Fe3O4 + Al = Fire

May 29, 2007 7:28 PM

What is the most entertaining use of 1 lb. of thermite?

I recently got my paws on a pound of the stuff (don't ask) and I've been debating what to do with it. I know the safety guidelines and I'm definitely going to be as careful as I can with whatever I end up doing. But I'm still not sure what exactly I'd like to do with it. Help plox!

posted by p3on to sports, hobbies, & recreation (26 comments total)

Thermite + Liquid Nitrogen = YouTube Video
posted by dnthomps at 7:39 PM on May 29, 2007

Do you own a pond? Build a raft, put the thermite in a box, push the raft off to the middle of the lake and then ignite the thermite viking-funeral style.

Do you own a car you don't care about? I've seen an impressive video of thermite being ignited on the hood (it melts through the engine block). Does someone you not like own a car?

I'm trying to think of something that's not destructive but I'm having a hard time. Everything I can think of would draw a lot of attention to myself from the Department of Homeland Security.

Can you ignite it on the playa? Save it for the next Burning Man? Man, he would buuuuurrrrn.

If my parents saw this thread they'd say that I never learned my lesson.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 7:43 PM on May 29, 2007

Surely there's not many things you can do with it ?
You can ignite it not not ignite it.

It's not very entertaining until it's burning, so I guess you'll be igniting it and observing the resulting effect of extreme heat.

Maybe divide it up and ignite it on various different materials, steal, rock, tarmac, sand. Youtube/blog the results.

I think thermite was used as a method of destroying a harddisk.
posted by matholio at 7:45 PM on May 29, 2007

>You can ignite it not not ignite it.

...or you could plant it on someone and tip off the terrah police.

(though I think igniting it would be more fun)
posted by pompomtom at 7:55 PM on May 29, 2007

Thermite is extremely dangerous. A thermite reaction runs to 3000 C, if I remember my high school chemistry correctly. And at produces a pool of liquid metal that is happy to conduct that heat into anything it touches. Bricks that appear dry will shatter dramatically when a small amount of thermite lands on them. Wet bricks will explode. You WILL be hurt.

1 LB of thermite strikes me as ludicrously dangerous. Find some safe and legal way to get it off your hands and do NOT attempt to ignite the entire mass at once.
posted by b1tr0t at 8:04 PM on May 29, 2007

I'm trying to think of something that's not destructive but I'm having a hard time.

You go to the beach, carve a negative of a sculpture in the sand, burn the thermite on top of it (use the garden pot "sow release mechanism", and you're left with your sculpture made out of cast iron.
posted by -harlequin- at 8:13 PM on May 29, 2007

Read the wikipedia link on thermite safety, and decide whether the spectacular results are worth violating some of the safety constraints (I'd say no)?

I'd post on roguesci.org, or sciencemadness.org. Consider adding various metals to the reaction and seeing if you can get different colored flames or smoke.
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:25 PM on May 29, 2007

you could weld two pieces of steel together with it. This is how the rail workers join the individual pieces into one long rail.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 8:31 PM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

Call a local locksmith, offer to crack safes for free.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:44 PM on May 29, 2007

Totally do the whole thing at once on a lake. If you remote detonate it, this will be extremely safe and awesome.
posted by phrontist at 8:47 PM on May 29, 2007

I think the coolest thing would be to make some sort of rough-cast sculpture in iron, as -harlequin- suggests.

Only I think I'd do it in your back yard, not at the beach, and only if you have a back yard that's free of nosy neighbors. Preferably do it when it's raining, too.

I remember making thermite as a science project, probably when I was a sophomore or junior in high school. It was pretty neat stuff. Not sure I ever set a pound of it off at once, but as long as you don't plan on suing anyone else or trying to get the government to pay for your healthcare if you burn your fingers off, enjoy. It's interesting stuff to say the least.

How fast it burns will depend mostly, IIRC, on how finely it's been ground. You really want a course grind. If you have finely-ground powder, I wouldn't set it off at once, because it might go too quickly for you to get it away.

Also, the stuff isn't easy to set off. I think I did it with burning magnesium wire (which is neat in and of itself).

Somehow I doubt they let kids do anything nearly as cool as I got to do. No wonder they think science is boring.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:58 PM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

Read this, b1tr0t, and ask yourself: "Am I answering the fucking question?"

If you think 1 LB of thermite is a fun toy, you didn't pay much attention to the safety guidelines.
posted by b1tr0t at 9:13 PM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

Find something hard to destroy ... and destroy it. Like an anvil. Anybody can set a log on fire. Set brick on fire. See if you can destroy a cinderblock.

Videotape it from multiple angles.
posted by adipocere at 9:22 PM on May 29, 2007

Use it to ignite a big pile of magnesium scrap. If you can get your hands on thermite, you should be able to come up with some Mg which burns very very bright and releases a tremendous white cloud .
posted by hortense at 9:24 PM on May 29, 2007

I'd do something I haven't seen yet. So I'd try melting through an old CRT. This would be pretty damn dangerous with the toxics in a CRT but damn it would be cool. A pound is probably way too much for this though.
posted by chairface at 9:28 PM on May 29, 2007

I meant to say fifty pounds of magnesium
posted by hortense at 9:32 PM on May 29, 2007

Blowing shit up. You already knew this. Why did you ask this question?
posted by Ironmouth at 9:34 PM on May 29, 2007

There's a vacuum inside the cathode ray tube.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:47 PM on May 29, 2007

This question doesn't belong on AskMe, seeing as that nearly anything this guy does with his thermite is bound to be illegal. It's probably not legal for him to have it in the first place.

p3on, if you're dumb enough to post something like this on a public forum, you sure-as-shit shouldn't be trusted with high explosives.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:31 PM on May 29, 2007

@Afroblanco: Thermite isn't a "high explosive." Please don't use terms that you don't understand the meaning of.

Thermite isn't inherently any more dangerous than lots of stuff you can buy at a hardware store (Estes rocket engines, road flares). It's probably safer than a lot of fireworks, because it's very tough to set off by accident.

Building a bomb out of it is definitely illegal. But in many states, just lighting it on fire, on private property, far away from anyone nonconsenting, isn't. And the worst that happens is the guy does something stupid and kills himself -- fine, get him a Darwin Award.

Honestly, the world was a nicer place before everyone decided to be everyone else's nanny.

@the OP: Be safe, have fun, and take responsibility for yourself (and do what you're going to do away from everyone else).
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:29 PM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

Indeed Thermite is perfectly legal in safety-paraniod Britain, so I can't imagine that it's massively restricted in the US. It is also, Afroblanco, not an explosive at all.

Be careful, have fun and don't destroy anything that's not yours.
posted by prentiz at 1:23 AM on May 30, 2007

b1tr0t: 1 LB of thermite strikes me as ludicrously dangerous. Find some safe and legal way to get it off your hands and do NOT attempt to ignite the entire mass at once

1- that's not answering the question, now is it? And an equivalent amount of gasoline is far more dangerous.

2- 1 pound is a fairly wimpy amount. Really. I let my 12 yo set off a pound of thermite. Last summer we set off 1500 pounds. The summer before that, 1200. A few years before that, a friend built a sculpture out of wood and coated it with thermite, then lit it off. That was cool.

Normally we bury it or build a large berm around it, but that's mostly to contain the liquid metal.

Thermite is not an explosive, nor is it unstable -- it takes quite a bit of heat to start it going. It is, however, very hot when it's reacting, impossible to put out, and the metal left behind stays hot for quite a while, hence all the safety warnings. AFAIK, it's not illegal anywhere in the US (not that we've checked -- we're messing with it on private property and mixing it on site).
posted by jlkr at 4:23 AM on May 30, 2007

Thermite + Liquid Nitrogen = YouTube Video

Awesome. My friend and I had about 16oz. of Aluminum Powder when we were in high school... unfortunately we didn't have a spare car to try it on. Now I'm older and much less fun, but at least I'm staying out of prison.

Thermite is extremely dangerous.

That's true, sure. But the thing is, it's braindead-simple to handle and set-up, so even the meagerest amount of caution (i.e. Staying the fuck away from it when it's going off) can ensure your basic safety.

Blowing shit up. You already knew this. Why did you ask this question?

No, with Thermite it's not such an easy question to answer. Thermite is actually pretty boring, as far as incendiary devices go. Like napalm. Sure, you can make it at home, but then what do you do with the shit? The thing about Thermite is that it's just ludicrously hot that you basically only have one answer: melt shit with it. Sure, ok, but melt what? I think some of the answers here are pretty clever, actually (I particularly liked harlequin's answer).

Whatever you end up doing just remember to stay the fuck away, but more importantly, make sure everyone else stays the fuck away. Don't use it anywhere other people like to go. You don't want the added attention, anyway. Also, you're going to need more than a book of matches to set it off. But you probably already know that.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:31 AM on May 30, 2007

phone boxes, parking metres, bank safes... need i go on.
posted by complience at 7:54 AM on May 30, 2007

whatever you do, for the love of god, film it and put that video online.
posted by subtle_squid at 8:52 AM on May 30, 2007

What if you stuck it on layers of stuff, so you'd get a different reaction as it melted downwards, like a layer of dry ice on top of magnesium, ending with 10 lbs. of sparklers or something.

Nannyfilter.
posted by craniac at 8:21 PM on May 30, 2007