HOW TO MAKE BLACKMATCH FUSE: Take a flat piece of plastic or metal (brass or aluminum are easy to work with and won't rust). Drill a 1/16th inch hole through it. This is your die for sizing the fuse. You can make fuses as big as you want, but this is the right size for the pipe bomb I will be getting to later. To about 1/2 cup of black powder add water to make a thin paste. Add 1/2 teaspoon of corn starch. Cut some one foot lengths of cotton thread. Use cotton, not silk or thread made from synthetic fibers. Put these together until you have a thickness that fills the hole in the die but can be drawn through very easily. Tie your bundle of threads together at one end. Separate the threads and hold the bundle over the black powder mixture. Lower the threads with a circular motion so they start curling onto the mixture. Press them under with the back of a teaspoon and continue lowering them so they coil into the paste. Take the end you are holding and thread it through the die. Pull it through smoothly in one long motion. To dry your fuse, lay it on a piece of aluminum foil and bake it in your 250 degree oven or tie it to a grill in the oven and let it hang down. The fuse must be baked to make it stiff enough for the uses it will be put to later. Air drying will not do the job. If you used Sodium Nitrate, it will not even dry completely at room temperatures. Cut the dry fuse with sissors into 2 inch lengths and store in an air tight container. Handle this fuse carefuly to avoid breaking it. You can also use a firecracker fuse if you have any available. The fuses can usually be pulled out without breaking. To give yourself some running time, you will be extending these fuses (blackmatch or firecracker fuse) with sulfured wick. HOW TO MAKE SULFURED WICK: Use heavy cotton string about 1/8th inch in diameter. You can find some at a garden supply for tieing up your tomatoes. Be sure it's cotton. You can test it by lighting one end. It sould continue to burn after the match is removed and when blown out will have a smoldering coal on the end. Put some sulfur in a small container like a small pie pan and melt it in the oven at 250 degrees. It will melt into a transparent yellow liquid. If it starts turning brown, it is too hot. Coil about a one foot length of string into it. The melted sulfur will soak in quickly. When saturated, pull it out and tie it up to cool and harden. It can be cut to desired lengths with sissors. 2 inches is about right. These wicks will burn slowly with a blue flame and do not blow out easily in a moderate wind. They will not burn through a hole in a metal pipe, but are great for extending your other fuse. They will not throw off sparks. Blackmatch generates sparks which can ignite it along its length causing unpredictable burning times. Now you have the basic ingredients to shake the earth like thunder. In the next installment or two, I will tell you how to put it all together to do ju st that. You will find that you have baked a very deadly pie. I have twice been accused of setting off dynamite in the woods. The explosive power of your little grey powder may exceed your expectations, so choose your testing ground with care.