Posted on 04/07/2018 9:13:36 AM PDT by Simon Green
A 14-year-old boy in rural Wyoming who was building a small cannon using instructions from YouTube videos died after the contraption exploded, a local newspaper reported on Friday.
The cannon misfired late on Thursday as Archie Pearce was assembling its components, in an abandoned lot in the northern Wyoming community of Recluse, the Gillette News Record reported.
A 12-year-old child who was with Pearce was later treated at a hospital for minor flash burns. They were building the device as an experiment, with no intent to cause harm, Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny told the newspaper.
"They were in over their heads, trying to do something they shouldn't have been doing," Matheny added.
The teenager packed gun or fireworks powder too tightly into a 2-inch (5 cm) steel pipe and a projectile inside became stuck, resulting in the fatal explosion, Sheriff's Office Lieutenant Kevin Theis told the News Record.
Representatives from the Campbell County Sheriff's Office could not be reached for comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The story reminds me of a short story written by outdoor writer Patrick F. McManus.
The story is called “Poof, No Eyebrows!”. In it, he documents his childhood adventures in experimenting with gunpowder. The last experiment was a homemade cannon, and it exploded. However, he and his friend in the story, Retch Sweeney, were not killed. It’s an interesting and funny read.
Yes, starting ether was a better propellant - and it even came with that tube extension like WD-40, which perfectly fit the cannon's touch hole.
I remember finding some nitric and sulfuric acid in an old building that I was helping to clean out. I just had to make some guncotton with it. I was too scared to make nitroglycerin.
I made about a pound of guncotton that a friend and I used to blow up some items in the woods, far away from any houses. We packed the guncotton with gunpowder to ensure ignition. We waited for a morning after a hard rain. We lit some long fuses and watched from a vantage point about a half mile away with binoculars. They were powerful explosions. The police came, but we were long gone. We didn’t tell anyone for years after.
Kid could have had a grand old time with a potatoe gun & hair spray for propellant.
Took a while to set it off, then scared the hell out of us as it started shooting flame from both end with a hellacious noise. Amazing no one came to see what was up, but I think they were nervous about all the stuff we played with.
Notice the subtle 14 year old “boy” versus the 12 year old “child” descriptions the NY Slimes uses?
My kind of curious kid, but he should have been yelled at to pay attention to safety 1st. Then go blow stuff up.
WRITER: What is the Guttman Perpetual Tennis Racket?
GUTTMAN: We string it with piano wire.
WRITER: Doesn't that tear-up the balls?
GUTTMAN: We use metal balls.
WRITER: What if the metal ball hits someone?
GUTTMAN: (Raising one finger) One problem at a time.
From "One Day at a Time," wonderful TV show canceled after 6 weeks
MOM’S CARPET
1 in 100 success rate.
The improvised design uses a needle along the match head.
Wrap tinfoil around head and needle.
Pull out needle.
Aim “rocket” at 45 degree angle.
Heat foil with lighter.
The rocket consistently flys 10 feet.
Just be careful with mother’s carpet not to burn holes. But they are a fun evening of kitchen rocketry.
Teach children SAFETY FIRST!
Removing the pin needle forms the rocket exhaust nozzle.
How about a trash bag full of acetylene?
Fun tines
They probably used the powder from fireworks, a big no-no. That is flash powder, and it is more destructive than black powder. In making improvised ammunition, flash powder is not to be used in loading cartridges because it will explode the gun.
That’s the one. Thanks!!
L
We had a Blast doing this in the 60’s and 70’s!! But we also made our own explosives and bomb just for fun, not to mention Rockets!!!
In Junior High School, early 70’s, the Metal Shop teacher would set off 3 or 4 Acetylene Balloon Bombs to remind everyone what happened if you left the gas on for your torch. We did this Every year in school, had a blast doing it at home!!
We tried something like this the summer after 6th grade.
Mounted a piece of aluminum pipe on a wooden block, with one end of the pipe plugged with a cork or wood or something.
The pipe was maybe an inch and half in diameter and 10 inches long.
We jammed it full of sparklers, figuring it would send out a mass of .....sparkles.
Instead of “sparkles” we got a solid, roaring jet of flame blasting 4 feet straight out of our “cannon”. It sounded like rocket motor. The pipe was glowing cherry red, the wooden base was charred and the sidewalk was black. It was a frigging flamethrower.
I had the ultimate progression, and have lived. I started with a firecracker in a soup can in water and ended with 150KT nuclear weapons. After that, I gave it a break! It just wasn’t the same anymore. ;-)
I started with ground-up sparklers and ended up with 9MT nuclear weapons then got to play with all sorts of those devices for almost three decades.
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