Signal cannon

[rhwestfall]

Hey pal I can get BP, well..... pyrodex anytime.

Pyrodex is NOT BP. Ttry and shoot a flintlock with it, you will know the difference.......

the fact you are proposing now to use Pyrodex scares me even more as the pressures generated are even higher and faster than BP.....

 

[Slamfire]

Very, Very, bad idea. Sulfur and chlorates can create a friction and impact sensitive mixture. .

Potassium chlorate, may under certain conditions of temperature and acidity, slowly break down giving chloric acid, or chlorine dioxide, both of which are more active oxidizing agents than potassium chlorate itself. When this happens, potassium chlorate... Sensitivity to heat, shock, friction and impact are greatly enhanced with ignition occurring, in some cases, as little as a flick of the fingernail.

Too bad (maybe it's a good thing ...) we didn't know that when we were kids. Otherwise we probably would have left batches of chlorate BP aging just to see if we could ignite it by flicking fingernails... and probably by now I would have had stubby hands or fingers...

For us chlorate BP was the "good stuff" so it would get used up faster. The nitrate BP was the one that would be left aging because as long as we had chlorate we would prefer to burn that first.

 

[AfterDark]

Pyrodex is NOT BP. Ttry and shoot a flintlock with it, you will know the difference.......

the fact you are proposing now to use Pyrodex scares me even more as the pressures generated are even higher and faster than BP.....

You're scared! Oh my hope you haven't soil yourself. Why do you keep scaring yourself by opening this thread? I'm glad I don't have you for a neighbor. To use pyrodex to fire a flintlock you need to grind it to a fine powder but it works. Do you shoot much or just sit around wring your hands? Read my later post the tank is a shell, a decoration. The real "cannon" will be a barrel from an old flintlock pistol welded to the inside of the tank.

 

[adurso]

As a kid I made any number of black powder cannons from pipe of various dimensions, big fun.

Enjoy

 

[AfterDark]

As a kid I made any number of black powder cannons from pipe of various dimensions, big fun.

Enjoy

I guess you didn't have rhwestfall for a neighbor. Me too, I'm reliving my childhood before I get to old to.

 

[DIWdiver]

When I was a kid we used to have a great deal of fun with various bits of pipe, firecrackers, BB's, smokeless powder, waterproof fuse, rocket engines, match heads etc. When my backyard neighbor stopped coming to school, I found out he'd had an accident. Months later a new kid showed up at school. I had to ask around to find out it was him, because he wasn't recognizable. I wasn't exactly scared straight, but I gained a healthy respect for what explosions can do, and a great desire to understand what I was doing before I did it.

 

[adurso]

I guess you didn't have rhwestfall for a neighbor. Me too, I'm reliving my childhood before I get to old to.

I did have a neighbor who complained about me blowing sh!t up......did not stop me. Made my own powder too...when I was in high school there was a chemistry teacher who made his own fireworks. He showed the advanced students much...my neighbor really wigged for a while after that...

 

[DIWdiver]

You're scared! Oh my hope you haven't soil yourself. Why do you keep scaring yourself by opening this thread? I'm glad I don't have you for a neighbor. To use pyrodex to fire a flintlock you need to grind it to a fine powder but it works. Do you shoot much or just sit around wring your hands? Read my later post the tank is a shell, a decoration. The real "cannon" will be a barrel from an old flintlock pistol welded to the inside of the tank.

Sure, now the tank is a decoration and you're using grains of pyrodex in a flintlock, but at the beginning you were talking about a quarter cup of BP and some wadding in the tank...

The current plan sounds a lot more effective, and safer to boot.

 

[AfterDark]

Sure, now the tank is a decoration and you're using grains of pyrodex in a flintlock, but at the beginning you were talking about a quarter cup of BP and some wadding in the tank...

The current plan sounds a lot more effective, and safer to boot.

I said in one of my posts I was having a little fun online and hoping to maybe get a few ideas. I've got several other concepts rollin' round in my noggin. The these days real BP has been mostly replaced by pyrodex, I've got into the habit of interchanging the words. Still a 1/4 cup of pyrodex in a tank with some wadding wouldn't blow up a steel scuba tank. It's not being confinded just compressed a little. It's not pushing a projectile so it's not building up anywhere near the pressure it normally would. The pressure is going out the "barrel".
An old timer showed me how forgiving BP is. He filled his muzzle loader almost to the muzzle with BP, rammed a patched ball down the barrel and fired it from his shoulder. A big flame, a big boom and lots of smoke. The gun and shooter were fine. I'll post some pictures when I'm done and maybe a video.

 

[miketsp]

If all you want is a bang, mix up some Nitrogen Triiodide in the tank, let it dry and then drop a feather into the tank.

Nitrogen triiodide is a very unstable explosive that's not really practical due to its tremendous instability and cost. When wet it is stable but when dry the touch of a feather can cause it to detonate. Wet nitrogen triiodide should be spread out as much as possible or numerous small piles made. When dry the nitrogen triiodide will not explode from its own weight if spread out, a single large pile will.

Many years ago when I was a boy we used to play with this stuff. Great for killing insects. We used to soak sheets of paper in this stuff. Once dry, all it needed was an insect to land on the paper for both the paper and the insect to disappear in a flash.
We found lots of ways to use very minute quantities for a variety of pranks.

Suggested quantity - Put 2 g of iodine crystals into a beaker, crush them as much as possible, add 40 mL ammonium hydroxide. After 2 hours the reaction should be complete.
Pour the solution over a filter to collect the crystals, any excess can be rinsed out of the beaker with water. Put the crystals where you want them immediately because they're only stable while wet. Drying will take about 1 hour.
ONCE DRY - LITERALLY ANY TOUCH OR IMPACT WILL CAUSE DETONATION.