[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!

[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.