Smoke Bomb Goes Off in Phoenix Hotel - Weapons Found

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2008/11/30/smoke-bomb-goes-off-in-hilton-hotel-weapons-found-phoenix/ ^ | 11/30/08

[newfreep]

Must be those radical Amish again.

[TexasRepublic]

My schtick was big-assed slingshots that could hurl a pint-sized water balloon 100+ yards. There were many unexplained mysteries around the campus. That’s all I will say on the matter....

[NaughtiusMaximus]

You and I could have been best friends!

Or cellmates! :)

[mlocher]

Or cellmates! :)

LOL!!! Based on your name, I am guessing you know how far to push the envelope!

[NaughtiusMaximus]

LOL!!! Based on your name, I am guessing you know how far to push the envelope!

Golly, if they had popped me for all the misdeeds I perpetrated when I was a kid, I would be getting out of Juvee about now (and I'm a 60 year old retired high school teacher with a reputation for stodgyness).

[philled]

My father had an industrial chemical supply business so we frequently had stuff in our garage that OSHA would have had a problem with. Combine that with a friend's reloading supplies and items we would lift from the high school chem lab and youthful exhuberance...

We had a wonderfully eroded bluff over a river on our property (far enough from the house to avoid parental observation) that we had horizontally driven two metal fence posts with a sheet of steel welded to as a shelf. We'd top rope down to it and place various baby food jars inside mayonaisse jars, cans, etc. We'd then go across the river and shoot the containers to mix the compounds. Fires, explosions, toxic clouds, and improved marksmanship were the result! A .22 would be good for most things but the day we blew the shelf free we were safety conscious. We had simply backed up further and increased our caliber!

[Skid Marx]

This was actually a 'legit' project. The teacher supplied the rusted steel, It was up to us to recycle it. Everyone in the class had a different method. I spent a couple of days with a smooth file and an aluminum bar, because I'm a knucklehead. The teacher reminded me that aluminum was more expensive per unit than iron, but he had to demonstrate it anyway, even though he knew what would happen. It was irresistible. You'd understand. Had about a pound of finely grained product, used maybe half of it. Also used mag. ribbon to light it directly. The results flared to the ceiling and spalled all over the place. My friend Bill's method used HCl and limestone granules, it blew up in his face.

[Myrddin]

Fine aluminum dust and fine iron dust are typically employed to make flash powder. The iron makes a yellow colored shower of sparks. Aluminum tends to bright white. It's not surprising that you ended up with a "flare" instead of the typical smoldering, smoking blob of a thermite reaction. A little strontium nitrate makes for a red color. That's what is used in road flares. Once upon a time, I was a bit more fluent in which compounds produce specific colors.

[mills044]

When we were 10, my buddies and I ordered 2 books out of a back of a boyscout magazine entitled:

1) Improvised Munitions, and
2) Boobytraps & Incindiary Devices

Within a week we had made 2 batches of napalm (1 using styrofoam, the other using lye), a crude claymore landmine, a bazooka, and some other nifty gadgets...the coolest of which was an improvised gasoline-filled supersoaker (squirtgun), outfitted with a wooden dowel & zippo lighter. Sure, our flamethrower only lasted for a few minutes, but man, the neighborhood bullies sure respected our block after that incident.

I even wrote a fictional book based loosely on that incident, 20 years after the fact: three “inventive” kids take on Islamic terrorists bent on finding/destroying the Holy Grail. If there are any literary agents out there, send me some freepmail! :)

[Islander7]

Red Devil Lye in a 2 liter coke bottle, about 1/3 full, add 5 - 12 X 12 sheets of aluminum foil crumpled up to fix down the top of the bottle. Results: Pure hydrogen gas (and a lot of heat too!)

I’d stretch a surplus weather balloon over the bottle and the pressure would fill it. Attach a 12” aluminum pie tin to the balloon and you’ll get radar confirmed UFO reports on the 10pm news!

Good Lord - that was 1966, back when a kid could have fun without causing a national security crisis.

[El Gato]

Are smoke-bombs considered weapons?

Not until the Obama Administration writes the new rules.

Although maybe in some states they might already be. Unlikely in Arizona.