Who persuaded their parents to buy them a chemistry set when they were a kid.

[firbeck 859]

There's been some interesting talk about chemistry sets in the 'Growing up in Bilborough' thread, it seems it started Mess off in his career, so in order not to further digress on that thread, which has started to wander about a bit, yes, I'm guilty of that too, I thought I'd start a new thread.

I'm quite intrigued what sort of person acquired these things, because, in my case, I got a bit carried away with it all and, looking back, I don't know how I survived the potions and horrendous and dangerous attempts at trying to make and succeeding in producing explosives and God knows what else, today we would probably have been arrested and reported all over the BBC News channels for attempted terrorism, only to us kids, it was just a bit of scary fun, I think the phrase, 'A little bit of Knowledge is a Dangerous thing' applied to us in our case.

My older brother started me off, he came home from Mundella Grammar one day struggling with a big cardboard box. Inside was a pile of equipment from the Chemistry lab, glass piping, valves, flasks, rubber tubing, everything, they'd brought in a load of new equipment and consigned this old stuff to the dustbin, so he brought it home. This produced hours of fun, especially when he obtained a few chemicals, I do recall magnesium coil and a small bottle of concentrated sulphuric acid, I was only young and how I got away with playing around with this stuff, I'll never know.

My best friend at Firbeck School was a year older than me, he lived on the corner of Park Crescent and Firbeck Road, with it's brick outhouse with a concrete roof, it made a good lab later, along with my shed which could be connected up to the gas supply to power up the bunsen burners. He went on to Peoples College and started chemistry lessons, passing the information on to me, he also persuaded his parents to buy him a chemistry set and we learnt from experience. By the time I went to BGS and had my first chemistry lesson I had a bit of a grounding, so I thought, and proceeded to mess up everyone's colour changing experiments by adding Potassium Permanganate. Of course, Mr Henry the teacher went ballistic, he was surprised that I knew what PP was and I got a severe warning not to mess with things I didn't fully understand, quite right too.

At this point I got my parents to get me a chemistry set for Xmas, madness, while my mother was trying to prepare Xmas dinner I proceeded to produce an entire kitchen sink full of absorbed Hydrogen Sulphide gas, I was not popular.

I then somehow got to be assistant librarian, this gave me access to the locked cupboard containing specialist books for 6th form and teacher studies only, from a book in there I found the proportional ingredients of gunpowder, great!

Sulphur could be bought in packets from Boots for next to nothing, charcoal/carbon was no problem, Potassium Nitrate was, except that we realised you could buy it from Beecrofts as Merit chemistry accessories produced it in one of their test tubes. Beecrofts didn't sell the full range of Lotts chemicals, but on a train spotting trip to Chester I found a shop that did and persuaded my old man to buy some chemicals I desperately needed, he never asked why.

Anyway, it worked, we made up bangers in old shotgun cartridges and fireworks in cardboard tubes, putting in different chemicals to produce different colours. We packed the gunpowder into home made canons made out of copper pipe from which we fired ball bearings into the Nottingham Canal. After surviving that we moved on to bigger things, did our formulae and figured out we could make Nitro Glycerine, had our parents known what was going on in their sheds they would have died, probably would have done if Firbeck Road had gone up. We constructed a meticulous and complex condensing tube system fed by various flasks and pipes powered by bunsen burners to produce the correct mixture of gases to be absorbed into the Glycerine, the condenser was cooled via a garden hosepipe. Thank God when the mixture started to turn brown and syrupy we chickened out and packed it in, I hate to think what might have happened had we carried on.

Some of the toxic gases we made were unbelievable, we could produce an incredible smokescreen from household ingredients, I don't know how we didn't kill ourselves.

The next act of madness was to make Napalm, I can't recall where I got the formula from, I think it was a student, but except for the petrol, all the ingredients could be bought from Boots. It was a dangerous thing to make, but I got away with it, poured it into jam jars and left it to cool, it worked quite spectacularly. After that I turned 15 and started to feel mortal and packed it in along with school chemistry after I got my O Level in it.

The moral of the story is, we weren't looking to cause trouble or carry out acts of terrorism, in the early 60's we didn't have access to the Internet or were being coerced by anybody, we just did it for a laugh, though looking back it wasn't funny. I can see how nowadays if anybody puts their mind to it, they can make anything with a bit of on-line help, we were just a group of early teenage kids, who, in their school holidays practiced what they learnt from books and their basic knowledge of chemical equations, frightening isn't it, I vowed never to get my son a chemistry set and never did.

[loppylugs 8,427]

Glad I didn't get into that. I caused enough trouble with an electrical set, up to and including blown fuses caused by trying to get power from a power point rather than a battery. Wonder I didn't get electrocuted or burn the house down. Probably not allowed to sell such sets now. Give 'em a computer and let 'em learn a bit of hacking. :-)

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I had one, good job the Anarchists Cookbook wasn't around back then, explains how to make loads of explosives from basic stuff...LOL

[BulwellBrian 107]

The wonders & ignorance of youth!

My main experimenting took place after I left school at 16 and went to work at the NCB laboratories at Cinderhill. I remember trying to produce Trinitro Toluene (TNT) but couldn't get the third Nitrogen into the molecule.

A winchester bottle filled with 2 parts of Hydrogen Gas and 1 part of oxygen with a bung with a electric coil in it gives a good bang when the wire is plugged into the mains. If you put it under a dustbin all you get is a dustbin taking off leaving powdered glass behind.

Nitrogen Triiodide is easy to make, from concentrated Ammonia and Iodine crystals, and when dry is a contact explosive, spread on the floor it pops when people walk on it.

What joy.

[benjamin1945 16,139]

Have you been 'screened' Brian by the anti terror squad ?

[Cliff Ton 10,457]

In the ultra-protected world we live in, does Health & Safety allow such things now?

Back in the 50s and 60s were kids kids all over the country trying to discover how to blow up their parents or their school or themselves? I bet the death toll wasn't actually that great.

[tomlinson 879]

I was once told by a man who served in N.Ireland that he met this known bomber who had lost his legs and he asked how it had happened. The bomber said he had planted a case full of timed explosives under a table in a pub and had got up to leave, only to be greeted by a friend who offered him a drink, so, being thirsty, the bomber accepted and sat down again. Well ---------------!

[catfan 14,793]

I'm glad you did'nt live near me Firbeck ! ............Mental.

[loppylugs 8,427]

We're probably all on a list somewhere now just for sharing such info. Lol. You lot can supply the chemistry I'll get it wired up.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I've helped shotfirers charge headings underground at one of BG's mines, helped to pass the time.

I recall one nightshift, the mine foreman asked me if I'd go topside and get some "powder" .. I drove the Landrover as his driver, helped to load the back up with several boxes of high explosives, and he said just pull over to the detonator magazine, I helped him pack up several det pouches with various dets as he was signing them out.

He threw the pouches on the passenger seat between hom and myself... As I drove back to the drift entrance I said "Jack, isn't it illegal to carry powder and dets in the same vehicle"??

"Yeah" He said "but you won't need to worry if it goes off" Good to know I wouldn't get prosecuted....LOL

[LizzieM 9,507]

BulwellBrian, # 4 ....... Wouldn't 2 parts Hydrogen and 1 part Oxygen be water? I failed Chemistry O Level getting on for 50 years ago but that looks like H2O to me? Don't laugh you lot, I just want to be educated here!

[benjamin1945 16,139]

No wonder the terror squad' wer'nt bothered about him lizzie.

[darkazana 1,736]

Well being a girl I wasn't allowed such things, just dolls prams, and dolls houses and post office shops and all the other safe girly stuff.Which was a shame really cos I loved following my big brother around, climbing trees, making dens etc etc. However my big brother did have a chemistry set and though I was never allowed to touch it I remember the stuff he made. He went on to secondary school and that's where his experimenting really took off, we had the usual stink bombs and exploding chalk etc, and as he got older his experimenting became more adventurous.

There used to be clay pigeon shooting in the field outside our house, so he would go off and collect the empty cartridges, which he would store in the airing cupboard, assuring mum he was just drying out the empty cartridges.....only they weren't! He used to make super super sonic bangs for Bonfire Night, which he would fire over the neighbouring police house using a length of piping. Great fun!

He then went on to experiment with molotov cocktails, and one day appeared on the doorstep with his face covered in blood, and a very sheepish friend behind him. "We were firing our catapults at the old windows in the barn" was his explanation to Mum. "Well you can bleed out there, don't come in and bleed on my kitchen floor" was her sympathetic reply!

It was years later that he told me, he and his friend had made some petrol bombs in bottles and had lit one in the old barn. It didn't go off, so against his friends advice he went up to check it, just as it decided to go off........how he didn't get more seriously injured is amazing. He was picking glass out of his face for weeks!

He was very disappointed because he was not allowed to study pyrotechnics at school, his chemistry teacher was disappointed too, but it was when the IRA were becoming very active, and perhaps it was just as well too.

Just a footnote, he is a very balanced person and a great brother and never got into any trouble....but was great fun to be around!

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

Well that was the Pete Firbeck I knew. I too had a Merit chemistry set which I used to stink the house out. I also produced a few mild explosions but never made fireworks. Like Mr Firbeck, I also fell foul of Mr Henry. Probably for flapping the blue asbestos pads all over the place.

[colly0410 1,181]

Dad worked at NCB Bestwood Workshops on the exploder section, he used to bring home detonators (not supposed to of course) put them under a dustbin lid & FLASH KA-BOOM: low flying dustbin lid, I loved it. Mam went berserk, well girls don't like that sort of thing do they? the mardy bums..

[denshaw 2,871]

At the next meet up there will be some serious security checks.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Were they dets Steve??? I tested and signed for the shotfiring batteries at East Leake for the Beethoven 100 shot batteries and the Shafflers, we didn't use detonators for the test.

The law required the batteries to be tested once a month, there was a test jig which held testex devices, I forget how many, and we had to stretch a platinum/iridium wire over the testex heads and tension it, if memory recalls 12 times for each nattery...PITA!!

Then connect the battery, wind it up and press the fire button, every testex head had to fire and the wire had to break.

The wire was extremely expensive!!! It was kept under lock and key at all times!!

The testex fuse heads I think were yellow in colour.

Dets were a no no outside of an authorized shot firer or Deputy's hands, all had to be accounted for. There was hell on if one got into the run of mine coal, or whatever mineral the pit mined.

[Limey 242]

Yeah, but taking a "powder tin" underground was always good - you got paid extra (well, you did if you wern't considered "staff"), and you always had a place to sit!

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Those were good stools..

[mercurydancer 1,104]

I recall a Royal Engineer EOD chap give a lecture about an explosive the IRA made. It was called Co-op as all the components could be bought in the local co op and would not raise any suspicion. I recall thinking - is it that easy to make?

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Every kitchen has enough chemicals under the sink to make some nasty explosives...Do a search on the internet for a book that's been around for a while, "The Anarchists Cookbook" It was banned for a while, but lets face it, everything in the book is spread around some library or other, nothing secret in it... Last time I looked, it was out here, every chapter and every page...

[colly0410 1,181]

Were they dets Steve??? I tested and signed for the shotfiring batteries at East Leake for the Beethoven 100 shot batteries and the Shafflers, we didn't use detonators for the test.

I was a kid at the time so can't swear exactly what they were but they made a hell of a bang when connected across a battery.

Later on when we'd moved to Bestwood Dad did exploder work on the side for some private small drift mines in Derbyshire, NCB knew nowt about it & I was sworn to secrecy, cash in hand came in handy, bet there would have been hell to pay if NCB found out, they never did though..

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I'd say you had testex heads, your Dad wouldn't be stupid enough to give you dets, they have the power to blow your fingers off, blind you etc..Way too dangerous. I was given a demo by a Deputy one shift when I was an apprentice. He placed one in a stonedust bag, ran the shotfiring cable to it and fired it...Not much left of the stonedust bag...

Testex fuse heads go with a loud crack!!

[colly0410 1,181]

Whatever they were he wouldn't let me near them. Suppose they must have been testex as he used several to blow the dustbin lid in the air, it was spectacular. I expect several dets would have blown Glapton road up thinking about it..

[colly0410 1,181]

I remember watching a demo at the Royal School of Artilery on Salisbury Plains were they remotely detonated a grenade in an Austin 1100, it just disintegrated at high speed, the roof went vertical like a rocket, they then let us look at the mess, the debris was too hot to pick up. That gave me respect for explosives..