Fun just like old times

[Little-Acorn]

I've had a fun weekend. The kind 50-year-old guys aren't supposed to be interested in any more.

It's remarkable what you can do with some half-inch threaded plastic PVC sprinkler pipe nipples a few inches long (or shorter) and screw-on caps from Home Depot, some fuse available at any mailorder (or online) fireworks place, and some smokeless powder.

I'd thought the plastic pipe might melt too quickly to contain the ignition properly, resulting in just a fizzle.

I was wrong. :blowup:

[NightTrain]

Ahhh yes.

On New Years 2000, a bunch of us gathered at my friend's house to bring in the New Year with fireworks, a BBQ and too much booze.

We were having a game of one-up-manship with the neighbor down the street with our fireworks, and the competition was dead even with the biggest display.

Then an old high school buddy of my brother's showed up with professional grade fireworks - the kind that are 8" across and shaped like an Acme bomb that Wily Coyote used. A lot of them. They all had "DANGER! IF FOUND CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY, DO NOT HANDLE!" stickers on them... we didn't ask where he got them, and he didn't offer.

My buddy had some PVC remnants in his garage, so we whacked off a 4' chunk of one and duct taped it to his breather tube for his septic system in the back yard (which was a sheet of ice), lit the fuse, dropped it down the tube and started running / slipping / falling / scrambling uphill to the house away from the Big Boom we knew was coming.

Since none of us were professionals in this field, we'd just guessed that 4' would be enough tube to provide the containment needed to get a few hundred feet up in the sky.

We were very wrong.

It gave a nice "Boom!" when it launched, but it only went up 10 feet and dropped right back down.

Then the scrabbling commenced in earnest up that ice sheet of a backyard to the house, every one of us knuckleheads using our fingernails to help gain more traction to get distance from Ground Zero.

I dove under the deck with my brothers like the 3 stooges would have, some dove under deck chairs, some made it inside the house.

The firework went off, blew up his septic breather and left a 4' crater in the ice and frozen ground, showering his yard and house with secondary fireworks. It took hours (it seemed) for the secondary bursts of blue, red, yellow screamers to finish doing their thing. No fires or damage to the house, and no one got hurt... somehow.

After admiring the crater for a couple of minutes, we determined that 4' wasn't a long enough launcher, so we got an 8' stick of PVC and taped it to the remaining stub of a breather.

This time that baby went 200' in the air and put everyone else's fireworks to shame.

It was a New Years to remember!

[SassyLady]

?!?Men?!? :slap:

:laugh2::laugh2::laugh2:

Husband was in Engineer Battalion .... they were always blowing up things....like tree stumps in the back yard! I made sure I was on my way out to a shopping trip so I wouldn't be here when they got arrested!!! Someone needed to bail them out.

Nighttrain ... loved your story ... too bad no one filmed for FHV!

[NightTrain]

Yeah, MKP, there's just something about explosives that gets any red blooded man excited... it's a curious phenomena. I'm certainly not immune.

[SassyLady]

Yeah, MKP, there's just something about explosives that gets any red blooded man excited... it's a curious phenomena. I'm certainly not immune.

Well, I have to tell you that the testosterone in me gets revved up when I'm standing next to a nitro racer (car or boat). When that motor goes "whap, whap" it makes everything inside hummmmmmmmmm!!!

[Little-Acorn]

Just got in some fireworks fuse from - would you believe it? - Amazon.com. They call it "cannon fuse". I don't have any cannons, just some plastic containers.

The 3" x 1/2" one full of smokeless powder, sure made a hefty thump against my chest, even from 25' away and behind a large rock. And a dog so far away I could barely hear him, started barking.

At www.pyrocreations.com , they have the short, thick-walled cardboard tubes that are even better than plastic. Better means safer, cardboard or paper fragments don't travel as far or fast. this seems to be a major supply vendor for professional fireworks people, the ones who set up the major 4th of July displays for city parks etc. They have many sizes, lots of different fuses, and even electric ignitors :D ! All perfectly legal and available to anyone. Those Tennessee boys do it right...!