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Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

Being Grounded?

I almost burnt down my house - burnt off my arm hair and eye brows, nearly caused a forest fire in tahoe, blew up numerous model craft from ships to russian migs and sikorski copters...

We built explosives from gallons of hairspray from my best friends mom's salons, to pipe bombs we used to blow up forest stumps, canons made from test tubes and shotgun shells... as well as the solid rocket fuel from estes engines to fill model craft with for spectacular explosions.

We found our fuse from avalanche fuse whilst on ski team at Squaw and Alpine in Tahoe...

The 80s were awesome. The NSA will love this post.

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I also nearly caused a forest fire but not with a chemical set but with a simple match.

Thank god Only YOU can prevent such forest fires.

What!? Smokey told me only I could!

All the sleepless nights of forest patrol...

Reminds me of the time I used hair spray and a lighter as a blow torch and nearly burned down the woods in my backyard. Thanks for the nostalgia.

All I learned was that if you soaked snow with enough hairspray you could burn it.

And that cologne could burn on your hand without hurting you.*

*Don't try this at home.

"And that cologne could burn on your hand without hurting you.*"

Perhaps only as a kid with no significant hand hair: http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~eggplant/feynman/6.html

Feynman lived in Far Rockaway! I had no clue, I wonder if he lived near my current apartment.

There you go: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=792+Cornaga+Avenue,+Far+Rocka...

Based on http://www.fotuva.org/online/frameload.htm?/online/house.htm

Rumor has it that hand sanitizer on a wet hand has similar properties, at least for short times.

ethanol burns relatively cool (as do (some of?) the other alcohols). the problem is that it often burns above the ignition point of its carrier substance, which itself burns much hotter. e.g. calcium acetate/isopropyl alcohol gel (lab sterno) is perfectly safe to burn in your hand, but only until the alcohol runs out--it will light the calcium acetate, which is not remotely safe to burn in your hand.

hand sanitizer is usually an alcohol in water and a thickener (glycerin, etc.). i'd worry a bit about the same effect. (not that i actually know what the ignition and flame temps of glycerin are....)

Yes. And a virtually incandescent flame. I too burned just about every household chemical I could get my hands on. I remember trying to light my name in fire on the concrete floor of our basement... Good times.

Or a lighter and a can of wd-40 as a blow torch to kill flies. :D

This is an excellent method for lighting milk powder sprinkled through a sieve from, e.g. the top of a spiral staircase. Makes an impressive fireball.

I tried to make a hydrogen powered bunsen burner and caused a modest hydrogen explosion in my parents' basement..... The hydrogen generation part was easy (vinegar and metallic magnesium).

That and chlorine gas, and hydrogen sulfide experiments, and other sorts of stuff that would scare the living daylights out of most parents today.

You can generate hydrogen with tap water and electricty. You can generate chlorine gas by trying to use bleach to clean up urine.

Generating small amounts of hydrogen is easy. Generating it fast enough to support a flame is a bit harder. Hence acid and magnesium.

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