10 years old , first build , took 30 minutes

[P7M13]

Hey , like another guy said , boys have a fascination for stuff that goes boom.
That also reminds me of the time my parents were putting on a party at our house ,I was in second or third grade and convinced my younger brothers to go get some matches from the party ,cause no one would notice ,they were to busy having a good time.
My next brother down came back to our underground fort in the easement behind the houses ,with the matches and we accidentally started the fort and surrounding grass on fire !
Everyone came running out of the party trying to put it out .
Best part was my younger brother got blamed for the whole thing , cause he took the matches !

Bunch of friends, our moms all smoked so there was never a lack of matches laying around.
We used to cut off the match heads, pack them into an aluminum foil tube that we had tightly wrapped around a pencil. Lay them on the stove burner and turn it on, thinking we were budding rocketeers.
All but one time, nothing happened. Once they all ignited at the same time, that sucker took off, bounced off the kitchen wall, through the doorway and landed in the dining room. It was a wood floor, so nothing happened but we chased it down to stamp it out.

 

[Muddyboots]

Homemade flame thrower - so about 60 years ago I took a water rifle and put gasoline into it. What a brilliant idea! Figured since it shot water about 20' why not a "cool" flamethrower? Yep really dumass idea! But 11 years old rocket scientist seemed reasonable at time? I was in our garage and I started to shoot gas out and had "friend" light it....he left for parts unknown shortly afterwards.....It flamed perfectly for about 20' out into our driveway and then I had to start trigger pumping again...oops. Flame pulled back into water rifle and "popped" into giant fireball! Burned my hands, threw blanket onto to it to put it out! Thank goodness! Simulaneously, my Dad pulled into driveway. Now you know rest of story....under house arrest for month! Hands hurt like hell for weeks and you can imaging the sympathy I got back in early 1961. Still had to mow lawn and that was "lots of fun" with hands bandaged. Slightest movement and danggggg! Just glad school was out for summer!

 

[cornshank]

Bunch of friends, our moms all smoked so there was never a lack of matches laying around.
We used to cut off the match heads, pack them into an aluminum foil tube that we had tightly wrapped around a pencil. Lay them on the stove burner and turn it on, thinking we were budding rocketeers.
All but one time, nothing happened. Once they all ignited at the same time, that sucker took off, bounced off the kitchen wall, through the doorway and landed in the dining room. It was a wood floor, so nothing happened but we chased it down to stamp it out.

Perfect !

 

[cornshank]

Homemade flame thrower - so about 60 years ago I took a water rifle and put gasoline into it. What a brilliant idea! Figured since it shot water about 20' why not a "cool" flamethrower? Yep really dumass idea! But 11 years old rocket scientist seemed reasonable at time? I was in our garage and I started to shoot gas out and had "friend" light it....he left for parts unknown shortly afterwards.....It flamed perfectly for about 20' out into our driveway and then I had to start trigger pumping again...oops. Flame pulled back into water rifle and "popped" into giant fireball! Burned my hands, threw blanket onto to it to put it out! Thank goodness! Simulaneously, my Dad pulled into driveway. Now you know rest of story....under house arrest for month! Hands hurt like hell for weeks and you can imaging the sympathy I got back in early 1961. Still had to mow lawn and that was "lots of fun" with hands bandaged. Slightest movement and danggggg! Just glad school was out for summer!

Dang , lucky you didn't get hurt worse . Grounded and doing chores , sounds familiar , brothers and I got grounded for something and our dad made us husk walnuts by hand ,problem was as soon as he walked away,we started throwing them in the creek ,so we wouldn't have to husk them!

 

[Muddyboots]

Watched too many episodes of Combat on black white tv!

 

[338 dude]

At 10 years old ,I decided to build a scatter gun pistol , so out in the barn ,on the work bench , I took a foot long piece of 1/2 inch copper pipe , bent it in half and flattened out half and taped a piece of wood to it for a handle.
Next I drilled a small hole in the top , for the fuse.
Then I took a a piece of fishing line and pushed it through the hole and out the barrel.
Next I tied a firecracker to the fishing line by the fuse and pulled it in the barrel and out the drilled hole so it was sticking out.
Now I filled the barrel with chicken feed ( scratch ) , and lit the fuse, boom , never shot anything with it cause you had to hold the thing up so the ammo wouldn't roll out the barrel.

When I was a kid we all made potato guns and borrowed mom's hair spray for the fuel

 

[cornshank]

When I was a kid we all made potato guns and borrowed mom's hair spray for the fuel

Nice!

 

[Muddyboots]

Potato gun funny story: neighbor called me over to show me his high tech potato gun. Made igniter from 9V battery with button, sharpened aluminum tube edge to drive length of potato to fit PVC barrel tightly, I think he was using Gumout? As fuel?

He loaded it for test fire, hit button and danggg! Potato launched over his stand of white pines in backyard like antiaircraft missle!

Went into neighbors yard. Of course he put it away fast and told me go home you saw heard nada!!!

 

[338 dude]

We use PVC and various fittings of course and we did sharpen the end of the barrel so the potato was cut to fit perfectly , and we used a barbecue grill igniter for our ignition source simply the push of a button no batteries .I'm telling you that sucker would go out of sight not lengthways but width ways it probably went 2 blocks! same thing we went inside and kept quiet for a couple days!

 

[cornshank]

We use PVC and various fittings of course and we did sharpen the end of the barrel so the potato was cut to fit perfectly , and we used a barbecue grill igniter for our ignition source simply the push of a button no batteries .I'm telling you that sucker would go out of sight not lengthways but width ways it probably went 2 blocks! same thing we went inside and kept quiet for a couple days!

Nice push button trigger !

 

[cornshank]

Another classic one was when I put an M-80 sized firework,
Under a metal feed bucket , with the fuse sticking out the side , then stood on top of the bucket, and lit the fuse ,to see if it would lift me off the ground.
Well kaaabooom! And I thought I was airborne, if 1" counts, boy I never tried that one again.

 

[Muddyboots]

Another classic one was when I put an M-80 sized firework,
Under a metal feed bucket , with the fuse sticking out the side , then stood on top of the bucket, and lit the fuse ,to see if it would lift me off the ground.
Well kaaabooom! And I thought I was airborne, if 1" counts, boy I never tried that one again.

Cousin did same but placed a brick on bucket. M80 blasted bucket and brick into orbit and brick landed on his Dad's car hood......That did not go well. Edit added - My Uncle asked me why didn't I stop him? I think he was madder at me!

 

[cornshank]

Cousin did same but placed a brick on bucket. M80 blasted bucket and brick into orbit and brick landed on his Dad's car hood......That did not go well.

Nice , I tried to convince my younger brothers to stand on the bucket , but after they saw how scared I was , they were having no part of it.
What a role model I must have been!