Swampscott boy, 13, hurt by homemade bomb

Salem (MA) News ^ | 05/02/08 | Bruno Matarazzo Jr

[353FMG]

Mr. Kimball;

I am still of the opinion that it is better that the bombmaker gets hurt than some innocent bystander.
By the way, you must be an arrogant jerk yourself for giving someone that title without knowing anything about him.

Sincerely,

[from occupied ga]

knew it was potentially explosive and NEVER, EVER played around with it. You could've blown up a TV with it in a bright flash of light and flying glass shards,

Actually calcium carbide is not the least bit explosive, but when you add water it generates acetylene gas which is explosive when mixed with air in just about any proportion. That's where the fun comes in.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

I remember the scene in the movie, The Kingdom, when they met the former Saudi bombmaker whose working in an internet cafe. Jamie Foxx goes to shake his hand, and notices some fingers missing. The bombmaker says something about his profession like, “Eventually we all swallow some of our own poison.”

[from occupied ga]

Carbide cannons are still for sale

[Aquinasfan]

gunpowder from about 100 toy caps

I had a teenage friend who dropped rocks onto shotgun shells from the roof of his garage. Another guy used to climb telephone poles on a dare. Believe it or not, they both grew up to be screwballs.

[NativeSon]

I’ve heard some rumours about people with similar pipes making model rocket bazookas.

I heard somewhere that these kids pulverized the solid rocket engines from the weaker ones (A's, B's) filled a spent CO2 cartridge with the powder, put a small piece of primer cord in it then sealed it epoxy.

They placed the cartridge in the nosecone of an Estese Alpha 3 rocket, with end of the primer going into a hole into the "parachute load" in the top of the Alpha's engine.

adjustments (to fin placement) must've been made to balance with the increased weight.

The Alpha's stabilizers were modified to fit into a length of pvc or the tube from roofing paper. A .5 V dry cell, solar igniters, breech plate and grip with a trigger were added in some manner.

Not sure what they would've have done with that thing but going on a "Goodyear Blimp Hunt" prolly wasn't it...

[Dems_R_Losers]

My niece is 13 and lives in Swampscott. I’ll bet she knows this kid. It’s not a big town.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Didn’t you leave out the Conigliaro clan? I thought they were from up there.

[ßuddaßudd]

I used the gunpowder from many many firecrackers and a used toilet paper roll with electrical tape. It was a rather large kaboom and caused damage to neighboring windows. Ahhh, the good old days.......

[Joe 6-pack]

"Actually calcium carbide is not the least bit explosive, but when you add water it generates acetylene gas..."

But of course...having played with the stuff since about the age of 5, I guess I took it for granted that was a given, but I suppose I shouldn't have.

In my mid to late teens, while still living in the northeast, I became really involved in speleology, and found a brand new use for grad-dad's lamps. I still have them somewhere, and should probably dig them out and brasso them up.

As of the late 80's, the mounting brackets on helmets for the electric headlamps then in use were still compatible with the tabs on the carbide lamps. On one caving trip I had a spectacular, space shuttle-like O-Ring failure of the rubber gasket that sealed the carbide pot from the water reservoir. A rush of acetylene shot out of the pot, and hit the flame. I thought for a moment I was witnessing the second coming.

[Little Bill]

If he is related to any of the Surettes that I know from that area, this is just normal teenage behavior.

[Joe 6-pack]

I've heard of people doing similar things. When employing a PVC pipe, the hardest thing is keeping the rocket centered. I've found, er, heard that one way of dealing with it is to put a base plate on the tube with a slightly off-center guide rod that runs the length of the tube, and can be used with the standard launch lug on most rockets. Another technique is to spin-stabilize the rocket with fins that are at least half the length of the rocket and the diameter of the inside of your tube.

Lots of crazy people out there with too much free time to come up with some of this stuff...

[Little Bill]

Ever do potato mortars?

[Grammy]

Kids have been blowing stuff up forever. I am a grandmother and my dad used to put tobacco cans of black powder on the trolley tracks..... that is until they lifted the trolley off the rails.

Mr G used to make fireworks with a buddy. His buddy’s folks had a steel door into the chimney so they could test them safely.

They made a bomb for the benefit of the “submarine race” watchers on prom night. It had a timer to give them a chance to be elsewhere, and it blew its guts into the river so there was no evidence left. Since Mr G was talking to the local sherriff when it went off, they couldn’t blame him.

8-)

Even Junior G made bombs. He set one off next to our house that made things inside rattle. He had instructions to not repeat that trick, and since we live in the country there wasn’t a problem with neighbors.

Unfortunately, now all three of them would probably be in jail as terrorists.

[Little Bill]

A FRiend of mine and a fellow supervisor at a major Utility in the Boston Area, before I retired, made one out of PVC that did nearly the length of the Reserve Channel.

My lunatics not to be undone with some technical direction from me and some help from out Boiler makers , made one from P-22, CRMO. We fabricated an accumulator with a high pressure quick release solenoid valve.

The tube was 3" and we pumped up the accumulator to 3600 PSI from the starting air compressor on our Gas Turbine. I think we might have put one out as far as Deer Island.

[NativeSon]

funny, I've heard of both of those solutions myself...

ya' know what else I heard about - piezoelectric igniters and trying to fit them into the nosecone with the CO2 cartridge for um, "impact".

and shotgun shell + hole in side where the powder is + primer cord = grenade

[Joe 6-pack]

"I think we might have put one out as far as Deer Island."

It's all fun and games until somebody loses an Island! These days I often stop and think about how many times I was within mere inches or seconds of a Darwin award...mostly because I never stopped to think about anything in those days.

[raccoonradio]

Yes and some of the Conigliaros lived in Nahant, too (and the golf course and a club nearby used to be “Tony C’s”)

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I once grabbed a foul ball hit off the right field grandstand upper deck by Billy C :)

[Joe 6-pack]

"ya' know what else I heard about - piezoelectric igniters and trying to fit them into the nosecone with the CO2 cartridge for um, "impact". "

That's basically the premise behind these...

When the nose of that baby hits a target, it crushes the piezoelectric crystal at the tip...an electric charge runs back to the explosives in the cross-hatched area, which detonate causing the copper cone to invert and squirt their way through the target's armor plate.

A chemical penetrator has an advantage over a kinetic penetrator at a distance as it doesn't rely on the round's velocity, but the velocity of the explosion once it reaches the target.