were started.

This place was kept secret from the public until 1991 when it shut down and got sold off to a company who reopened it as a musuem, although a quater of the area is still of limits its a worth while visit.

Heres some pictures of the place.

This is a massive bp press.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/PICT0187.JPG

 

A picture of some of the storage buildings.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/PICT0189.JPG

 

This is the bp pressing house which is off limits.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/PICT0194.JPG

 

A picture of the bp molding building notice the blast walls around it.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/PICT0192.JPG

 

This is an old picture of the workers with lenghs of cordite.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/PICT0181.JPG

 

A cordite mixing machine

http://www.apcforum.net/files/PICT0180.JPG

 

A selction of chems in the rocket lab.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/PICT0184.JPG

 

A display on how to make nitroglycerine.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/PICT0185.JPG

 

I hope you enjoy the pics.

[Swany]

Yep, well, she put it back in a seperate container as to not contaminate the rest. Mum is getting used to such, I guess. I'm proud of her.

 

Anywho, I am going home to a dewar full of lN2... guessing about 10 liters when full, though due to evaporation I haven't a clue how much will be left. So, things to do with it? I plan on freezing Hg, and perhaps liquifying Cl2 and some other fun stuff, but ideas are welcome and wonderful.

[BigBang]

Just throwing the idea out there, since it has been said every time when LN2 is mentioned, make some icecream. Maybe even dipin dots

 

I wouldn't want to freeze/mess closely with Cl2. I'm not sure if you were around to hear about this, though I bet you have heard it mentioned. Blindreeper tried messing with chlorine back around early '03 IIRC. He was litterally gassed, and had to be taken to the hospital. Later, he would say, " Add KMnO4 to HCl to see the gas from hell!"

 

Po might know some more on the story, or our old veterans.

[Pretty green flame]

Just throwing the idea out there, since it has been said every time when LN2 is mentioned, make some icecream. Maybe even dipin dots

 

I wouldn't want to freeze/mess closely with Cl2. I'm not sure if you were around to hear about this, though I bet you have heard it mentioned. Blindreeper tried messing with chlorine back around early '03 IIRC. He was litterally gassed, and had to be taken to the hospital. Later, he would say, " Add KMnO4 to HCl to see the gas from hell!"

 

Po might know some more on the story, or our old veterans.

Chlorine is a nice gas, just as long it's in a closed ampule. But lower concentration smell nice to me, don't know why but i just enjoy the smell of it.

 

And i second the ice cream idea, it's fun. You could also make some kick ass CIA bp with it (Maybe?).

[Swany]

Hehe, yes... I remember something about Blindreeper getting gassed. I have handled Cl2 before, and it is pretty wicked cool stuff, detonating on contact with acetylene and such. Bubble H2C2 and Cl through a large plastic graduated cylinder filled with water and where the bubbles touch they explode.

 

I belive I will start a thread.

[BigBang]

You should

 

Deadly underwater doom booming bubbles

 

On another note, my new grahams condensor kicks arse, but I need a full (vacuum) distillation set-up. Any ideas for what else I should get the make the most awesome distillation set-up of awesomeness?

 

This is the condensor.

[Rogue Chemist]

I liquified a mL or so. Indoors. No mask. Ouch

 

Not recomended, but it worked, and I did not have to go to the hospital or anything.

 

Working outside, I cant see there being any problems whatsoever.

[somebody]

Swany, be carefull with the Hg, when dropped it shatters into a massive ammounts of tiny droplets going everywhere.

This won't be so much of a problem when being there only a few times, but when this happens in house(kitchen) you and you're family might get poisened with quite a lot of Hg vapour over time.

 

Bigbang, that condensor only has an socket, you need one with a glass ground joint on each side for the better vacuum setups.

Not sure how good it will work when you put a rubber stopper on that under vacuum.

Plus that glass can be used with some chemicals where most sort of rubber can not.

 

Poiseness gasses are interesting and they suck at the same time, I can't take NH3, altough it's not as worse as HN3, of which a guy I know had a unpleasant confrontation with..

[ULTRABUF]

Well, someone stole my $800 BMX bike on Friday night. Right out of my locked shed. I was pissed. It was such a sweet bike too, and I've had it since I was like 7 years old. That sucks. For good news, we cleaned out our shed on Sunday so I now have a workstation type thing for pyro and chem in there. Its pretty sweet. There were like 5 mice living in the shed, and they had little nests everywhere. There were nests in boots, in boxes, behind boxes, in corners, under an upside down sink, all over. Silly mouses.

[Pyrohawk]

Yeah I vaguely remember Reeper getting gassed...... Or hearing about it at any rate...

 

I have many things would like to do if I could get my hands on some LN2!!! Oh wow......so many fun and also harmless pranks...I get giddy just thinking about them Leidenfrost Effect mmmm..... But the first thing I would do would be make some Liquid 02 with it. There even cooler stuff I'd like to do with O2....

Oh and Swany yeah you should post a thread on that experiment. I have herad of it but didn't know what gasses were involved or anything.

 

So where did you get your LN2?? I want some badly...I asked at the welding shop but they said I had to buy atleast a 100 dollar tank.....

All I want is like a gallon or two!!

[_DB_]

I had two mice in my room at the begining of the summer. It's so annoying when you are trying to get to sleep but you can't because of little animals making squeaking noises all night.

 

I set out a few glue traps which did the trick. I like glue traps because the mouse doesn't die when caught like those other traps do. You can torture the mouse for invading your house if you're sadistic like that. I shot both of them point-blank range with a BB gun. At a friend's house we caught one and toasted it with Right Guard spray deodorant. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to hell for that one.....

[Pretty green flame]

You're a sick person.

[rocket]

I remember once I was staying at a cabin with the family and we found a field mouse so we set a safe mouse trap or something like that so it didn’t kill it, the next day it was caught so my mum went and put it outside as it ran along the grass just then a magpie swooped down a tore it to pieces. I found it quiet funny that after saving it from a quick and painless death it was torn apart alive.

[_Po_]

There were like 5 mice living in the shed, and they had little nests everywhere. There were nests in boots, in boxes, behind boxes, in corners, under an upside down sink, all over. Silly mouses.

I hope you mean literally 'were.' I moved all my pyro stuff including 20kg of rolled stars to our shed. Turned out there were mice there and they like to eat most compositions...or anything, for that matter. I'm lucky I found my 1/4" rocket tooling in my room and wanted to make a rocket and needed some BP from the shed, otherwise they would have kept eating away at my stars and everything. One bag they ate almost entirely and scattered the stars all through the box they were in. There were half eaten stars and powder all over the place. They even ate some of the plastic lids. I got a laugh when I found they ate some sulfur (mild laxative for humans, don't know about mice, but I laughed anyway). A bit of rat sack and a few green pellets of mouse shit later the problem was gone.

 

As for Blind's gassing, I heard vaguely about it from my parents who were told by his parents. I still don't know the full story, I'll have to ask him about it next time I see him. I must have missed it when he posted it in the forum.

[Swany]

I sat next to Ben Stein on the airplane from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. I was in seat 03-D and he was in 03-C. Funny person, but I didn't know who he was and everyone was asking for his autograph.

[flint_eastwood]

How do you accuratly mesure the delay needed for an aerial shell? Ive heard people say that you launch a replica dummy shell and time in from launch to ground impact and then devide by two. My concern is that this method assumes that the shell doesnt reach terminal velocity on decent. Is this a safe assumption?!

 

Sorry for asking another, but what PREFLIGHT calculations can I use to determine the delay time required between propellent burnout and ejection charge ignition of a rocket?

[Dr Boom]

How do you accurately measure the delay needed for an aerial shell?

 

It depends on just a couple things there Flint-

A rule of thumb is to start out at 1 inch for time fuse. Is your shell going to reach the top of its flight with the lift charge you have?

 

Its best to keep a little chart with shell inch, weight, lift charge and corresponding measure of fuse.

 

For example: my 3 inch shells take 1 inch of fuse when I use a moderate charge of lift- say, 1 and half tablespoons. I can constantly get 600 feet on a shell with a weight of about 56 grams (give or take with type of filler)

 

Of course, if you want to really rocket a shell high (and it can take the heat) you'll want a little longer delay on your fuse- maybe an inch and a half.

Does your shell need to break with an upward motion, level plane, or downward motion?

 

Upward motion example would be any shell where the stars need to be thrown from the shell with "upward" momentum, giving the stars a willow or umbrella effect.

 

Level plane would be salutes, peony type, any special star designs- stars, smily faces, 4 leaf clover, etc.

 

Downward motion would be shells with rain effects.

 

Hope this helps!

[Swany]

If I were to obtain a large amount of sodium metal, would anyone be interested in purchasing amounts of 1 oz to 1lb?

[asilentbob]

Oh, ben stein was the best! Didn't you ever watch win ben stein's money? A great game show.

[Swany]

Don't watch TV.