Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Almost getting caught

NonEthicalPyrotechnics - 16-6-2020 at 20:53

I'm sorta new to energetic chemistry. (been into it about 6 months) About 4 months ago I had an incident in where my house was searched by the police for a reason unrelated to the main point. Police came incredibly close to finding a hiding place that contained a massive amount of incriminating evidence including some explosives. Now obviously I didn't end up getting caught probably out of pure luck.

However I was wondering if there's anybody here who has either gotten caught or nearly gotten caught with explosives. If so what's the story?

Chemorg42 - 16-6-2020 at 22:00

When you say "Explosives", what do you mean? Pyrotechnic mixtures, flash powders, actual high explosives, something else?

NonEthicalPyrotechnics - 17-6-2020 at 00:44

By explosives I mean high explosives. Sorry should have clarified...

mackolol - 17-6-2020 at 02:23

I haven't got caught, but I have some entertaining story.
Back in seconary school, my dad has bought me 30% hydrogen peroxide and he did it in stationary shop, where everything is documented. They have written up his ID data as it is a controlled reagent in Poland so he asked what are possible dangers. They told him that probably if a bomb will be blown up in city, they will check him. Few days after cash mashine was blown up in my city :cool: . But they didn't check my dad.
That's why it is better to order controlled reagents online.

mackolol - 17-6-2020 at 02:27

And why did they check you? It isn't very common for the police to search for somebody's house if one isn't reported as a hazard to others.

Fulmen - 17-6-2020 at 04:51

We almost hit a police car with some flying rocks once...

Tyneman - 17-6-2020 at 05:45

In my younger days we used to 'test' our charges in the forest. There are some adherent farmlands where people work the land.
One time we set off a little bigger charge wich made us jump. The bang attracted the forest gamekeeper, local police and every farmer in the surrounding area.
We just pretended to be onlookers who were walking the dog.

Had a nice chat with the gamekeeper about 'what on earth could've caused that bang and hole in the ground'. Could it have been friends of ours? We had absolutely no idea who would be so stupid.:cool:

That day my rule of taking only one charge and nothing more into the forest payed off.
And I still stick to it to this day.

Chemorg42 - 17-6-2020 at 08:39

Probably not as impressive as you guys' stories, but funny non the less.
My mother home schooled all of us until high school and still does all of my younger siblings. Because of this, I offered to do some basic chemistry experiments with the younger children.
I started simple, making soda with bicarb and citric acid, extracting DNA, sugar "Black snake" (not the sulfuric acid one, but the one where you burn lighter fluid and sugar, creating a spiralling snake), etc. However, towards the end of the school year, I wanted to end things off with a bang. So, I created a rock candy fountain firework by pouring the hot rock candy mixture into a toilet paper roll and wrapping it in aluminium foil.
Now I had never done this before, and did not know how much fire and smoke would be produced. I told my mother to do it on the concrete path, away from trees and buildings, but she laughed it off, saying I was being paranoid.
We set the thing off on the concrete path, right outside the door to our house, which was open. At first, it wouldn't light, and I was becoming concerned, but then, the flame shot over 1 foot into the air, and clouds of smoke covered our entire yard out to the road, and filled the lower levels of our house.
My mom was quite shaken up, but I consider it one of my proudest moments.

MineMan - 17-6-2020 at 10:22

I think you will find that those who were caught will not be sharing their stories as they have learned it’s best to stay low key. So your answers are biased. Maybe it’s better to ask why so many prominent forum members have disappeared... AXT, LL, PHILOU... and others. Maybe life just got busy... but they seemed too passionate for that to happen.

simply RED - 17-6-2020 at 10:51

I know why one of the best members from Russia disappeared - he became pacifist... better being caught than this...

caterpillar - 17-6-2020 at 11:44

Quote: Originally posted by simply RED  
I know why one of the best members from Russia disappeared - he became pacifist... better being caught than this...

But even pacifists can make HE and explode rocks for example.

MineMan - 17-6-2020 at 17:11

Quote: Originally posted by simply RED  
I know why one of the best members from Russia disappeared - he became pacifist... better being caught than this...


Was this LL? I welcome any information on him... I consider him a dear friend... he helped our community more than anyone.

Crazy Junior High School Adventure

sodium_stearate - 18-6-2020 at 10:15

Well ok then here is one example:

Back in jr. high school a few friends and I had been
working with KN03 and sugar. Mixed them dry at first,
about equal parts by volume. Not that great.

Then we arrived at the idea to dissolve in water and boil
off the water. Takes a long time to dry out and pulverize to
a very fine white powder. But after being dissolved in
water, those ingredients are far more well mixed at
a molecular level than any dry mixing can attain.

We then tweaked the proportions a bit to get the
cleanest burning. About 60/40 by volume, heavy
on the KN03. We did not have a decent scale to weigh
it so in those days, we, as kids, went by volume.

So this stuff works rather well. Put some into a
4 inch long pipe nipple, with a 3/4 inch I.D.
Threaded (2) end caps on. (Drilled the hole for the
fuse BEFORE loading the pipe!)

Set it behind a grocery store which had it's back side
in the woods on a high hillside. Nearest houses were
a few city blocks away, down in a lower area maybe
60 feet lower.

Set a ten minute time delay. Lit it up and walked away.

My friend and I walked around the hill and down into
the residential area below. A few blocks from the hillside
where the unit was placed.

We waited, walking around. Wait, wait, wait. Ten minutes
passed. Wait just a bit more then a tremendous flash
and a deafening boom on the top of the hill. A few
seconds later a tinkling in the street a few feet away from
us. It was a piece of pipe wall turned inside out and twisted
back on itself. About the size of a matchbook cover.

I reached down, picked it up, put it in my pocket.

We started walking away and just about that time a police
car comes driving along, stops, and the officer asked us
to come over to his car. He asked us what we were doing
and we said just out for a walk. Then he asked if we
knew anything about the explosion. "Nope, boy that sure
was loud though!"...

He drove away.:D


simply RED - 18-6-2020 at 11:11

sodium_stearate - 6 meters fuse ? That's hard to believe... not to mention a flash from KNO3/sugar... and brisance...

For the previous comments, back in 2002 I was discussing with Engager and Philou the future of enhanced blast explosives. Half of the equation to calculate fuel particle size - Engager helped me to write. He and Philou should have put their real names on their articles, to be at least citable...

Tsjerk - 18-6-2020 at 12:23

A friend of mine was kicked out of university chemistry because he was caught. He had a small amount of black powder in his student room which caught fire because it was next to a ass tray...

The fire department was called by a flatmate who brought the police. They found a lot of pyro chemicals, he was lucky they didn't find the chemicals intended for HE preparation.

sodium_stearate - 18-6-2020 at 16:38

Quote: Originally posted by simply RED  
sodium_stearate - 6 meters fuse ? That's hard to believe... not to mention a flash from KNO3/sugar... and brisance...

No, not 6 meters of fuse! More like about 2 inches
of underwater fuse. Then that is slit open about 1/2 an
inch and a good quality linen cord that has been boiled
in a saturated solution of KN03 and water, then dried,
is tied into the end of the slit underwater fuse.

This is then wrapped and tied using fine thread that has
been treated the same by boiling in concentrated KN03
solution.

The string must hang free, not touching anything. It burns
at roughly 1 inch per minute. This can be adjusted by
how much crystalized KN03 is left in the string.

So nope, more like about 10 inches of the time-delay
fuse.

And also, nope, it aint briscant, and it aint very special
but trust me the KN03 and sugar when properly
dissolved and boiled off can and will burst a pipe
with a brilliant flash and a very loud report.

Yes, it's very crude. But it works.:cool:

JJay - 18-6-2020 at 17:12

Quote: Originally posted by NonEthicalPyrotechnics  
I'm sorta new to energetic chemistry. (been into it about 6 months) About 4 months ago I had an incident in where my house was searched by the police for a reason unrelated to the main point. Police came incredibly close to finding a hiding place that contained a massive amount of incriminating evidence including some explosives. Now obviously I didn't end up getting caught probably out of pure luck.

However I was wondering if there's anybody here who has either gotten caught or nearly gotten caught with explosives. If so what's the story?


Nice try, Special Agent. :D

I have never done anything illegal with explosives except for setting them off in public celebrations on July 4th with no attempt to evade or conceal.

simply RED - 18-6-2020 at 20:59

If this hobby is illegal then all rocket amateurs must be jailed and most of the scientists in the labs. Very few labs (worldwide) working with explosives have all paperwork required. For some reason - handling of the same explosives for science purposes requires different paperwork than handling them in the industry. Lots of labs synthesize and handle explosives without any license or proper conditions to do so - and publish the results!

You may think you have done something illegal, but it is very hard to tell if it was legal or not.


[Edited on 19-6-2020 by simply RED]

Refinery - 22-6-2020 at 01:44

Many jurisdictions also have either exceptions for scientific institutions and/or separate permits that allow for lab/research energetics, like where I live. It is an universal license allowing for a certain max total amount of energetic substance to be handled at any given time, like 1000 grams etc. Get one, and you can freely order any chemical imaginable to manufacture explosives legally in a lab without batting an eye.

In the more exotic parts of the world, licenses can themselves a bit shady and non-enforced, as long as certain unwritten rules are followed - or through a corruption.

Belowzero - 22-6-2020 at 02:32

Back in the days I had a lab in my parents house, I thought it was fun to have those warning stickers that are used on chemical packaging on the door.

One day for a reason I can't remember we had the police over in our house, obviously the officer noticed the stickers on the glass which was luckily barely transparent.
He didn't ask questions or entered the room , not that he was allowed but I know policemen are interested in these sorts of things and are often poorly informed when it comes to explicit laws/regulations or simply don't care.

Lessons learned there, don't make it too obvious however cool it might look.
Even now I would like to have foil or something to block direct view, locking the door might be a good idea too.
Misunderstanding and suspicion of this hobby might be our greatest enemy, however good the intentions are.

[Edited on 22-6-2020 by Belowzero]

NonEthicalPyrotechnics - 22-6-2020 at 12:31

I feel like I should say i'm not an agent or whatever! I swear i've never shot a dog in my life!

JJay - 23-6-2020 at 05:57

Quote: Originally posted by NonEthicalPyrotechnics  
I feel like I should say i'm not an agent or whatever! I swear i've never shot a dog in my life!


Well, that's good. I wouldn't worry too much about it. People often want to brag about the times they almost got arrested, but the wisdom of doing so is debatable.

I did mention something on here a while back about how one time when I was moving my lab, I reluctantly apprehended some burglars at the direction of a security guard, and a huge squad of cops showed up in a matter of minutes. I hate thieves, but it was really none of my business....

I wasn't doing anything illegal, but it sure did feel like I was getting away with something when they let me go with all those cops watching.

TheMasterOfTheInternet - 17-7-2020 at 16:38

Quote: Originally posted by NonEthicalPyrotechnics  
I'm sorta new to energetic chemistry. (been into it about 6 months) About 4 months ago I had an incident in where my house was searched by the police for a reason unrelated to the main point. Police came incredibly close to finding a hiding place that contained a massive amount of incriminating evidence including some explosives. Now obviously I didn't end up getting caught probably out of pure luck.

However I was wondering if there's anybody here who has either gotten caught or nearly gotten caught with explosives. If so what's the story?


It mostly depends on why did you make them and in which ammounts!

For example:
1)Just for fun, chemistry enthusiasm, illegal pyrotechnics etc. or other "childish reasons". You made/had something between 10g and 2kg of explosives at a time and only wanted to have fun with that:

Only something between 40hrs of community work, a big financial fine or a very little custody.

But in case of serious explosive of course your house will get raided by FBI and a bomb squad or whatever is in charge in your country for something like that and your whole neighbourhood might hate you afterwards for beeing evacuated at for example mid-december at 6:30 in the morning because they had to ignite your TATP at the place they found it for safety reasons and so on. And don't forget you have to pay for your lawyer, the whole police operation/bomb squad/firefighters and so on. If you have bad luck you have to pay 40 people for one whole day of work afterwards.
It will change your life, even if you don't have to go to jail at all.
2) you traded with that stuff for comercial reason without license or you traded chemicals illegal to minors while knowing they're making dangerous illegal with that
let's say up to ~3 yrs of jail
3) you're a terrorist and wanted to kill someone or you supplied terrorists while knowing what they intended to do
15yrs jail, lifetime jail, lifetime jail a special prision for people like you in cuba or death penalty, depending on where you live ;)

PS: It also depends a lot of your local police/law enforcements and the judge of course. This is only an overview what could happen.

G-Coupled - 17-7-2020 at 20:01

Can confirm that a section of aluminium clothes pole crimped at both ends, containing an admixture of Sodium Nitrate (from weedkiller) and Sucrose when covered with a crude 'fuze' of newspaper with powder sprinkled into it is more than capable of disattaching fairly large sections of sturdy cast iron drainpipes from brick walls. 8)

Don't know about any flash, but the ground definitely went *thump* beneath us. :)