yeah, looks like they are just loading gun powder and random shit into whatever metal tubes they can find. I guess as long as the path of least resistance for the explosive force is always at the hole pointed away from you, it'll work more or less like this.

The danger would lie in debris getting stuck or using too much gun powder: one, blocking the path of least resistance (and therefor potentially making fault in the wall of the tube the POLR) and two, making the explosive force so powerful that all directions become the POLR.

Calcium carbide + water = acetylene gas.

Near as I can tell one traditional way to ring in the new year in the Netherlands is by detonating milk cans that are full of acetylene (created by adding a chunk of carbine and water inside), making very loud noises and launching things like soccer balls or the metal lid off the jug. These enthusiasts have upscaled the concept

Smaller scale-
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/6989219/c4a2bfd2/carbid_knalle n_in_beilen.html

As one whose formative years were spent in a time when dangerous things were often trusted to young children, allow me to introduce you to the carbide cannon. Mine was a commercial unit called the Big Bang, and this is how it worked.

You unscrewed the breech, put some water into the barrel, then a spoon of calcium carbide, then quickly closed the breech. After a few seconds, the cannon is fired by a mechanism very similar to a flint ignitor in a cigarette lighter. Evil children would load the cannon with something, although the possibility for making a pipe bomb was quite high.

Anyway, this clip is like a childhood dream come true. Holy god, those are some gigantic carbide cannons!

Yeah, I would have gotten one of these in grade school except they were like $90 and that was a FORTUNE for us back then. There wasn't an age limit or anything to get one.

People still put them on boats.

"making the explosive force so powerful that all directions become the POLR."


3:05

this really should have been set to some banging gabber