2 kilos of blasting powder
My great uncle was a road builder in the 1930s-60s in Italy. He was also pretty active in the wartime resistance to German occupation. After he died we would stay at his (now empty) farmhouse in the Italian Alps during the summer. Always fun, as we would find all sorts of stuff stashed in his outhouses and sheds - bullet making equipment, distillation gear, hundreds of bottles of hooch.

A couple of years ago and about 12 years since he died we were rooting around in the attic of an outhouse and came across an ammo box. In it were two kilo sacks of blasting granules in original packaging - they looked maybe 50 years old. The granules were all black and shiny and gravel like. And a bit exciting.

I guess Uncle Charlie had used them for blasting through the roads he built way back when, which ran through mountain terrain. And decided to keep a few (whether for fun or wartime sabotage, who knows?)

So we put a few granules on the ground outside and chucked a lighted stick at them. There was a fizzing and a really bright flame. Fun. So we piled up some more and lit the end of a long stick and stuck it in the middle. There was a delay and then a loud fizz and a mega bright flame, smoke and a sulphurous smell. But nothing too scary. Though it sort of burned an image into your retina for a while - like when you look at the sun.

So we piled up the best part of a quarter of a sack in the middle of the back yard and tried again. There was a delay, and nothing much happened. So I got a smouldering log from the fire and used the stick to push it towards the pile. When it got there, there was a pause, then a slight fizz, then the most apolcalyptic bang/flash/whatever. The log disappeared (whether blown up or blown away, who knows), the flash nearly blinded us. The echo reverberated up and down the valley. And a small but perfectly formed mushroom cloud lifted slowly into the air and hung above the house, as if to signify to the world that this was where the mad bombers of the Peidmont were hiding out. Thank f*ck there are not that many police in the remoter parts of rural Italy...

After contemplating the fun that could be had from packing the stuff into bottles or pipes, we collectively shat ourselves at the prospect of really overdoing it, dumped the remainder in a bucket of water and chucked it into a hole in the ground.

Fun whilst it lasted, though....
( automatton52 Grumpy old goth, Sat 2 Jul 2005, 14:16, Reply)