Homemade flashbulb

[brianmquinn]

holmburgers, You have 1000s of posts. Many post and many of them are great. I have learned quite a bit from your posts. I just disagree with you on your being dismissive of the possible dangers.

Here is my point and an example:

I know of several instances of two dumb people working together to create a disaster that neither one on his own could accomplish. I will share he most tragic one that I have personal knowledge of.

As a teenager a friend of mine was working on a farm with his father and another man. They had cleared a large pile of brush, poured gasoline on it and started to burn the pile. The brush was damp, the flames went out and the pile was just smoldering.
The conversation sent something like this:
My friends father: I should have used more gas to start.
The other man: Just pour some more on.
Father: Are you sure?
The other man: Yea, the flames are out, its just smoldering.

He the poured the gas on the smoldering brush. The gas did not burst into flame. It did however vaporize due to the heat. When he lit a match to relite the fire he was engulfed in a fire ball. He suffer fatal burns and died the next day.

So when someone urges caution do not be dismissive. You may be encouraging someone to take a risk that they would not without you.

[Grif]

I overstepped any version of good form by my comments.

Going back and re examining the threads, I would advise the OP to please, do some serious research on previously mentioned sources of information. Much of what you want to do is well documented and well within the capabilities of the home shop, and with a bit of common sense and knowledge can be done in a realitively save manner.

Haveing said all that. Going off on the quest without using the available knowledge and prior efforts of other folks, especially from a safety standpoint, does not hit me as reasonable.

Is that a bit better said?

[holmburgers]

Hey guys,

I think your comments were posted with the best intentions and I appreciate your responses to my concerns.

I think we're all in agreement about the importance of safety and you're absolutely right to point out that terrible accidents do happen, and a lot of times they are completely avoidable. The main thing that bothered me was the assumption that the OP was clueless about the dangers, which certainly could be the case but we just don't know yet.

At any rate, pointing out the dangers is never uncalled for, but I believe that danger should never trump exploration. Danger increases the responsibility of the explorer though.

[Moose]

Interesting things going on in my few days absence - I got bored so set up my own darkroom, now poor but happy.

My advice? Don't do it. Or if you must, and sometimes the need to explore make this the case, then research every aspect of the project to the greatest depth. Then think about how to make it safer - not just the final product but the manufacturing process too. Every detail must be understood - how will the glass react to the thermal shock? How will the lacquer react to high pressure, sharp objects, oxygen, heat and flame? How much heat and flame? For how long? And we haven't looked at the chemistry yet....

There may also be legal issues depending on where you are and your reasons for doing it.

Stay safe.

[Eugen Mezei]

Grif, I understood the principle of the electric ignitor, even if it the method of the fire catching resistor insulation was new to me. Sorry not been born allknowing. I also got further on the path you advised me after the access to besaid forum was clear.
So at the moment I have a per se working ignitor, question is if it will ignite the aluminium foil snipplets. We will see.
This is not a project I will finish tomorrow, I come back to it when I have some new idea or find new materials I could use. [1] So the movie with explosions has to wait.
Rest assured I will take every precaution and work only with minute quantities of explosive material to minimize risc.

[1] I invested a lot of effort in looking for some KMnO3 or NaMnO3 without look. It was easily avaible when I was a kid and used to be put in sausages. You can still easily get charcoal and Sulfur. Then on the 2nd of January I thought buying some petards and emptyieng them but the sellers dissapeared. Some weeks ago I found some birtday torches, the content of these seem to be flamable enough and sparkling around nicely so it could eventually ignite the Al. Will see if it has enough caloric power.

[Sethasaurus]

y'know, you don't need explosives to ignite aluminium in oxygen. The power from your average flash discharge is quite enough to initiate the burn.
Don't forget the asbestos suit!
(Oops, I mean modern replacement for asbestos suit).

[vpwphoto]

Instead of thinking... how about knowing.
Magnesium wool is what is inside many of the bulbs. My old flash-guns didn't have a capacitor, just 3volts of power from 2 c cells.
I don't know about enhancements as far as gas inside. Pure O2 would likely oxidize the wool and have a short shelf life.
That being said I did USE some bulbs a couple months back some of them DEFINITELY had more oooomph than others.
Some seemed about 4 stops under. The ones that fired like I remember in Christmas's of many years past exposed the film just fine.