Back in fifth grade (1957) I used to make my own gunpowder and M-80’s. I made rocket fuel out of nitrate and powdered sugar and then launched my own homemade rockets in the schoolyard. No body gave a damn.Carbide was a hoot esp. in blowing the lid off old paint cans.We bought strike anywhere matches and attached them to the ends of homemade arrows. They ignited when shot against a brick wall.We even attached the homemade M80’s to arrows and shot them into the air like aerial bombs.One of the coolest things was spraying lighter fluid on the bottom of your shoes,igniting it, and running down the street afire at night . These activities were sooooo evil that I became a middle school science teacher for 35 years because of it .
When I was a boy I never NEVER did any of those things,
in fact I never NEVER even THOUGHT of doing any of those
things and if I had, I would have turned my self in to
the proper authorities for mental evaluation and
reconditionings. /s
How could I and my geek friends have missed out on that one?
But we did the flour in the can trick. Open end coffee can about ½ full flour tossed spinning to create dust cloud, ignite it! A nice loud WOOSH.