My brother has a vintage Miner’s Carbide headlamp. Coolest light ever to see running.
I have a carbide cannon. It drops calcium carbide into a pan of water, releases acetylene, you whack the striker and booom!. Something tells me they don’t sell toys like that anymore…
The carbide miner’s lamp is still available as found with a quick Google search.
Looks like carbide cannons are also still made!
That would be a different category for non-directional portable LED lighting.
They did worse at one time
I’ve got one of those… can’t get a decent mushroom cloud out of it though… it actually isn’t very dangerous. Now Barbie dolls… you could put an eye out with one of those…
i never would have guessed, i suppose that explains a lot, especially your radioactive nads you once told us about
I used to do some work for a university nuclear fizzics lab. Built/worked on a few pulse height analyzers, scintillators, 250,000 volt proton accelerator, humongo Van de Graff, etc. If your nads ain’t glowin’ they ain’t worth showin’
Why did your name pop into my head when I was reading the above when low and behold here he is two posts later right on cue.
to whom are you referring?
Right!
http://www.bigbangcannons.com/products-q10118-Specials_on_all_Models.aspx
Not cheap but certainly available including brass versions for up to $400.
Chapter 3. An Inexpensive X-ray Machine
The Scientific American Book of Projects for The Amateur Scientist
from around 1933:
“The machine, when in operation, will produce a beam of X-rays easily detected for a distance of several feet in all directions. With ‘r’ meter measurements we determined the intensity of the rays to be three fourths of a Röntgen unit per minute at a distance of three feet….
… Almost any source of high voltage can be used for energizing X-ray tubes, including Van de Graaff electrostatic generators of the type described in this section. Simons prefers to stick with Oudin coil. It is easily constructed with hand tools. The job is simplified if you can lay hands on a vibrator of the type used in the spark coil of a Model-T Ford….”
I had no trouble as a kid in the 1950s finding all the parts needed to build one of these.
My dad, who’d spent years studying radiation biology, convinced me not to build it.
This is definitely in the “don’t try this at home” category — that’s a hell of a lot of X-ray exposure.
The year after that was first published, Marie Curie died on July 4, 1934 due to aplastic anemia contracted from exposure to radiation.
If anything is mentioned about crazy things happening the person that comes to mind would have to be Texaspyro.
i figured but you said two posts later without a reference post
texaspyro makes raccoon seem normal... :O
andthereisnothingnormalaboutrc :evil:
About two years ago there was a big vintage style sailing yacht reunion in Long Island Sound at the mouth of the CT River. The officials boat had a large brass cannon that had been ‘borrowed’ from some local historic reenactors group… being as how it was a special occasion, they put a ‘magnum’ load in it to start the yacht race…the kickback was so strong that it tore two deck cleats clean off… so I was told.
Back to their official starters cannon soon therafter, which is one of those big carbides…its puts out a good whallop, can be heard for several miles if the wind is right.
Always wanted to get one of those and have the matching miners lamp to do some celebrating in the dark. One day, one day.
I had a smaller nuclear kit when I was a kid, and I made gunpowder, cast lead soldiers, took apart old shotgun shells, swung burning rags soaked in kerosine around, built an electrified fence to keep my brothers out of the room my stuff was in and burned sulfur in out kitchen to try out a gas mask from an army surplus store. My grandfather gave as a typical game, of the boys he grew up with, seeing who dared skate out farthest on the thin ice over the river. He probably chose that example to tell me because we lived in Los Angeles.
Might also add CFL lights to the category too as they are the current most economical replacement for incandescent light home lighting. Currently off topic but any recommendations for the best high wattage CFL bulbs, 40 to 100 watts?