Engineer = Pyromaniacs, The Third Iteration
by Darren Ashby

I f you've ever noticed the frost build up on your back-yard grill propane tank, then this article is for you! But more on that later. It's finally time to get back to my favorite subject, pyromania! In the last installment we learned of great examples of combustion that lit the hidden fires of pyromania lying deep within the engineers soul. In fact, I was again swamped with comments from readers that further proved an inextricable link between engineers and the desire to incinerate. But alas, a terrible thing beset the US, my homeland, and I felt the need to abstain from the pyrotechnics for a while. ⁱ So I had to shelve the ideas for a later, more appropriate time. That time is now. I apologize in advance to those who are pyro-challenged and can't see the beauty in an explosion. I received so much feedback from the last article, that I gained a whole new appreciation for the term 'flame-mail'. What follows is just small percentage ⁱⁱ of the emails received.

The first experience is from Steve Larson, and it involved a CD in a microwave... hmm I haven't heard of that before. Let's see, I think I have an old microwave around here somewhere...

"BTW, you're bang on with the Engineer = Pyro theme. It reminds me of days in university hanging around the club office--watching a ratty old full-range 10" loudspeaker tied to the 120VAC line dance wildly on a concrete floor was amusing--before the center cone erupted into a ball of fire and the breaker tripped... and of course who can forget the broken CD that ended up in the microwave, to fluoresce and pop like white-hot oil on a grill (and generate loads of X-rays!!) But of course I was only an observer..."

Tony Dickinson got a 9 out of 10 on the pyro quiz, and the only reason he didn't get higher was that pop bottles were made of glass in his day. The deterrent for him wasn't the flying glass, but the deposit you got for returning them. His experience in the chemistry lab reminded me of an experiment with a Bunsen burner gone awry. (My conclusion was that eyelashes would eventually grow back.) Tony sends us these two adventures:

"As a youngster (13-14) I was into chemistry in a big way and I once set up a small system to produce an explosive - a picric acid derivative as I recall. Anyway this system deposited the product into a bottle on the floor tied to the lab bench and when things went wrong I lost the bottom 6 inches of the lab bench leg... When I got thrown out of university before getting into computers I spent some time working as a fuel chemist for a large steel producer. I pulled gases from blast furnaces and open hearth furnaces and analyzed them to ensure that we ran efficiently. The open hearth furnaces had a 12 foot wide open front of molten steel (hence the name) and if you threw a piece of wet wood into it the wood would skip around on top of the molten steel as the water turned into superheated steam. The steel was conveyed round the plant in large ladles, and it was rumored that if anyone fell into a ladle their fellow workers would push them under in order to ensure a quick death. This was preferable to watching them skip around on top of the steel under the influence of superheated jets of body fluids. (Are all engineers morbid as well as being pyros?). No one ended up in a ladle whilst I was there so maybe the story was apocryphal. What did happen whilst I was there was that a 2 ton ladle of molten steel was dropped as it was being moved. As the molten steel hit the oil and water covered floor it literally exploded - I heard the resultant explosion over the other side of the rather large plant - it took months to remove the steel once it had cooled down. These days I get my pyro kicks (literally) shooting muzzle-loading pistols and revolvers - the noise, sight and smell of a black powder gun is very different to that of a gun utilizing modern propellants - not to mention the gut shaking pressure wave that they generate."

Joe Garnero is living proof that the pyro vein runs deep into our being. He has the scars to prove it too. (He models the potential hazard of playing with fire for the local fire chief as a side job.) Here is what he sent in (including a couple of cool links):

"I too am an Engineer Mechanical turned Electronics, but all my life I have dabbled in the arts. Sure I did the requisite property destruction both intentional and not. Sure I always strove for the biggest bang, brightest star, and highest whatever... I even paid the price in the loss of my right eye (strictly my own fault/stupidity). Want to know the dumber part? I STILL LOVE PYRO. My true passion is now with pyrotechnics...I love launching those 4 inch and bigger buggers! Man that is the thrill of a lifetime. You should go to the convention in Wisconsin and get an up close perspective of pyromania. This has it all Bang, Fire, and altitude and, best of all, when done professionally people admire your work! I find it ironic that only last week, while cleaning out my wallet, I found my "recipe sheet" for all sorts of nasty things I've made in the past (fulminate of Mercury, Nitro glycerin, tnt, tnp, etc.); that brought back a flood of memories. Oh, you may still be thinking about the eye thing...I'd do everything all over again (except one brief moment) with the same risks. It's in the blood, or somewhere! Loved the article. I've included a couple of links to get you there. Pyro Spectaculars is the company I used to launch for. It was our team that always got the call for the tuff jobs. We could set up a show and launch a full show while keeping the fallout on a baseball field. That was another challenge to the engineering side of me. Oh yeah, the other two members of my team...yup, technical professionals." http://www.pyrospectaculars.com/ -Pyro Spectaculars Home http://www.tznet.com/shubing/wpag/ -Wisconsin Pyro Guild

Don Bolle read about the match rockets, and sends in this idea for a much-improved version:

"When I was in the military overseas, some of our more attention deficit guards would pry the bullet out of an M16 round (.30 cal necked down to .22), spill a little powder on the sill of the guard post, and light it. The cartridge would go flashing away into the night trailing sparks like Flash Gordon's rocket ship."

I described this to a friend of mine in the military to see if he had ever tried it. He said no, but promptly told me about 3 different ways to make an MRE ⁱⁱⁱ into an explosive and/or flammable device. Upon reflection, I decided that it was probably a good thing for our military to be skilled in such arts.

In Mark Dresser, I found a man after my own heart. I too discovered the pyro potential of an acetylene torch at a young age. He sends in this recipe for some "fun" balloons:

"In a well-ventilated area verify that there are no ignition sources. Light torch and adjust for a good blue flame. Note valve settings and extinguish torch. When torch tip has cooled reset valves and fill the balloon. Attach 6 foot toilet paper "fuse" Place balloon in a tree with fuse hanging down. Light bottom of fuse and RUN! When this gets boring tie two balloons together, then three,..."

Shortly into our 'acetylene' phase, Wally and I left the toilet paper fuse behind in our experiments. We discovered that a .22 cal rifle does a much better (and safer) job of ignition. We were able to get cork cannon balls to fly for miles, 55-gallon steel drums to land in trees, and turn hardtop junk cars into permanent convertibles. Sigh... what a great time that was.

As usual, I had to save the best for last. Wally showed me a link to the page of an ingenious microprocessor (read Intel) engineer. Like most engineers he loves to tinker up a good thirst. The problem is that his shop doesn't have a refrigerator to keep his favorite refreshment (a.k.a. beer) cold. He claimed to remember the physics of an expanding gas cooling its surroundings. I personally think he just noticed the frost build up on the propane tank of his backyard grill. But either way, the cooling mechanism was born. Just one problem though, what to do with all that propane being released. And better yet, if you could release it faster it would cool even better right? Well the solution came from the heart of a true pyromaniac. Build a jet engine to burn it! Can you think of a better way to work up a thirst for a tall cold one than running a jet engine in your garage? I can't. So I applaud this man as crowning proof that Engineers = Pyromaniacs!

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ⁱ In my first couple of "pyro" articles, I discussed crashing airplanes and the fascination I had with them. After 9-11, I gained a new perspective. I still am fascinated by these crashes, but I have a new appreciation for the lives that are lost and the people that are affected. My articles in no way intend to belittle their heartache and pain, and I express my utmost condolences to those who have suffered in such a difficult way.

That said, I again tag on the following disclaimer:

For those people out there that would try something like this without taking proper safety measures, get hurt and then basically try to blame someone else for their own stupidity, read the following sentences carefully. This is dangerous, Do not try this at home! Don't try it anywhere. Your mistake in understanding the risk involved is not my fault.

ⁱⁱ I apologize if I didn't use your experience in this article. I had to cut it off somewhere. Keep them coming though, they keep me entertained now that living in town keeps me from getting my explosive kicks as often as I would like.

ⁱⁱⁱ MRE - Meals Ready to Eat. They are meal packets distributed by the armed forces. When was the last time you made your dinner explode?

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