How To Make A Fireball

DISCLAIMER: Homemade fireworks of any kind are inherently dangerous. They could cause extreme injury or death. It is important that you understand the risks you are taking before following any of these instructions.

Fire is cool. Fireballs are cooler. Here's how to make a fireball with coffee creamer (the powdery kind, not the liquid).

If you get everything just right, you may be able to achieve this.

Step 1: Acquire a Can

Just a regular old steel can that your sliced peaches came in. If for some ungodly reason you don't have one, check your local hobo encampment and search for an empty can of beans. 

steel can

Step 2: Acquire Black Powder

My favorite way to do this is by deconstructing firecrackers. You just use pliers and squeeze the firecracker until the white packing material (looks like sand) starts falling out. This stuff is useless. Keep rolling the fire cracker in your fingers until the black powder starts to fall out. You need that. When the white sandy stuff starts falling out again, stop. Remove the fuse from the cardboard casing. You can get rid of everything except the black powder and the fuse. 

Alternatively, you can buy black powder meant for muzzleloader rifles. You may have to be a certain age to do this and only certain stores actually stock it.

Step 3: Drill a Hole

Drill a hole in the side of the can, just barely above the bottom of the can. The hole should be as big around as your fuse (which you have from the firecracker you deconstructed).

Step 4: Create a Barrier

You're going to need a barrier to separate the black powder from the coffee creamer when they are both in the can. Trace the bottom of the can on some tissue paper and cut it out. It should fit into the can almost perfectly, probably just a tad too big. 

Step 5: Dump in the Black Powder

The more, the better but you don't need a ton. If you have enough to cover the bottom of the can, you have plenty. It would be best to have a little pile in the middle of the can. I wouldn't use less than 1/4 tsp of backpacker. The more black powder you have, the more creamer you can put on top of it, and the bigger fireball you can have. 

Step 6: Slide in the Fuse

It is very important that the fuse remains in contact with the black powder or else you are going to have a dud. Make sure you are careful during construction so that the powder will light when the time comes.

Step 7: Install the Barrier

Just slide the tissue paper disk all the way down to the bottom of the can and make sure it fits well. You don't want any holes or the creamer will mix with the black powder and it may not combust.

Step 8: Pour the Creamer

Again, make sure you are using POWDERED creamer. Alternatively, I hear powdered sugar or corn starch work well, but I have never personally tried either. I would only fill the can between a quarter and half way the first time to ensure success. Push the limits with each successive test and see how far you can go with your amount of black powder. 

Step 9: Light it and Stand Back

If you did everything correctly and your black powder is viable, a rather large fireball should emanate from the can with a satisfying whoosh. Make sure you stand back or you'll loose your eyebrows. 

-Me, The Pyrotechnic

How to Make Plaster Castings

Occasionally I find myself needing an artistic outlet. I don't remember where I first saw this technique but I was amazed at how detailed plaster casts could be if you do them right. I like 3D art best (mainly because I'm rubbish at drawing) and I thought I would have a go at making the most life like sculpture I could with casting hands in plaster.

Step 1: Make a Mold

The mold is everything. For this project, I used the gel that the dentist uses to make a form of your teeth called alginate. You know that goopy stuff they put in a retainer shaped dish that they put in your mouth and ask you to bite down on for a few seconds. It gushes out and around your teeth and sets up then they take it out and have a perfect mold of your teeth. I asked my dentist if I could buy some alginate from them and as it turned out, they had some old stuff they would just give me for free! My dentist even helped me do the first hand casting at the office. Make sure you have a container that's big enough for your fist. Mix up the alginate according to the directions that are usually on the container it came in. Usually it's just a matter of adding the right amount of water and mixing it in sufficiently. I've been told that using cold water makes the alginate set up slower than if you used warm water. Once you have the alginate mixed up, you need to work quickly before it sets up. Ooze your hand into the weird puddingy mixture and hold it still in whatever position you want. Just remember, some positions may be more prone to air pockets when you pour the plaster. 

TIP: I found it helpful to lube up my hand in Vaseline before putting it in the alginate. It helped me slide my hand out easier once the material set up. Also, it kept the alginate from grabbing the hair on my fingers and hand which would result in little chunks of the mold coming out on my hand. That would result in a imperfection in the cast. 

Step 2: Pour the Plaster

I just used Plaster of Paris. I'm sure there are better plasters that are more dense and could capture more details but Plaster of Paris is cheap and readily available so that's what I used. Just mix it up according to the box directions (again usually just involves pouring in the right amount of water) and pour it in the mold. I wanted to mount my hands so I stuck a dowel into the top of the mold, however when the plaster sets up, it tends to shrink a little which caused my hands to crack around the dowel. I'm not sure what the best solution is for this but perhaps a narrower dowel (mine was about an inch in diameter) would prevent cracking. Or, if you were very careful, you may be able to drill into the hand once it is set and then glue a dowel into the hole.

Step 3: Let the Plaster Set

Patience is a virtue.

Step 4: Remove the Cast from the Alginate

This shouldn't be too hard. The alginate should peel right off for the most part. You might have to use a toothpick or something to pick the alginate out of some crevices but cleanup should be relatively easy. Take some time to marvel at the detail of the cast. You can see every little wrinkle of your knuckles and every line of your palm. You can even see the texture of your skin on the cast.

Step 5: Touch It Up

Even with the Vaseline, I had a few imperfections on my casts. There were a bunch of little bumps, kind of like braille writing. I just used a dremel tool to grind off the bumps but you loose some skin detail this way too. If you're feeling adventurous, you could use the dremel tool to carve designs into your hands. I did this with one hand to make it look like you could see the skeletal structure. 

Step 6: Paint Them (Optional)

I decide to paint my hands because I wanted to use them as coat hooks and if I didn't paint them, i would get plaster dust all over my jackets. You definitely loose some of the more delicate details this way, but it protects the plaster from abrasion. If you want the best of both worlds, you could probably just give them a couple coats of clear spray paint.

Here are my hands:

-Me, the Sculptor

How to Make a Dry Ice Bomb

DISCLAIMER: Homemade fireworks of any kind are inherently dangerous. They could cause extreme injury or death. It is important that you understand the risks you are taking before following any of these instructions.

New Years wasn't too long ago and nothing makes me happier than to ring in the New Year with explosives. Store bought fireworks are great but there's a certain satisfaction that comes from making your own pyrotechnics. Usually I would harvest the black powder out of cheap fireworks to use in explosives of my own design, but this year I didn't have the resources to do that. I had to improvise. I had heard of dry ice bombs, but I had never actually tried to make one. Turns out it's easier than I thought.

Step 1: Acquire an Empty 2-Liter Bottle

A 16 oz water bottle works too if you want a less aggressive explosion. 

Step 2: Add Dry Ice Chunks

Actually getting dry ice is the hard part. My grocery store sells it for 99 cents per pound. A pound is more than enough. Some states require you to be at least 18 years old to purchase dry ice. 

Step 3: Fill bottle about 1/4 With Warm Water

Warm water makes the dry ice sublimate faster

Step 4: Squeeze the Bottle a Bit and Cap It

Squeezing the bottle before you cap it acts as a fuse. The carbon dioxide gas has to fill up that much more of the bottle before it can explode and this gives you time to run.

Step 5: Run Away

Run. Far. Away.

Step 6: Ready Your Bowels

It would be a shame if you shit yourself . A 2-liter bomb is comparable to a gunshot so be prepared. It doesn't go off right away so there is plenty of time for the suspense to build. 

Step 7: Enjoy and Repeat

Just don't blow your hands off.

What's left after the explosion

-Me, The Pyrotechnic

How to Renovate a Sailboat

Step 1: Find Her

I found Polly on craigslist. I was looking for a Sunfish because I was pretty familiar with them after teaching a class on small-boat sailing. Sunfish are pretty common and it is easy to find replacement parts. There are tons of forums for sunfish owners as well and I found it easy to search preexisting advice on common repairs.
Polly was definitely a fixer-upper but I was looking for a project. I think as a rule of thumb, for every repair you know you'll have to make when you are first looking at a boat, there's probably another one that you can't see.
I decided to skip a day of school to take the six hour trip in my mom's '95 minivan to the coast where I could pick up Polly from some crusty old dude. He had a backyard full of interesting stuff he was trying to get rid of. I believe I remember seeing a Porsche mixed in among old dressers and busted go-karts. It was an interesting mix of treasures. This guy was nice enough to help me get Polly up onto the roof rack of the van and help me strap it down. I got her home in one piece and couldn't help but rig her up and see what she needed work on.

First time rigging her up in the front yard the same day I got her home.

Step 2: Figure Out What Needs Fixing

Polly used to be a race boat and had definitely seen some time in the ocean because she had some serious corrosion everywhere. I unscrewed all of the corroded deck hardware. Some could be polished up but a lot of it was going to have to be replaced. The sail was pretty dry rotted with plenty of holes and rips that would have to be patched. the deck paint rubbed off as a powder where you touched it. There were pretty big dents and cracks in the fiberglass hull that would need repairing. The last owner had done a pretty bad job of trying to patch what turned out to be a pretty bad gash in the keel. The gel coat was rubbing off just like the deck paint. There was no daggerboard or rudder assembly. The rudder hardware that was on the boat was for the old style rudder that isn't made anymore which told me that she was from before 1972, so she was at least 42 years old when I got her. The sheet and halyard were both pretty dry-rotted and would need to be replaced. 

Step 3: Tackle One Repair at a Time

I started with what I thought would be the most time consuming. SANDING. I decided that it would be better to remove all the paint and start over from scratch than to try to paint over a crappy base. I went out and bought an orbital sander and some 60 grit sandpaper. It took forever but I still think it was worth it. After i sanded everything down to the bare material, I used JB Weld to patch all the holes. I'm very sure this is frowned upon by most sailors but it seemed to work great!

Beginning of sanding

Paint had to be done over several days. I could only do one thin coat per day. I found mixed opinions on what paint to use but I settled on using two different colors of Rust-Oleum Topside paint. I wouldn't have used this on the hull if she has being stored on the water, but I think it was okay for a daysailer. I sanded with a relatively fine grit by hand (the orbital sander was a bit too aggressive) between each coat as recommended and thinned the paint before each application as directed on the can. I used a high density foam roller then went back with a foam brush to knock out any bubbles. You can find pretty comprehensive videos of the "roll and tip" method on youtube. It was kind of amazing how much better Polly looked after each new coat of paint. I think I ended up doing 4 coats on the hull and 4 on the deck. 

Before any paint, after sanding

Deck immediately after last coat

Final hull coat

I cut some inspection ports right in front of the daggerboard slot and in the stern so that I could access the inside for mounting various hardware. I thought it was important to make sure there was an aluminum backer plate for any deck hardware so that nothing ripped out of the relatively soft fiberglass deck. I never put the coaming back on because it was so broken and decided I didn't really need one. I got the new rudder attachment mounted and riveted on the cleaned aluminum trim around the edge of the boat. I had finished all the renovations but I hit a wall when I had to purchase a brand new daggerboard, rudder assembly and tiller arm. These last few parts cost several hundred dollars and it took some time before I had enough extra money to spend on them. It killed me a little knowing Polly was all ready to sail but I couldn't take her out until I had the last few pieces.

Step 4: Name Her

I'm pretty sure it's bad luck if you don't. I got Polly's name from a song that was stuck in my head while I working on her. Its not uncommon to name your boat after a female acquaintance like your significant other or your mom or something. Just make sure you name her before you take her out for the first time or she'll be sure to get struck by lightening or run into a hurricane.

Step 5: Test Her Out

This is definitely the most exciting part. You get to find out if the patches are going to hold and if the sail is going to rip and if the name you gave her was good enough to keep her from getting struck by lightening. Everything you worked for and spent money on comes to a climax at this point. I took Polly out on a pretty calm lake near my house the first time just to make sure she could float without too much stress.

Polly, Her, and I on Polly's maiden voyage

Polly performed well and there was no detectable water leakage into the hull so I took that as a thumbs up for taking her into rougher waters. I had never sailed in the ocean before but I had to get Polly back to the coast from whence she came and take her out on the Atlantic. The first day I got her down to the beach and got her rigged up, I realized it was too windy to sail. The weather was on the verge of a storm and after some convincing from my family, I decided it would be best to take her out when things had calmed down. The next day, it was still pretty windy but a bit less severe. I was a little scared to take her out but figured I had enough experience to manage. Someone must have been looking out for me because a random stranger approached us and asked me about what I was up to. He was probably mid-50's and informed me that he had a good amount of sailing experience in Sunfish on the ocean. He was wary to go with me when he found out I had no experience on the ocean but after some convincing (mostly him convincing himself) he agreed to go out with me. He basically took the reins and sailed Polly for me but it was a wild ride. Water rushed into the footwell because I didn't have the coaming on the deck to deflect the waves that were crashing over the bow. The atuobailer that would usually evacuate the water was corroded shut so we were slowly filling up with water. Therefore, it became my job to use the water pump I brought to get the water out as quickly as I could. We were moving faster than I had ever gone in a sailboat and the waves were pounding pretty hard against the sides of the boat. I had to lean out of the boat more than once to keep us from flipping over, which would mean destruction for Polly. It was terrifyingly exciting. Eventually we came in when my stranger friend ran out of nerves. It wasn't until we dragged Polly up onto the beach (scraping up her brand new red paint job) that we saw the sail was hanging on by a few threads top the tip of the boom arm. If it had torn all the way, the sail would have just flapped around in the breeze and Polly would have been stuck at sea. Between the total stranger becoming my captain and the patched and rotten sail barely holding on, I felt like a pretty lucky guy.
 

Polly's real test with me and a stranger at the rudder

-Me, The Sailor