Warning to all the "makers" out there

@smcgathyfay posted some spent brass a while back:
Custom etched drumsticks - #16 by smcgathyfay

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I donā€™t know, Iā€™ve always found watching people use the correct tool for this to be disturbing enough. https://youtu.be/mhPm5XUoORo?t=1m

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When I was in 6th grade I was doing my science fair experiment on ā€œexplosionsā€ (1. WHY did my parents let me? 2. WHY did the school let me? 3. I still got 100 on the project)

I did all sorts of research into how the atomic and nuclear bombs were made and how they worked, I showed the different explosive properties of black powder and salt peter. Did the vinegar and baking soda experiment. All was well and good. But then I started looking into blasting caps with the question of ā€œHow can these be set off?ā€ (Basically they look like little brass top hats with white blasting powder in the recessed portion, used mainly to give a loud ā€œpopā€ and a little smoke for re-enactment guns.) All my experiments were going well and I decided as my last one I would subject the cap to open flame. I had a ā€œclickerā€ that kept a solid flame, and it was a decent distance from my hand.

After about 15 solid minutes of flame on the cap I was curious how things were ā€œlookingā€. So I peered carefully around to the open end of the cap and noticed that the white powder was starting to turn brown and that was the moment it decided to pop. My face was peppered with REALLY hot powder, I think my glasses saved it from going into my eyes. I spent the rest of that evening with a wet towel over my face and coming up with reasons why looking into the end was not my brightest idea, and what the results meant.

best part about the project was that it was an all out-door demonstration type project, so it didnā€™t ā€œqualifyā€ for the ā€œtraveling science fairā€ where we had to go to other schools to demonstrate our topic. As a shy kid, that part scared me.

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The key word was spentā€¦ pretty dumb to do it to live rounds

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PLEASE! No more legislation!

Well, okay maybe an unspoken rule; You must be smarter than the device you are operating.

That would of course mean that a large number of people would no longer be allowed to operate a motor vehicle, computers, or a microwave oven.

Forrest Gumpā€™s Momma said it right, ā€œStupid is as stupid does.ā€

Yaā€™ll be safe out there :slight_smile:

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Wellā€¦actually, technology makes machines that are smart, useable by the rest of us. Presumably without killing or maiming ourselves. No matter how fool proof you make your technologyā€¦a bigger fool will figure out a way to misuse it. - Rich

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Well, there goes the Glowforge order for meā€¦

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Weā€™re all way smarter than the Glowforge. Well at least the laser unit. All the real smarts are in the cloud.

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My friend is a supervisor at a warehouse for one of the major OEM auto part makers. One night he heard what sounded like gunshots/explosions. So he went to investigate. Sometimes (not the Takata airbag recall) airbags get returned for various reasons. The ones that have gone off are trash and can be thrown out. The ones that have not gone off cannot be restocked and are an explosive material. That means you have to do a lot of paperwork to ship them to wherever unexploded airbags go. So these two guys rigged up a car battery and made themselves an airbag detonator. That way they didnā€™t have to do the paperwork and they got to detonate things on company time.

I was surprised my friend told them to knock it off and do it the right way. Outside of work heā€™s not that kind of guy.

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Sometimes I think evolution is really de-evolutionā€¦

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After reading some of the descriptions of the Takata deaths and injuries, Iā€™m not surprised. Eventually someone would get injured, and neither insurance nor workerā€™s comp would touch the claims with a tower crane.

(Iā€™m not much for explosives; most of my interesting experiences have been electrical.)

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Q: Are we not men? A: We are Devo!

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If you would like some redneck/sophomoric entertainment plug ā€œair bag bucketā€ into Youtubeā€™s search box. I am not sure which are worse, the folks that knew it was going to go off (wanna be spacemen? ;-)), or the folks that are pranking the unsuspecting.

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actually kinda bothers me that The Walking Dead folks havenā€™t been using air-bag explosives for so many things. There are certainly enough abandoned cars around. Sheesh.

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[quote=ā€œjordanloshinsky, post:1, topic:6076, full:trueā€]
Stories like this make me feel like all 3D printers, CNCS, laser cutters, etc should have legislation that makes them come with big stickers saying ā€œdonā€™t be stupidā€.[/quote]
Donā€™t be stupid stickers are already present in stupid numbers. Let Darwin sort em out.

Yes, this warning was stapled to every single 2x4. :confounded:

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ā€œHold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.ā€

ā€”The toothpick instructions which convinced Wonko The Sane that mankind in general was crazy.

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Iā€™m always cutting my fingers on the staples that these tags leave - they donā€™t stay on the wood and then you grab it and the staple cuts you.

We need tags that are glued to the wood saying that the staples from the wood dust warning can cause injury :smile:

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Life is dangerous, and anyone who tries it will die.

The trick, as I understand it, is to avoid being born in the first place.

Guess Iā€™m doomed.

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Iā€™m totally stealing that. :smile:

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So it is my parentā€™s fault after all!
:smile:

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