How times have changed...
- Thread starter langcliffe
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2xw
Active member
Granted you can't buy stuff in the chemist anymore, but most of the stuff you've mentioned can be bought on Amazon or other supplier. I'd rather be a kid now, the chemistry sets are less explosive (but you can still buy kids sets that come with HCl etc) but come with other options like nano particles, PEM fuel cells and accessible lasers. I can't wait til my sister has a kid so I can buy it all this stuff (and try it first!)
Dave Tyson
Member
I remember buying chemicals at Oakes & Eddon in Liverpool when I was about 14.. They sold little tubs (~1oz) of various chemicals to the general public and you could buy dilute (5%) sulphuric, hydrochloric and nitric acid. Later I discovered a place in London which sold a wider range of stuff in bigger quantities and was able to purchase sodium, red phosphorous, bromine, phenol, aniline and concentrated acids. You would probably be locked up for what we used to make in the late sixties. I remember making picric acid and the satisfying bang it made when mixed with lead oxide and struck with a hammer. As others have noted sodium chlorate was the oxidant of choice for low energy explosives. I never managed to make TNT, without fuming sulphuric acid its hard to get the extra NO2 group to attach to di-nitrotoluene 
Friends made nitroglycerin, but I really wanted to make sure I kept my hands and face and so avoided emulating them. Still have 10 fingers lol.
Dave
Friends made nitroglycerin, but I really wanted to make sure I kept my hands and face and so avoided emulating them. Still have 10 fingers lol.Dave
royfellows
Well-known member
I made nitroglycerine in a test tube and poured a spot of it onto concrete from a height expecting it to go bang. It didn't. So I then struck the spot with a hammer.
It was an hour before my ears stopped ringing, but brought home the dangers.
I was sensible enough to keep the nitration cool, brown fuming and it went down the sink.
Got as far as a home made ammonium nitrate - nitro mix, but the home made dets from shotgun primers would not make it go off.
Packed it in at that point and found a fresh interest.
I had found a more exciting discovery, - girls.
Some other lads made pipe bombs from sodium chlorate, but I never got into that.
It was an hour before my ears stopped ringing, but brought home the dangers.
I was sensible enough to keep the nitration cool, brown fuming and it went down the sink.
Got as far as a home made ammonium nitrate - nitro mix, but the home made dets from shotgun primers would not make it go off.
Packed it in at that point and found a fresh interest.
I had found a more exciting discovery, - girls.
Some other lads made pipe bombs from sodium chlorate, but I never got into that.
In the old covered market in Bradford in the 60s you could buy 2 oz tubs of various nitrates including barium, strontium and potassium along with many other compounds. The stall had hundreds of these tubs which were appropriately colour coded with a bit of info about each compound.
Our local chemist used to sell nitric and sulphuric acids in 'bring your own' bottles and would reluctantly provide potassium nitrate 'safely' wrapped in a paper bag. When the supply of potassium nitrate ran out we discovered that reacting nitric acid with cream of tartar (potassium tartrate) would yield instant gunpowder when carefully dried. The pharmacist used to wonder why we were always buying iodine crystals and ammonia solution - obviously he hadn't read a Boys Own annual.
These days Amazon sells tree stump remover and flash cotton so all is not lost - if you're into that sort of thing.
Our local chemist used to sell nitric and sulphuric acids in 'bring your own' bottles and would reluctantly provide potassium nitrate 'safely' wrapped in a paper bag. When the supply of potassium nitrate ran out we discovered that reacting nitric acid with cream of tartar (potassium tartrate) would yield instant gunpowder when carefully dried. The pharmacist used to wonder why we were always buying iodine crystals and ammonia solution - obviously he hadn't read a Boys Own annual.
These days Amazon sells tree stump remover and flash cotton so all is not lost - if you're into that sort of thing.
blackshiver
Member
I was happily making rocket propellants in the shed back in the early 1970's and got to the point where I needed concentrated acids which (as a 14 year old) the local chemist would not sell to me.
I used to help the chemistry teacher at school set up experiments over lunchtime, so I asked if it would be possible to............
After school that day I was called to his office and thought "here we go" the heads going to be there and its going to be painful.
I can see it in my minds eye even now. Opened the door, walked up to his big oak desk, sir takes his reading glasses off pushes a box full of sawdust towards me and there they were. Half a pint each of conc Nitric, Hydrochloric, Sulphuric and conc Ammonia all nicely fuming through the (loose) glass stoppers.
I did say thanks! and then put the box on the handlebars of my bike and cycled home (one handed) to the Little Green Shed at the bottom of the garden.
How times have changed.
Postcript, about a year later "Sir" also took me to see "somebody" to explain what I was doing in The Shed. I didn't know at the time but this was the head of R+D for ICI who immediately offered me a job working for him as soon as I left school (I was sixteen).
I have a lifetime of well paid and interesting chemistry to thank "Sir" for and met him in a cafe a couple of years back - he also said "how times have changed".
I used to help the chemistry teacher at school set up experiments over lunchtime, so I asked if it would be possible to............
After school that day I was called to his office and thought "here we go" the heads going to be there and its going to be painful.
I can see it in my minds eye even now. Opened the door, walked up to his big oak desk, sir takes his reading glasses off pushes a box full of sawdust towards me and there they were. Half a pint each of conc Nitric, Hydrochloric, Sulphuric and conc Ammonia all nicely fuming through the (loose) glass stoppers.
I did say thanks! and then put the box on the handlebars of my bike and cycled home (one handed) to the Little Green Shed at the bottom of the garden.
How times have changed.
Postcript, about a year later "Sir" also took me to see "somebody" to explain what I was doing in The Shed. I didn't know at the time but this was the head of R+D for ICI who immediately offered me a job working for him as soon as I left school (I was sixteen).
I have a lifetime of well paid and interesting chemistry to thank "Sir" for and met him in a cafe a couple of years back - he also said "how times have changed".
pwhole
Well-known member
I once accidentally dropped a one-quart bottle of formaldehyde out of my cheap rucksack in the local hippy healthfood store. The floor was simple rustic wooden floorboards and the bottle landed on the corner of the base and bounced - whereupon I caught it, and swiftly put it back in my rucksack before leaving rather quickly. I didn't go back for years.
nickwilliams
Well-known member
My mate and I made nitrogen tri-iodide when we should have been doing something else in an O-level chemistry class one day. We managed to drop some on the floor and got a mighty bollocking from the chemistry master when he trod on it. The effect of the bollocking was somewhat diminished by the same teacher admitting to one of our parents in a parents evening a couple of weeks later that he was actually quite impressed since he'd never been able to get it to go off whenever he had tried to make it.
Graigwen
Active member
royfellows said:
It is not long since commercial ammonium nitrate was freely and cheaply available. I suppose it would be easy to make ANFO by dissolving it in fuel oil to make a handy liquid explosive, widely used in the mining industry as a pattern of holes can be filled from a tanker. The problem controlling the availability of ammonium nitrate is that it is so useful as a fertiliser, with nitrogen available in two forms.
"Packed it in at that point and found a fresh interest. I had found a more exciting discovery, - girls." Yes girls are an antidote to many interesting activities!
cavemanmike
Well-known member
Graigwen said:
But just as explosive
Robert Scott
Member
Obviously, the regulations in Bradford were somewhat lax in the ?60s. I lived in Heaton then. One day Ashwell Road was swarming with police plus an army truck. We were told that a lad from school but a year or two above us, Stephen Mason, had made some TNT. Whatever it was, it was taken to the allotments behind his home to be detonated by the Bomb Disposal men.grahams said:
A big bang was heard.
Not sure how the allotment people with greenhouses felt about that.
Graigwen
Active member
It is a surprise really that we have got so far into this thread without mentioning a certain well known author of books on Welsh metal mines (Roy knows who I mean) who blew up the boys urinals at his school with carbide. When in 1969 he blew himself up at, I think, Hafan Mine, he was charged with some explosive offense. The great and good of the university town where he attended school came out in droves as defence witnesses. Academics, clergymen, senior council officers and others all attested to his spirit of scientific enquiry and good intentions. He escaped custody and in the light of his subsequent career their evidence was well justified.
andybrooks
Member
In school, those with an interest in chemistry were encouraged to pursue projects. While I chose fluorescein and rhodamine, someone I know very well decided to make TNT. Some years later, his product was still in the lab, under lock and key.
Scrufflepeck
New member
Sodium chlorate and sugar. When a teenager I used it to make bombs with empty aerosols and blast lead balls deep into logs.
Wren
New member
Too many years ago, my mate and I used to help out in the school labs. As such, we were asked to provide a flash and bang for the school production of Hansel and Gretal. This we duly did and everthing worked fine until the last night. Having a considerable excess of flash powder we thought that a bit extra would provide a suitable finale. Too good! We set the stage curtains on fire! A good time was had by all?
