Look what I found online!

[james_davis_nicoll]

Comments

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

at least its not for Dummies

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

As I said elsewhere:

I think I should add a warning that amateur rocketry [...] is a fine way to address any surplus of fingers or eyes and any deficit of life-altering injuries one may feel one suffers from. My father (a teen around 1950) had a hilarious experience involving accidentally igniting a load of solid rocket fuel he and his buddies were preparing and by hilarious, I mean "in some other kid's basement and nobody died". Well, nobody died as a result of the cook-off; I don't know how the kid's parents reacted to coming home to find every surface of their home covered in fine carbon soot because my dad left before that happened.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

My Dads first love was for engines, and motorcycles, and having a Dad who would paint a gas tank and then low bake it in the oven! tends to make you leary of boys and their passions. No matter what the age of the boy, and the assurances that the gas tank was santized first.

Or the mixing of fuel for 2 stroke engines.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Back when my friends and I were in our high school pyromaniac nerd phase, we nagged our chemistry teacher to show us some of the pyrotechnic reactions we'd read about. To her credit, she decided that if she demonstrated a few, we'd be less likely to go and try them at home, so we got to see thermite, sugar + H2SO4, and Al + I + H2O.

Then we asked her about touch powder (nitrogen tri-iodide...)

"I'm not going to do that one, it's too dangerous. But you should ask Mr. Werner [physics teacher] about that."

So we went off and asked him:

"What? How did she know about that? Who told her about that? And it's not true!"

Turns out, when Mr. W. was a lad, he swiped some school lab supplies and started making NI3 in his parents' garage. You mix it up as a liquid and paint it on a surface; when it dries, you get an extremely shock-sensitive crystal.

Most kids are content to paint it on doorknobs etc; in normal quantities, it just goes bang and leaves an iodine stain on your fingers. But Mr. W. was more ambitious. He painted it onto newspaper, let it dry, and then VERY GENTLY scraped it into glass jars so he could keep it for later use.

This ended in fairly predictable fashion that required having the science teacher come in to de-explodify what was left of the garage.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Some years ago, the head of the chemistry department at Carleton U began his "Magic with Chemistry" show by sprinkling damp NI₃ on the auditorium steps farthest from the front of the hall. Anyone who tried to come in quietly after he'd started got the snap-crackle-pop underfoot and the embarrassing attention of everyone in the room. In retrospect, it was a rather dangerous stunt... but he did tend to live dangerously.

I played with model rocketry when I was young, but just using commercial solid-fuel engines. I've still got most of my equipment and I'd like to try using it again. I probably should be very very careful with those old engines.

[rwpikul.livejournal.com]

I, thankfully, was one of those who knew enough to know how stupid taking advantage of that knowledge would be.

This did not apply to one of my friends, who would pester me from time to time for things to try. One time I gave in and told him how to make an explosive, leaving out the rather critical step of adding nitric acid to the urea solution.

Yes he tried to make it, inside, no he didn't ask for any more recipes[1]. Mind you, he would still go on to head out into the woods to hunt deer with a Rambo knife[2].


[1] For those who don't know: The easiest way to get a concentrated urea solution without raiding the chemical supply room is to boil urine.

[2] You see why I was more than willing to do that to him.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Then I may as well point out this bootleg as well: Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants, by Conan scholar (and husband of Inga Stephens Pratt Clark) Dr. John D. Clark.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

I did not realize Clark has that connection to Fletcher Pratt. Fascinating!

[autopope.livejournal.com]

MegaUpload has been seized by the Feds. Do you have a pointer to where it may be found in a still-downloadable form? (Ideally as a single PDF.)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The chapter pdfs are not on megaupload.

[(Anonymous)]

Psst.

Hey you.

http://uploading.com/files/8ZZQGA2T/rocket_manual_for_amateurs.rar.html

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Rocket Manuel is my favourite superhero.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

I used to have a copy of that in paperback. I gave it to a friend of mine who would actually use it to launch rockets, instead of just read it. As far as I remember, it was an interesting book.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

A useful tip: No matter how small the rocket, think at least twice before firing it off indoors.

(In retrospect, I had a few remarkably cool high school teachers.)

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

The amateur rocket people are making liquid, or at least hybrid, rockets these days. It's somewhat safer.

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

I can see no possible way in which James' finding of this manual (again) could go wrong!

--Dave, what are the flight characteristics of an unladen feline?

PS: Most of the USA is safely outside reasonable blast radius of Kitchener, right?

PPS: edited TWICE because the construction "in which" was unaccountably escaping my grasp

Uh-Oh

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

PS: Most of the USA is safely outside reasonable blast radius of Kitchener, right?

I live in Chicago.

Time to visit my sister in Duluth, Georgia.