Fireworks Night Fun
A few years back whilst I was at university a friend and I were massive smokers and during our sessions smoking out the house we from time to time came across a video on YouTube that would spark in us some motivation.

The video on this particular occasion was off some Americans out in a field with a potato canon firing spuds hundreds of yards at a time. The perfect project for a couple of stoners.

So off we set to Plumbase to buy the relevant materials. When asked by the guy behind the counter what we were making he nearly died laughing and insisted that we should use it for firing shit at people.

Anyway, pipes and glue in hand we headed back to Harry's to put it all together.

After a couple of hours of cutting plastic piping and gluing it together the canon was built. We'd even cleverly developed an electric trigger for it using a hob lighter that would ignite the aerosol in the chamber and fire the potato into oblivion.

So smug were we with our achievements we lit up another doobie and basked in our glory. It was at that moment I decided to admire our handy work and check the ignition system by looking down the barrel and pulling the trigger.

The chamber was empty, no aerosol sprayed in, no potato, so everything should be fine right?

Wrong! We had cut the piping with a hack saw and not bothered to clean off the cutting shavings, the tubing was then glued together with epoxy resin. Who'd have though that the fumes from the glue would ignite in the chamber when the trigger was pulled, not me that's for sure. In a flash I was blown into the air and hot melted plastic blasted into my eye socket.

It's amazing how quickly smug stoned turns into blind panic, quite literally. I rushed down tot he bathroom and start rinsing my eye out and pulled several pieces on melted plastic from under my eye lid. Harry came in and we wrapped my head in a wet tea towel and made our way to A&E.

In all the excitement we had completely forgotten it was Fireworks Night and so when we finally rocked up at A&E in complete fear that I was going to lose my eye, there was absolutely no sympathy from the nurses or doctors on duty. In fact, whilst I was waiting to be seen they made me tell the story of what had happened to every person that passed us as a warning not to fuck around with explosives, especially on Fireworks Night. I think the nursers and doctors actually enjoyed watching me retell the tale over and over - it certainly helped the message sink in!

Luckily the damage wasn't permanent and I still enjoy the use of both of my eyes, but I certainly won't be dicking about with explosives for a while.
(Wandering Kiev, Fri 29 Nov 2013, 16:34, 1 reply)

There's no solvent or vapour with epoxy so this wouldn't happen, perhaps by the end of this QOTW at least one of the explosion stories will contain an actual fact but I have my doubts.
(Benzyl, Sun 1 Dec 2013, 21:28, closed)