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Amateur Scientist Builds Thermite Grenade Cannon (gizmodo.com)
YouTube personality Colin Furze has built a homemade cannon which he's filmed launching grenades filled with thermite, "an especially nasty chemical composition made of metal power and oxide that burns as hot as 2,500 degrees Celsius." Furze once co-hosted Sky1's program Gadget Geeks, and he's since made a new career demonstrating strange science projects on YouTube. Furze's other homemade devices have included a rocket-powered go-kart and a knife that can also toast bread while it's cutting.
Thanks for playing, but he's British, not American. Try changing your TLA.
If he did amateur scientific experiments or research, he'd be an amateur scientist. He is more of an amateur engineer, if you'd call him that. Not to knock him, but I'd probably just call him a guy who builds cool stuff.
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1. Thermite is perfectly legal to own. It is not regulated by the ATF whatsoever.
2. You don't know if the propellant charge is over 4 ounces
3. He isn't American.
That was pretty much obvious when he pronounced Aluminum as "Aluminium".
Actually, he's more an engineer but anyway, not my favorite video of him.
I'm was more impressed when he hydroformed a pulse jet
Elok
Reminds me of the flamethrower I made a few years back, neat stuff. I wish I had the equipment (And the free time) this guy does.
He might want to be a little safer (Flame retardant clothing, glasses, etc.) it looks like he didn't learn from his last incident:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Also in the first video of the series, he does note that making device that launch the stuff are regulated and he had to have supervision on this one.
Also also, article linked talks about 'rocket powered', that word... I do not think it means, what they think it means. He did make (and continues to make) a kart with a JET engine (specifically a pulse-jet), but that is very different from a rocket.
...
He's lucky he didn't go blind while making this. That fireworks clip, in particular, was just asking to get hit in the face with something burning and white-hot.
You mean, the way he pronounced it correctly?
Signed,
the rest of the World.
Just curious, where does that second 'i' come from in enunciating Aluminum. Instead of a silent character as in knight, we now have the opposite as a ghost character? Pronouncing what does not exist?
1. Thermite is perfectly legal to own. It is not regulated by the ATF whatsoever.
We made it in high school chemistry class. Here is the recipe:
1. Powdered aluminum
2. Powdered rust
3. Mix
4. Ignite
The stuff does not explode. It just burns, and produces molten iron. We did it on a 1/2" steel plate out behind the school, and it burned through the steel.
Notes:
1. Our chemistry teacher was really cool
2. Always wear eye protection when doing stuff like this.
3. He isn't American.
This.
Thanks to regulations, American scientific inquiry by young people is limited to how to mod a vaper to volatilize hash oil.
Have gnu, will travel.
Just curious, where does that second 'i' come from in enunciating Aluminum
From its discoverer. He called it alumium, aluminum and aluminium in that historical order, and the different versions basically spread by diffusion.
OTOH, "solder" has only one spelling, but two pronunciations: in Britain they pronounce the L.
At least that's something that makes the world a little bit better. A "thermite grenade cannon"? Not so much.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I don't see why you'd need a grenade cannon just to get rid of termites. Seems like overkill.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Also consider the atomic elements. They're not called Helum, Lithum, Beryllum...
This guy should be cloned and duplicated so more of his type get into the gene pool. Normally when you hear about people doing this stuff, it is through the darwin awards.
Red herring. Helium should properly be called "helion".
As for aluminum/aluminium, I'll grant that aluminium is "correct" when we all also adopt "platinium", "lanthanium" and "molybdenium". For bonus points, we can go back and retcon iron to "ferrium", gold to "aurium", lead to "plumbium"...
Thanks to regulations, American scientific inquiry by young people is limited to how to mod a vaper to volatilize hash oil.
Actually a far better sign of how bad things have become is that you think that both the video and your example are scientific inquiry.
I had a very cool Chemistry teacher in High School too. He tossed sodium in the pool as a demo once or twice :)
Pretty much obvious from the moment he opens his mouth...
"Furze" is actually the German plural for "fart", i.e. his name is "Farts" in German.
"Furz" being singular.
Just sayin'. :-)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
OK, but what about words like plutonium and uranium then?
Pronouncing what does not exist?
We had a Texan come over as a maintenance manager at our plant when the previous one left suddenly (or was told to leave suddenly depending on who's story you believe). Lovely guy, very Texan complaining loudly about not being allowed a gun rack on his massive pick-up in Australia.
One day he bursts in to the reliability office and proclaims with incredible pride: "I finally figured out why you pronounce it aluminium!!!! You actually spell it with the second 'i' !!!!".
We're of English decent. Not only do we not pronounce what does not exist, quite often we actively avoid pronouncing things that do.
Greetings to you from your colourful neighbours across the pond. :-)
that's pretty much what those elements are called in French...
or, fer, plomb
So, do you pronounce the "s" in "descent"? :P
But seriously, this post made me smile. Cheerio and well-met!
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
We did it inside the classroom, in a bucket full of sand though.
Everybody pronounces the L in solder, but in American English it is not aspirated. Very similar to the glottal T in Estuary English. Colloquially, we "swallow" the L, but it is still pronounced.
Thermite is legal, but there are other aspects of the device that require licensing. Exploding projectiles are regulated by the ATF. Their full name actually includes the word "explosives," but it isn't in the acronym. (ATF or BATF)
I'm putting that s in the things we avoid pronouncing that do exist, it can sit in the nife draw next to my balle shoos :-D
Seen his vids. Clever and crazy dude. At one point he used thermite to boil water for his tea... in about 5 seconds. The special kettle he built to do this was an amusing hack, and quite effective. The pulse jet kart started life as a pulse jet bicycle. AIUI he used to be a professional plumber, and now does these zany vids for income. Lots of fun to watch, but his Brit-version of fratboy attitude grates on me after a while.
Just like black powder (which can also be said not to explode), Thermite will explode if contained in something like a pipe-bomb configuration.
Throwing a mass of lit thermite in water, or onto ice causes a gas explosion. Partly due to generation of high temperature steam, and also due to Thermite being hot enough to split water into atomic hydrogen and oxygen. At that point, the aluminum gets a boost of more oxygen that the rust alone can provide, and goes explodey.
Internet connections between us were down for two hundred years. Shit happens.
This is why we (the US) wised up and changed it back to the agreed upon name without the second 'i' in 1925.
Irr-as the saying goes-fucking elephant. He's not a Septic. Even if he's building this in the US, he's got a GTF card in his pocket. (Which it might be a good idea to use, PDQ. If in the UK, chill.)
I haven't looked at any mechanical specs. But ... it looks like a gas-powered launcher (SCUBA shop - not significantly regulated) ; mechanisms (not regulated) ; blowtorch to light a time-delay fuse (not regulated) ; mechanism launched, lands, fuse meets charge, kaboom!
Thermite - if it was for sale on the streets, it would probably be regulated, but WTF. Anyone with a modicum of chemistry schooling (O-level, 16-y.o. schooling level) knows the chemistry, and after that it's imagination, and not difficult.
Now don't get me wrong - this is a really cool piece of work. The inventor's insane eye-glint in the videos marks him as a person I understand and respect. This is what he does to keep himself out of the pub at night, and it's GOOD! But I don't see that he has violated any UK laws. None of the videos show an explosion (in the chemist's sense), so none are regulated. (All show rapid deflagration, but that is NOT explosion! If you think so, go back to school!) Dangerous as fuck - no disputing that, including to the operator - but that's no real obstacle.
This guy is a lunatic I could get to like.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
[self] SOBS in distress at American distress.
< /sarcasm >
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"