All our problems are solved: post your dodgy solutions

[Kolvir]

On 1/22/2023 at 8:32 AM, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

  Another 'Charlie' story ... he and another friend got hold of a mag wheel when they really WERE magnesium.  Once evening, they thought it would be cool to light it somehow ... so they built a small fire on a rocky slope on one side of a large field, and heated the mag wheel for some time.  It didn't ignite - perhaps because of an oxide layer keeping oxygen away from the metal under the layer.  In disgust, Charlie threw a stone at the hub - which must have gouged through the oxide layer ... and the hub started to burn (as magnesium does) with an INTENSELY bright white light that sent them running as fast as possible away from the scene.  'Must have been like the illumination of a night rocket launch.  A fire truck arrived after the magnesium was consumed, and they put out what was left of the campfire.

You guys were much more cooler than me. All I ever did was try and get a stubborn pile of leaves to burn. 

I was at my dad's place and he was burning large piles of branches, getting them going with diluted diesel fuel. When I was home later and couldn't get my pile started, I poured a bit of gasoline on it. I wasn't aware of what dad had used, besides burn is burn, right?

I remember seeing nothing but fire when I bent over to light it. Only lost a bit of hair, but boy those leaves were ash quick.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Kolvir

[wefalck]

Sometimes mothers aren't any better: ma mother wanted to make some 'fruit flambée', heated them in a large copper pan that was kept for the purpose, poured the rhum over them and put a match onto it - pouff, it was suddently all flames and white smoke: she had forgotten to turn off the extraction fan, which had sucked in the flames, which in turn ignited the grease in the filter. She was lucky to realise quickly what had happened and switched the fan off, so that no big fire developed, ouff ...

 

Another time, there was some banging heard in the house and my mother, who was in my sister's room reading stories to her shouted at me (by habit in such cases), what I was doing ... but it wasn't me, when I checked the kitchen it was full of white smoke and foul smell - she had forgotten that she put some eggs to boil before she went to my sick sister's room and in the meantime all the water had evaporated and the egss exploded. Decades later, when the kitchen was dismantled, we still found mummified egg in some corners behind the cupboard

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by wefalck

[Mercator]

When I was living in Belgium (Bruxelles) my daily task was to carry a bucket full of coal for the  stove two levels up, 3 really because the coal was stored in the basement.

When I attended technical school I got zapped more than once, and yes it is 220 V in Europe.

I recall when the oil wells were set a fire by Irak, the Czek used old T62 tanks with jet engines mounted on the hull to blow of the flames.

More recently, I was practicing how to do ratlines before doing on my model. Used CA glue and decided to burn off the end with a lighter (like Ohla does) when the entire thing went up in flame.

[Charles Green]

wefalck:

 

Le salaire de la peur - The Wages of Fear, was redone, stateside, in 1977 by William Friedkin.  The title that time was Sorcerer.  It starred Roy Schieder, Bruno Cremer, Victor Manzon, Francisco Rabal, and Amidou.

Critics didn't like it, but in its Sorcerer iteration, it's the best action movie I've ever seen.  In addition to poor reviews, coming out the same week Star Wars premiered, it faced crushing competition for movie ticket dollars.  Also, Friedkin directed The Exorcist.  Sorcerer's title suggested some sort of extension on that theme.  Viewers looking for that didn't get what they were expecting.  The film did poorly at the box office. 

There are truncated versions of it and other copies with poor video and audio quality.  A "director's cut" version is available.  I recommend it. 

The movie's theme revolves around violence but outside of events that form the film's story, it's not a violent movie and it doesn't follow the formulaic structure of typical "action movies".  There are no car chase scenes, no sex; just four bad-guys trying to get out of a real bad situation.

[mtaylor]

On 1/22/2023 at 5:03 AM, David W said:

As a kid we played with an AC Gilbert Chemistry Set. You could poison your sister, blow up your teacher or *gasp* play alchemist. We all had some version of this set. All we as kids did was to make gunpowder which only burned since none of us realized that it needed a confined area of some sort. Then the rich kid learned how to use other chemicals and make things go bang.

 

As to suit and tie - until my long term company went business casual about 1995, we were required to dress properly

 

They also made one that had some radioactive chemicals. I wanted one but my gave me very emphatic "NO". 

 

 

On 1/22/2023 at 6:22 AM, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

  We also didn't know that commercially made gunpowder mixes finely powdered ingredients in a slurry that is milled long enough to intimately incorporate them on a molecular level ... which after drying and granulating produces a powder that will 'flash' - ergo explode - without containment.  The stuff we made dry with mortar and pestle was far less effective ... didn't stop us from experimenting.  The local hobby store sold refills for chem sets, and the most popular ingredients were ... potassium nitrate, surfer and charcoal.

 

We tried making and succeeding in making nitroglycerin in high school.  The stuff worked and still surprised we didn't blow ourselves to smithereens.  I still can't believe some of the stuff we got away with back then.

[mtaylor]

18 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Johnny's story abut the magnesium wheel brought to mind an experience I had.

 

I was a Nuclear Weapons Officer in the Navy, and we worked with missiles with all kinds of nasty stuff in them - including magnesium. So the Navy sent me to many fire fighting schools. One was a flight deck firefighting school where we learned to do all sorts of impossible things.

 

In one class they set off an aircraft flare (magnesium and an oxidizer) and told us to put it out with water. When an old salt Chief says to put it out, you put it out! We ran a high pressure water hose nozzle up the tail end and flooded it with so much water that the steam carried away the heat faster than it was being generated and it went out! Then they set an aircraft magnesium wheel on fire and we proceeded to put it out with water from several fire hoses!! Only a small spot on the wheel was burning but the heat spread through the entire mass. The entire wheel surface was flooded with water to carry away heat and eventually the fire went out.

The Marines taught us to use Purple K.  The catch is... it burns and the residue smothers the flames.  But, if someone hit it with water while it the metal was glowing it break the shell of the residue and the fire would re-erupt.  Oh... and PPK gave off very nasty flames we were told.

[Dr PR]

I was an A student in chemistry in the 11th grade. The teacher created a 12th grade Chemistry II class for another student and me. We came up with projects that the teacher had to approve, and then set up and ran the experiments ourselves. We also served as lab supervisors for the first year chem labs.

 

We decided to do some organic chemistry for a Science Fair project - creating an amino acid. It was really very simple, but it seemed exciting to us. The teacher gave me the keys to the lab (and supply room) so we could run our experiment on a Saturday. A friend, Henry,  learned of this and asked if he could also set up his experiments for his Science Fair project - he was producing pure halogens. I said it was OK, so one Saturday morning we all met in the lab and got to work.

 

Henry had already produced pure iodine crystals and some liquid bromine. His next step was to set up a chlorine generator. While he was doing that we were setting up the amino acid experiment. Henry had his generator going so I asked him to pour 10 ml of butyric acid - we were starting with that for the amination step. Up to this point everything was going according to plan.

 

But as Henry was putting the cap on the butyric acid bottle he accidentally knocked over the graduated tube and spilled the acid onto the bench top. Fortunately he was working on a scrap piece of plywood, but unfortunately butyric acid has a very strong and vile odor. It smelled as if an entire infantry company had barfed in unison! We all rushed to the windows and threw them open.

 

That diluted the horrible stench a bit, but then we started noticing the very distinctive smell of chlorine in the air. Henry's generator was leaking! We tried to find the leak but without success. Then I remembered that chlorine and ammonia reacted to make ammonium chloride, a white crystal. I poured some full strength 35% ammonia solution into beakers and we set them around the chlorine generator. We found the leak - chlorine gas is heavier than air and it flowed down into a beaker of ammonia. Cool!! They burned with a pale blue flame like burning camp stove fuel. Clouds of ammonium chloride rose into the air and began "snowing" onto every flat surface in the lab.

 

Great! Now the lab stunk like vomit, chlorine and ammonia all at once. We were hanging out of the windows gasping for air when Henry opened the door to the hallway. There was a strong breeze blowing in the windows and when the door opened a gust blew through the lab. Fortunately this cleared the air a bit so we could breath again. Unfortunately, Henry had placed his tube of liquid bromine on a bench top and the breeze blew it off and it crashed on the floor. A small cloud of brownish bromine gas added to the other three obnoxious odors. The bromine bleached a white circle about a foot diameter (30 cm) on the floor.

 

While all of this was going on the 400 voice high school chorus was practicing in the auditorium four floors below. It was warm and they had the windows open in the auditorium. The breeze blowing into the lab pushed the noxious gasses down the hall to the stair well that was open all the way to the basement. The stench flowed down the stair well and into the auditorium. As we were hanging out of the lab windows gasping for air a flood of kids came pouring out of the school entrance four floors below with everyone coughing and gasping.

 

We managed to get the chlorine generator shut down and eventually the stench was reduced so we could do a clean up job to wipe up the ammonium chloride snow. We left the windows open all weekend.

 

I really expected to get into trouble for all that. But the next Monday all that happened was the chemistry teacher catching me in the hallway and asking "Hays, what have you done to my laboratory!?" After that the lab always had a slight smell of vomit.

 

I started college as a chemistry major, but switched to microbiology in my sophomore year.

[bruce d]

Popular Mechanics Shop Notes circa 1906 again. The last line is chilling.

 

[bruce d]

More from Popular Mechanics Shop Notes.

[bruce d]

More:

[mtaylor]

I fear that someone trying one these things today in an industrial plant would be facing some serious threats to his/her employment.

[thibaultron]

Yes, the pool is full of water, and yes, he is barefoot!

 

[wefalck]

... and even, if he wasn't barefoot, leaning onto the ladder with the bare forearms isn't such a survival idea either 😲

[BETAQDAVE]

On 11/20/2022 at 10:36 AM, Canute said:

I've seen old model railroader pictures of a gentleman working on a drill press in a business suit, minus his jacket. The jacket is off to one side and he is wearing arm bands to keep his shirt cuffs clear of his work. And he does have on his tie.

Sounds like a method of suicide by self strangulation to me.

[BETAQDAVE]

On 1/23/2023 at 8:19 PM, mtaylor said:

I still can't believe some of the stuff we got away with back then.

Or more likely, some of the stuff that we somehow survived to get old.

[BETAQDAVE]

3 hours ago, thibaultron said:

Yes, the pool is full of water, and yes, he is barefoot!

 

3 hours ago, wefalck said:

... and even, if he wasn't barefoot, leaning onto the ladder with the bare forearms isn't such a survival idea either

But, on the bright side, he is wearing safety goggles!

[wefalck]

Or, perhaps we are the intelligent ones that survived ... 😇

 

Considering the 'fully comprehensive insurance'-attitude of modern attitude, the future development of our gene-pool is quite worrying  🤔

Edited January 25, 2023 by wefalck

[BETAQDAVE]

On 11/20/2022 at 12:58 PM, hollowneck said:

some modelers chose not only to wear a suit and tie, but also an attractive chapeau (second photo).

That's so he can protect himself from being poked in the eye from the projecting spars and rigging.

[BETAQDAVE]

Concerning post #49

I think that something like this has been developed, but his aim would be a little iffy.

[BETAQDAVE]

On 12/7/2022 at 10:14 AM, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

Professional staff had to come in wearing a proper suit (where the trousers, and suit coat were of the same material - a dark color, perhaps with pin stripes - but NOTHING gaudy).

So I guess that professional golfer John Daly styling would not be accepted?

 

[wefalck]

Concerning the submachine gun that fired around the corner: it is a German MP40 and apparently this kind of barrel extension was actually experimented with for urban warfare during WW2. Today, with video-cameras, GPS etc. for aiming it might work ...

Edited January 25, 2023 by wefalck

[Canute]

I'd expect some nasty barrel wear with frequent replacement of said barrel. 😀

[bruce d]

Re the corner-gun or whatever it was called: I thought it was used operationally and wasn't very successful. As I understood it, the barrel was rifled at the breech end. The bend was oversize to allow the round to move around and (wait for it) the bend was smooth-bore on the inside and semi-grooved on the outside of the bend before being fully rifled again for the last straight bit.

It must have been a joy to do quality control on that production line.

[BETAQDAVE]

On 12/28/2022 at 6:08 PM, Jaager said:

That was a step up from a coal burning furnace that required blackgang work from an inhabitant.

 

On 12/28/2022 at 6:54 PM, Jack12477 said:

We had one of those  monsters in our house during WWII.

Speaking of Dodgy furnaces: 

    My maternal grandparents lived in a three flat building built in the early 1920’s. They had a coal burning gravity hot air type octopus furnace similar to the one below, but without the red accessory that was later added on at the bottom.

 

    There was no fan to force the air up since the hot air just naturally rose through the ducts.  Each heating vent had it’s own duct that attached directly to the furnace and made it look like an upside down octopus. The building had more than a dozen heat ducts and due to that maze of ducts and the large coal bin, it took up most of the basement. The basement ceiling was also about twelve feet high to allow some clearance below the ducts.

    Access to the basement was by a 22 rise L shaped stair with a landing half way down that was in a separate room partitioned off from the furnace room with a large heavy steel door, with a closer that always slammed with a resounding bang! I say that because, to a group of young kids ages 3-5 it made us all jump whenever it closed behind leaving us in what seemed like a dimly lit dungeon.

    Eventually we became more adventurous and started going down there to play, but our parents began to worry about us getting into mischief way down there, so grandfather, who always was a bit of a prankster, teased us that there was a green eyed monster that hid in the coal bin sometimes to discourage our interest in going down there.

    At first, we began to think that he was just kidding us since we never saw it and started to go down there again anyway. So grandfather decided that now he needed up his game a bit.

    Taking a pair of flashlights with some green cellophane covering the lenses, he turned them on and placed them in the coal bin just before our next visit. So when we were about to go down to the basement, he told us that he had just seen the green eyed monster in the coal bin earlier and we probably shouldn’t go down there.

    Of course we all though he was just teasing us again, but he said that he better go down with us to see if it was still there. Well, we had just entered the furnace room, he ushered us inside and closed the door with a bang which set us a bit on edge to begin with and we looked around somewhat nervously and said we didn’t see anything.

    Now the basement, with its one small window and a single light bulb, was pretty dim down there to begin with, but he suggested that we might be able to sneak up on it better if we turned out the light,. So he did. Walking over to the coal bin he opened the door a bit and we all looked in. Lo and behold, there was this pair of bright green eyes starring right back at us!! 👾😱😲

    We all instantly made a panicked run to the door and flew up those stairs as fast as we could! For years after that we never went back down there unless grandfather checked it out first.

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  The red accessory at the bottom looks like an oil burner - so owners could switch from coal in the 1940s to more convenient oil.  Instead of a coal bin, an oil tank was installed with a fill line going up to the outside.  Coal furnaces always need stoking - unless one had an automated stoker, but they still produced lots of coal ash that had to be collected either for trash disposal or for dumping out back if the yard was big enough.

 

   Some systems were 'gravity - hot water', where the lighter heated water rose to radiators as the heavier cool water went back to the furnace.  When converted to oil, a line pump was often installed, which was controlled by a simple thermostat (bi-metal coil) that would tip a mercury switch to close the circuit to the pump when the room temperature fell enough.

 

   Still, these 'one zone' systems often made the upstairs warmer than the down stairs, which is why people kept the upstairs room doors closed in winter to keep heated air from the first floor downstairs (the opposite in summer in pre-air conditioning days, so heat would flow out through the window screens form all the upstairs windows).  Our first home had radiators and a converted coal to oil furnace (with circulator) with 'tankless coils' that heated the water line for hot water without the need for a separate hot water tank.  My father in law helped me convert to baseboard heat where the copper tube had lots of thin fins - so we could get rid of all the bulky radiators.  We eventually converted to an efficient natural gas furnace with separate (gas heated) hot water tank so the furnace could be off Spring through Fall.

[mtaylor]

11 hours ago, bruce d said:

Re the corner-gun or whatever it was called: I thought it was used operationally and wasn't very successful. As I understood it, the barrel was rifled at the breech end. The bend was oversize to allow the round to move around and (wait for it) the bend was smooth-bore on the inside and semi-grooved on the outside of the bend before being fully rifled again for the last straight bit.

It must have been a joy to do quality control on that production line.

A bigger problem was firing and actually hitting what you wanted to shoot.   You're around the corner and can''t see the target.

[David W]

These guns actually exist today in a weapon called The Cornershot. A quote "CornerShot is a weapon accessory invented by Lt. Col. Amos Golan of the Israeli Defense Forces in cooperation with American investors. It was designed in the early 2000s for use by SWAT teams and special forces in hostile situations usually involving terrorists and hostages." Wikipedia So. these were a figment of someone's imagination but then actually designed the weapon

[Canute]

Looks like a camera under a light below the silencer equipped barrel. Note a screen above the trigger guard.  This one sees around corners.

[wefalck]

I am wondering, musing about the physics involved, how the recoil would be distributed ... part of it obviously would act backwards (depending on the type of locking mechanism) and part of it sideways ...

[Altduck]

This one doesn't have a curved barrel.  It's a Glock pistol mounted in the front section over the light and camera, with an extended trigger arrangement, and the modest (9mm?) recoil is to the side, in line with the pistol barrel.  

 

Still, not exactly a target gun.