Balloon Filled With Acetylene

check out the picture


http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/6790966/detail.html

Now THAT is excessive force!!

Dem boys is nuts!

Acetylene is heavier than air so it will just 'sit' in a cup or bucket. The welders where I used to work would put some in these 'butt' cans (coffee cans with an inch of sand in the bottom that were used as big ashtrays) and wait for some unsuspecting soul to flip a lit cigarette into the can. Then "BOOM!" It seemed funny at the time.

COULD NOT have happened to nicer people. Should be the goal of all the worlds suicide bombers.

You would normally do that with Propane. I've done it a while back before they required OPD valves on BBQ tanks. My science teacher also showed us the same thing but he used natural gas and hydrogen (both are lighter than air).

Usually, the idea is to put gas in the balloon, tie it off, and then use a long stick with a match at the end to "pop" the balloon which would also ignite the gas.

Acetylene is way too volital for that trick though. I've seen pictures of a truck where the same thing happened. The whole roof was sheared back like a can of sardiens.

However, the craziest thing I heard of was from my friend after he had been camping out in the desert. A group camping about a mile away from him had a huge bonfire and they had placed BBQ sized propane tanks into the fire. Even from that distance; the explosions were strong enough to be felt where he was camping

Oh dear. Propane is a liquid in the tank, and it would have time to boil before the tank ruptured…..then you have a B.L.E.V.E. on your hands Boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion. Not to mention the tank. I hope those people were at the other campsite when it went off.

We put a can of Tolulene in a campfire and let it boil once…the blast put the fire out and broke the side window of a car more than 75 feet away. (No object ever found it was the pressure) Later found out that's the last letter in TNT. Oh I'm lucky I ever made it to 20.


I have heard that Acetylene can self ignite if the bottle valve breaks and it escapes without any resistance. I guess because its so dense. So I've heard...




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When I was in high school, the shop welding instructor performed this as a lesson for us teenagers to take very seriously what we're dealing with. He was also emphasizing the importance of proper ventilation. The building "rocked" when he "lit" the acetylene filled balloon. . .

Acetylene is bad, bad stuff. Unlike natural gas (methane) or LPG (propane), just about any mixture of acetylene and air can be detonated.

Acetylene also has another mode of blowing up. Deflagration (sp?). If it gets warm enough with the right pressure it will basically break down at the molecular level and detonate. No actual combustion. That's why acetylene welding cylinders are filled with acetone in a metal "sponge." When the gas is dissolved into acetone it's stable. But as a gas it gets unstable over 14 or so PSI. Put it in a ballon and you're asking for trouble.

But it's not too dangerous if stored properly. I have a B-size cylinder in the basement I've been using for years with a Prestolite torch.

Those bomb charges sound like BS to me. I mean, any welder having a birthday party could be changed with possesion of the materials. The balloon guy was dumb, really dumb, but not criminal.

CHC said:

When I was in high school, the shop welding instructor performed this as a lesson for us teenagers to take very seriously what we're dealing with. He was also emphasizing the importance of proper ventilation. The building "rocked" when he "lit" the acetylene filled balloon. . .

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Me too. It was a lesson about check valves on tanks.

When it went off, SEVERAL other teachers came to see if we lived!

What a boneheaded move. He's lucky to be alive. Hopefully he's learned an important lesson about static electricity and combustion!

JEEZE! I just clicked the link!

Darwin missed one! But the state didn't....

Back in college we would occasionally "manufacture" small hydrogen balloons in the dorm room. Then attach a rubber band fuse, light it, and let it float to the ceiling of the hallway outside the room. Made a great flash and bang, but no damage and only tiny pieces of balloon on the floor. Of course, we'd only do it about midnight.

Geoff

Each year plenty of people who think they are smart get injured of killed with acetylene.

Static and it are a no-no.

Also, it will corrode certain types of brass fittings. Acetylene fittings and valves have to be a special mix of brass.

Somehow, ( :shakehead: ) I survived being young and stupid. We have done oxy-acetylene-filled trashbags at abt 85 yards. We ran a roll of 1/4" pneumatic tubing up the hill along with a twisted pair to a broken flashbulb inside the bag. Light the torch and snuff it out in the sand and connect the tip to the tubing. They took forever to fill, and in those days, we didn't have lights good enough to monitor the filling progress. It took a brave soul to walk up the hill periodically with a Minigag to monitor the progress.

When the time came, the concussion would slap you in the chest! (I hope the statuate of limitations has expired! )

Oh, to be young and stupid again!

Larry

My great-grandfather lost an eye when he was a teenager, because he put a blasting cap on the stove to see what would happen. That's perhaps some comforting evidence that people today aren't getting any stupider.

Don't count on it.

I had almost forgotten a little "fun" with blasting caps we had one night with my college neighbor who had a girl in his room at night, which was a huge violation (in more ways than one we learned).

asdalton said:

My great-grandfather lost an eye when he was a teenager, because he put a blasting cap on the stove to see what would happen. That's perhaps some comforting evidence that people today aren't getting any stupider.

Click to expand...

so what would it take in m-80's

dynomite

tri nitro toulene
c4


to do the same amount of damage to a car like that ?

I was also witness to this same thing in a chemistry class... even though it was a very small balloon still took out a row of florescent tubes

This article was most certainly was NOT a bomb in the traditional sense. And since nobody was hurt by their stupidity it needs to be treated as stupidity and not as an attempt to build a bomb. We'll see what the judge thinks I guess.

I suppose that we will have to register for welding supplies if enough people keep doing this crap.