I've been fiddling around with whips lately. A good bull-whip makes a decent bang and is by far cheaper than anything else i can make. The only
drawback is that there is no fire. :-(
There are some whipmakers who soak their whips in liquid fuels, set the the whole thing on fire and then, when cracking, create a fireball.
Unfortunately this gives away the effect. I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to make exploding whip crackers? For those unfamiliar with whips,
the cracker is the replaceable bit of string at the end of the whip that goes through the sound barrier to make the crack.
I look forward to hearing from you.SWIM - 6-9-2017 at 14:18
Maybe if you could attach a loop of paper to the end of the whip that has had red phosphorous lightly dusted on one side and a chlorate dusted on the
other.
If the loop snaps closed when the whip cracks you'd get a nice little flash.
They sell the two components for doing this when you snap your fingers on Ebay It's listed as Magic tricks A & B finger flash.
At least I think this is red P and chlorate. Whatever it is it apparently works, but if you overdo it you can get some nasty fingertip burns (or so
I've been told)
If this IS red P and Chlorate, then it's an OTC source for red P. I believe they sell this in some magic shops.
Looks like you only get about a gram of each substance for $15 though.
Pretty expensive compared to just buying it as a sample for element collectors.Tripyrovinyl - 6-9-2017 at 23:35
I was thinking of a chlorate/redP mix, but i don't know if it will work. The cracker is moving at high velocity, so the pressure is very low, so no
"confinement".
Thanks for the thought
My thoughts go toward a liquid, stable under normal conditions, but with pyrophoric vapor. The idea being that the cracker could be dipped in the
liquid and at the moment of the crack, the liquid would evaporate and ignite. Any ideas?
[Edited on 7-9-2017 by Tripyrovinyl]symboom - 7-9-2017 at 05:50
Speed of sound
1250 fps
Black powder
1,312 fps
I knew black powder confined would be the slowest explosive but still break the sound barrier
Which the crack of a whip supposedly is able to do
It would be strange to use a whip as a primer to set off slightly less sensitive energetic material probably not dried ammonium nitrate at the end of
the whip that very insensitive energetic material and insensitive to the whip sorry terrible joke.
The armstrongs mix it a start
A whip setting of flammable or very energetic material scary would be nitrogen triiodide or trichloride much too sensitive
[Edited on 7-9-2017 by symboom]
[Edited on 7-9-2017 by symboom]Morgan - 7-9-2017 at 06:01
He could snap his whip near a charged capacitor if he kept it grounded like those wands they use for electrostatic experiments .That might make two
pops instead of one, the crack of the whip and the crack of the capacitor discharging in a rapid succession or perhaps you could do it simultaneously.
The large sparks I made with a water bottle charged up with a pvc tube and paper towel sound like whips cracking. It's louder in person.
[Edited on 7-9-2017 by Morgan]CRUSTY - 7-9-2017 at 08:53
This is purely speculative, but ETN might do the trick. If configured correctly on the end of the whip, the ETN might detonate under it's own relative
weight. The tip of a whip hits around 50,000 G, which is absolutely ridiculous, and at that acceleration (or even an order of magnitude less than that
probably), the weight of the ETN alone will likely be enough to detonate it, especially if you allow for a space between ETN
crystals. This would have to be a tiny mass of course, but whatever.
I assume this would work with anything more sensitive than ETN as well, but I'm not a huge fan of primaries (I swear by explosive bridgewire
detonation).
Again, purely speculation.Tripyrovinyl - 8-9-2017 at 01:21
I've tried dipping the cracker in MEKP, but no reaction. I have no experience with ETN. Is it more stable than MEKP? Bert - 8-9-2017 at 05:37
I've tried dipping the cracker in MEKP, but no reaction. I have no experience with ETN. Is it more stable than MEKP?
Oh God yes. Based on this paper and the fact that ETN is around "1/3 more sensitive" than PETN, below are a couple of rough generalizations about ETN. I'm going to
base this on TATP because the paper doesn't include MEKP, so compare MEKP by considering it is usually as sensitive as an unusually stable batch of
TATP. It's impossible to be accurate with the sensitivity of organic peroxides. For the ETN figure, I interpreted "1/3 more sensitive" mathematically
as n - (n/3), subtracting because most sensitivity measures are figures of energy required for 50% detonation probability, so a decrease corresponds
to higher sensitivity. Anyways...
ETN is bit less sensitive than lead azide, and less than half the sensitivity of TATP, so that puts it at maybe half the impact sensitivity of MEKP.
Its friction sensitivity is around 31 times less than that of TATP, which is very nice. ETN that is slightly damp with methanol is also very
insensitive to heat and flame, in my experience. Personally, I'm a huge fan of ETN, but seeing as you're a new user, please read Yamato71's "Life
After Detonation" under the Energetic Materials board, because although ETN is relatively insensitive for something so easy to synthesize, a truly
safe explosive does not exist. You don't want to end up like Yamato, or that other user who was peppered with Pyrex after heating a
test tube with a tiny amount of ETN in it (I can't remember his username).
With that spiel over, it's certainly a good alternative to MEKP on the other hand.
[Edited on 8-9-2017 by CRUSTY]SWIM - 8-9-2017 at 12:38
Sounds to me like some service you'd buy from a really creative dominatrix.symboom - 9-9-2017 at 09:42
Silver fulminate like the chemical compound in snap bangs or pop gunsBert - 9-9-2017 at 22:35
Quote:
Silver fulminate like the chemical compound in snap bangs or pop guns
If you use silver fulmimate and allow it to dry completely, then handle the whip, it may crack just from the disturbance of picking it up- before you
ever actually flip it. Seriously touchy stuff. This and Silver azide are the sources of my only primary explosive accidents (static electricity on a
dry, windy fall day set off the azide, just LOOKING at it set off the fulminate, AFAIK).
