Explosives Underground cumputer bulletin boards vary in emphasis. I have seen boards that were devoted to ding a mate, remenisient of the want ads in certain underground newspapers. Some are primarily ineeted in software piracy. Others are strong on hacking computer systems or phone phreaking. In 198 ane interest appeared which was quite startling to your present author -- do it yourself explosivs. houh seemingly disrelated to telecommunications, it was on the phreakhhack boards that this infrmaton bgan appearing. The longest and most descriptive article on explosives ever written for a computer bulletin boashowed up about the middle of the year on Pirate-80 and a few other elite underground systems. Abotte only subjects of consequence not covered by the article are thermite and nitroglycerin both ofwhchestablished themselves early as very popular. Because of its comprehensive and representative atue Iam prsenting it here in its entirety including the warning statement which is a part of the rigial aticle. EXPLOSIVES AND INCENDIARIES *** W A R N I N G *** THIS INFORMATION IS PRESENTED FOR ACADEMIC STUDY ONLY. THE ACTUAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE DEVICES AND MAIALS DESCRIBED IN THIS FILE WOULD BE DANGEROUS, EVEN FOR AN EXPERIENCED CHEMIST. ALSO, THE CONSTRUTO OR POSSESSION OF MANY OF THESE DEVICES WOULD BE IN VIOLATION OF VARIOUS FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCL AW. INTRODUCTION: The trouble with text books on chemistry and explosives is the attitude with which there written. They don't say, "Now I know you would like to blow Holy Hell out of something just fortefun of it so here is how to whip up something in your kitchen to do it". They tell you how Dupon desit or how the ancient Chinese did it but not how you can do it with the resources and material avilale to you. Even army manuals on field expedient explosives are almost useless because they ae jut oulines written with the understanding that an instructor is going to fill in the blanks. It is a fun game to search out the materials that can be put together to make something go "boom". Ycan find what you need in grocery stores, hardware stores, and farm supplies. An interesting poin oremember is that it is much easier to make a big explosion than a small one. It is very difficul fr home experimenter to make a fire-cracker, but a bomb capable of blowing the walls out of a buldig i easy. The king of explosives for the do-it-yourselfer is black powder. It is easy to make ad whn prperly confined is capable of devastating power. For this reason, I will begin by telling yu howto mae black powder, how to make black match fuse, and how to put the two together with resuls thatwould lease even a wild-eyed anarchist. I will end this introduction and begin my instructios with his staement: "I know you would like to blow Holy Hell out of something just for the fun ofit so hee is howto whip up something in your kitchen to do it". HOW TO MAKE BLACK POWDER: You will need potassium or Sodium Nitrate, Sulfur, and hardwood charcoal. common name for Potassium Nitrate is saltpeter. Sodium Nitrate is sold at farm supplies under thenm of Nitrate of Soda. It is also called Chile Saltpeter. Sodium Nitrate makes a slightly more powrfl lack powder but has the disadvantage of being hygroscopic (obsorbes moisture from the air), soif ou se it, store it in tightly closed containers. You can also get sulfur at farm supplies as a etabe poder used for spraying. It is cheap and works well. Some drug stores sell sulfur under the ame Fowersof Sulfur. If you use Nitrate of Soda, it will be in the form of prills (little round beds). Bke it n an oven at 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes to drive out the moisture. Then dump a cup r two ito a blnder and switch it on. It will do a beautiful job of reducin it to powder. Buy a ba of charoal briqettes at a grocery store. Put a few briquettes in a rag and pound with a hammer. Dmp the reult into he blender, grind, then strain through a tea strainer. Mix by volume: 6 parts poassium or odium Nitrte, 2 parts powdered charcoal, 1 part sulfur. This mixture will burn if ignite and will eplode if igited while tightly confined. It can be greatly improved, however, by processng it as folows: Moistenwith water unuil it will stick together when pinched between thumb and finer. Press it nto a disposale aluminum pie pan. Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for about 3 minutes. get t totally dry.Grind into as fine a powder as possible. A mortar and pestle is best. f you use a bleder at this poit, there is a danger of explosion. It is not very sensitive to fricton or impact, bu is very sensitie to sparks. If you followed these directions, you should have a fne slate-grey power. When baking black powder, remember to preheat the oven. Place your pie pan approximately in the centof the oven. Do not set it on the bottom of the oven. These warnings are to prevent hot spots thatcud ignite the powder causing a fire or explosion. Something went wrong once when my father-in-lawwa ding this and it blew the door right off the oven. His training in military demolitions include fild xpedient explosives. The point is that things can go wrong even when you know what you are ding.Protct yourself at all times. Use common sense. Wear safety glasses; don't stand in front of te ove, etc HOW TO MAKE BLACKMATCH FUSE: Take a flat piece of plastic or metal (brass or aluminum are easy to wowith and won't rust). Drill a 1116th inch hole through it. This is your die for sizing the fuse. Yucn make fuses as big as you want, but this is the right size for the pipe bomb I will be getting o atr. To about 122 cup of black powder add water to make a thin paste. Add 122 teaspoon of corn sarc. Ct some one foot lengths of cotton thread. Use cotton, not silk or thread made from syntheticfibes. Pt these together until you have a thickness that fills the hole in the DIE BUT CAN BE DRAW THROGH VEY EASILY. TIE YOUR BUNDLE OF THREADS TOGETHER AT ONE END. SEPARATE THE THREADS AND HOLD HE BUNLE OVE THE BLACK POWDER MIXTURE. LOWER THE THREADS WITH A CIRCULAR MOTION SO THEY START CURLNG ONTOTHE MIXURE. PRESS THEM UNDER WITH THE BACK OF A TEASPOON AND CONTINUE LOWERING THEM SO THEYCOIL INT THE PASE. TAKE THE END YOU ARE HOLDING AND THREAD IT THROUGH THE DIE. PULL IT THROUGH SMOTHLY IN OE LONG MOION. TO DRY YOUR FUSE, LAY IT ON A PIECE OF ALUMINUM FOIL AND BAKE IT IN YOUR 20 DEGREE OVN OR TIE I TO A GRILL IN THE OVEN AND LET IT HANG DOWN. THE FUSE MUST BE BAKED TO MAKE I STIFF ENOUH FOR THE UES IT WILL BE PUT TO LATER. AIR DRYING WILL NOT DO THE JOB. IF YOU USED SODIM NITRATE, I WILL NOT EVN DRY COMPLETELY AT ROOM TEMPERATURE. CUT THE DRY FUSE WITH SISSORS INTO 2INCH LENGTHS ND STORE IN A AIR TIGHT CONTAINER. HANDLE THIS FUSE CAREFULLY TO AVOID BREAKING IT. YU CAN ALSO USEA FIRECRACKER USE IF YOU HAVE ANY AVAILABLE. THE FUSES CAN usually be pulled out witout breaking. T give yourself ome running time, you will be extending these fuses (blackmatch or frecracker fuse) ith sulfured wic. HOW TO MAKE SULFURED WICK: Use heavy cotton string about 188th inch in diameter. You can find some a garden supply for tieing up your tomatoes. Be sure it's cotton. You can test it by lighting one ed t should continue to burn after the match is removed and when blown out will have a smoldering calonthe end. Put some sulfur in a small container like a small pie pan and melt it in the oven at 50 egres. It will melt into a transparent yellow liquid. If it starts turning brown, it is too hot Coi abot a one foot length of string into it. The melted sulfur will soak in quickly. When the sting i satuated, pull it out and tie it up to cool and harden. It can be cut to desired lengths wit sissos. 2 iches is about right. These wicks will burn slowly with a blue flame and do not blow ou easilyin a moerate wind. They will not burn through a hole in a metal pipe, but are great for extnding yor other use. They will not throw off sparks. Blackmatch generates sparks which can ignite t along is length ausing unpredictable burning rates. Now you have the basic ingredients to shake he earth lke thunder In the next installment or two, I will tell you how to put it all together todo just tha. You will ind that you have baked a very deadly pie. I have twice been accused of settng off dynamte in the wods. The explosive power of your little grey powder may exceed your expectaions, so chooe your testin ground with care. HOW TO MAKE A PIPE BOMB: Buy a section of metal water pipe 122 by 6 inches long, threaded on both en Buy two metal caps to fit. These are standard items in hardware stores. Drill a 1116th hole in th eter of the pipe. This is easy with a good drill bit. Screw a metal cap tightly on one end. Fill hepie to within 122 inch of the top with black powder. Do not pack the powder. Don't even tap the ottm o the pipe to make it settle. You want the powder loose. For maximum explosive effect, you ned dr, fie powder sitting loose in a very rigid container. Wipe off any powder that has gotten ontothe tp or hreads of the pipe. Gently screw on the second cap. Hand tighten only. Place a small piee of tpe ove the hole and go to your test site. Remove the tape and insert a two inch piece of blak matchfuse ora firecracker fuse into the hole. Place the bomb behind a large rock or tree. Using hread orstring, ightly tie a 2 inch piece of sulfured wick to the end of the fuse. Avoid letting te wick toch any obects. This might cause it to go out. Light the wick and head for cover in a diretion that eeps the rck or tree between you and the bomb at all times. Get behind cover at least 50yards away.You may notexpect such a large explosion from such a small object. Be extra cautious unil You have one this a tme or two and it gets real what you are dealing with. The pipe will be blon to pieces wich will fly hrough the air like bullets. An accident could seriously wound or kill yu. This is nota big firecracer. It is more like a hand grenade. The size of the bomb can be increaed by using a lrger pipe and cps. To make a big noise without blowing up your pipe, cap one end ony. Drill a 1116 ole at the top o the threads at the capped end. Put in about 3 to 4 rounded teasponsful of powder. ack about 2 inche of wadding on top of the powder. Toilet paper or facial tissue s good for this. Pck it tight. Open p a safety pin and stick it into the hole. Work it around to losen up the powder o a fuse can be insrted. When this goes off, the recoil will be tremendous. Youwill loose your pipeunless you brace it ecurely against something. The pipe can be reloaded and usd again. A fun trick s to mount the pipe pinting upward. Drop a tin can over the open end and ligh the fuse. The can wil be blown high into th air. Campbell's soup cans are great for this. HOW TO MAKE ROCKET FUEL: This is easy to make and fun to play with. Mix equal parts by volume Potass or Sodium Nitrate and granulated sugar. Pour a big spoonful of this into a pile. Stick a piece ofbakmatch fuse into it; light; and step back. This is also a very hot incendiary. A little imaginatonwil suggest a lot of experiments for this. ANOTHER ROCKET FUEL: Mix equal parts by volume of zinc dust and sulfur. Watch out if you experiment h this. It goes off in a sudden flash. It is not a powerful explosive, but is violent stuff even we ot confined because of its fast burning rate. As I continue from this point some of the ingredients are going to be harder to get without going thgh a chemical supply. I try to avoid this. I happen to know that B. Prieser Scientific (local to m ra) has been instructed by the police to send them the names of anyone buying chemicals in certai cmbnations. For example, if a person were to buy Sulfuric acid, Nitric acid and Toluene (the makigs or NT) in one order the police would be notified. I will do the best I can to tell you how to mke te thngs you need from commonly available materials, but I don't want to leave out something relly god beause you might have to scrounge for an ingredient. I am guessing you would prefer it tha way. HOW TO MAKE AN EXPLOSIVE FROM COMMON MATCHES: The word "safety" in safety matches is misleading. Theemical on the heads of safety matches is a powerful explosive. It is similar to black powder but hsalower ignition temperature (more sensitive to heat) and unlike black powder is easily detonated y mpct. This feature moves it up into the high explosives class. To test this, lay a paper safety atc on~a hard flat surface and hit the head sharply with a hammer. What do you know! It goes bang!To cllec a quantity of this explosive, it is best to use wooden safety matches. Buy several carton. The're ceap. Note that these should be safety matches, not the strike anywhere kind. Pinch the had nea the bttom with a pair of wire cutters to break it up; then use the edges of the cutters to crape of the lose material. It gets easy with practice. You can do this while watching TV and collct enoug for a bmb without dying of boredom. Once you have a good batch of it, you can load it int a pipe istead of lack powder. Be careful not to get any in the threads, and wipe off any that get on the en of the pie. Never try to use this stuff for rocket fuel. A science teacher was killed tat way. Jus for fun whle I'm on the subject of matches, did you know that you can strike a safety atch on a widow pane? Hod a paper match between your thumb and first finger. With your second fingr, press the ead firmly aginst a large window. Very quickly, rub the match down the pane about 2 fet while maintining the presure. The friction will generate enough heat to light the match. Anothe fun trick is te match rocket.Tightly wrap the top half of a paper match with foil. Set it in the op of a pop botte at a 45 degreeangle. Hold a lighted match under the head until it ignites. If yo got it right, th match will zip u and hit the ceiling. I just remembered the match guns I used tomake when I was a id. These are madefrom a bicycle spoke. At one end of the spoke is a piece that crews off. Take it ff and screw it on ackwards. You now have a piece of stiff wire with a small holow tube on one end.Pack the material frm a couple of wooden safety matches into the tube. Force te stem of a match int the hole. It should it very tightly. Hold a lighted match under the tube untl it gets hot enough t ignite the powder. Itgoes off with a bang. --- For later projects, like a cemical time delay fuse,you will need some concntrated sulfuric acid. So, I better tell you how to ake it. HOW TO MAKE CONCENTRATED SULFURIC ACID FROM BATTERY ACID: Go to an auto supply store and ask for "a ll battery acid". This should only cost a few dollars (about 4 dollars). What you will get is abou allon of dilute sulfuric acid. Put a pint of this into a heat resistant glass container. The glas ithers used for making coffee are perfect. Do not use a metal container. Use an extension cord t se upa hotplate out doors. Boil the acid until white fumes appear. As soon as you see the white fmes,turnoff the hot plate and let the acid cool. Pour the now concentrated acid into a glass contaner. he cotainer must have a glass stopper or plastic cap -- no metal. It must be air tight. Otherise, te acidwill quickly absorb moisture from the air and become diluted. Want to know how to makea time omb tha doesn't tick and has no wires or batteries? Hold on to your acid and follow me intothe nextinstallmnt. HOW TO MAKE A CHEMICAL TIME DELAY FUSE: To get an understanding of how this is going to work, mix upual parts by volume Potassium chlorate and granulated sugar. Pour a spoonful of the mixture in a salpile and make a depression in the top with the end of a spoon. Using a medicine dropper, place oe ro of concentrated sulfuric acid in the depression and step back. It will snap and crackle a fewtims ad then burst into vigorous flames. To make the fuse, cut about 2 inches off a plastic drinkig staw. amp a small piece of cotton in one end. On top of this put about an inch of the chloratessgar mxture Now lightly tamp in about a quarter inch of either glass wool or asbestos fibers. Secur this ith th open end up and drop in 3 or 4 drops of sulfuric acid. After a few minutes the acid wll soakthroughthe fibers and ignite the mixture. The time delay can be controlled by the amount offiber usd and byvarying how tightly it is packed. Don't use cotton for this. The acid will react wth cottonand becom weakened in the process. By punching a hole in the side of the straw, a piece o blackmatc or other use can be inserted and used to set off the device of your choice. Potassium clorate was ery popularwith the radical underground. It can be used to make a wide variety of exploives and incndiaries, soe of them extremely dangerous to handle. The radicals lost several people hat way. But,don't worry. am not going to try to protect you from yourself. I have decided to tel all. I will hve more to sayabout Potassium chlorate, but for now, let's look at a couple of intersting electric uses. HOW TO MAKE AN ELECTRIC FUSE: Take a flashlight bulb and place it glass tip down on a file. Grind itwn on the file until there is a hole in the end. Solder one wire to the case of the bulb and anothrt the center conductor at the end. Fill the bulb with black powder or powdered match head. One ortw fashlight batteries will heat the filament in the bulb causing the powder to ignite. ANOTHER ELECTRIC FUSE: Take a medium grade of steel wool and pull a strand out of it. Attach it to tends of two pieces of copper wire by wrapping it around a few turns and then pinch on a small piec fsolder to bind the strand to the wire. You want about 122 inch of steel strand between the wires Nmbr 18 or 20 is a good size wire to use. Cut a 122 by 1 inch piece of cardboard of the type usedin atc covers. Place a small pile of powdered match head in the center and press it flat. place th wirs sothe steel strand is on top of and in contact with the powder. Sprinkle on more powder to cver te strnd. The strand should be surrounded with powder and not touching anything else except th wiresat itsends. Place a piece of blackmatch in contact with the powder. Now put a piece of maskig tape n top o the lot, and fold it under on the two ends. Press it down so it sticks all around te powder The wirs are sticking out on one side and the blackmatch on the other. A single flashligh battery ill set tis off. ELECTRIC FUSE # 3: An excellent electric fuse can be bought ready made at hobby and toy stores. Theye sold for setting off model rockets. MORE SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION: Some of the ingredients for these can only be had from a chemical supplo they are not my favorites. Look for powdered aluminum at a good painting supply. METHOD # 1: Scatter out a few crystals of chromic anhydride. Drop on a little ethyl alcohol. It willrst into flame immediately. METHOD # 2: Mix by weight, four parts ammonium chloride, one part ammonium nitrate, four0parts powerzinc. Pour out a small pile of this and make a depression on top. Put one or two drops of water intedepression. Stay well back from this. METHOD # 3: Put one gram of powdered potassium permanganate into a paper cup. Drop two drops of glycn onto it. After a few seconds it will burst into flames. METHOD # 4: Spoon out a small pile of powdered aluminum. Place a small amount of sodium peroxide on of this. A volume the size of a small pea is about right. One drop of water will cause this to igiein a blinding flare. METHOD # 5: Mix by volume 3 parts concentrated sulfuric acid with 2 parts concentrated nitric acid. d a dropper of turpentine about 2 feet above the mixture. When drops strike the acid they will burtito flame. HOW TO MAKE NITROGEN TRIIODIDE: Here are some notes I took four years ago on how to make this wild eosive that can be detonated by a fly walking on it. Five grams iodine, three grams potassium iodid,2 ml. concentrated ammonium hydroxide, filter paper, funnel. Stir the potassium iodide and iodinetoeter in a beaker with 50 ml. of water. Add the ammonium hydroxide with stirring until no more prciptat forms. Filter and spread a thin layer of the wet solid on several filter papers. Break the ilte paprs into many small pieces and allow to dry for several hours. On drying, the paper is extrmely ensitve to touch and will explode violently with the slightest disturbance. Can be handled saely whn wet.Do not let any sizeable quantity of the dry material accumulate. --- I was able to buyconcentated amonium hydroxide from a photographic supply. HOW TO MAKE UREA NITRATE: Would you be offended if I asked you to go pee in a pot? Actually, this ise first step to making a powerful explosive called urea nitrate. Boil 10 cups of urine in a heat rssant glass container until the volume is reduced to 1 cup. Filter the urine into a second glass cntinr through a coffee filter. Slowly add 133 cup of nitric acid to the filtered urine and let themixurestand for 1 hour. Filter again as before. This time the urea nitrate crystals will collect o thefiltr. Wash the crystals by pouring water over them. Remove the crystals from the filter and alow t dry or 16 hours. This explosive has the disadvantage of requiring a blasting cap to detonateit, bu I coudn't resist telling you about it. ************************** The following message was an answer to a question from a user who knew the ingredients for nitrycerin, but needed to know how much of each chemical to use: For information only. *** By weight, one part of glycerin is nitrated with 6 parts of mixed aciThe acid mixture is 40% Nitric and 60% Sulfuric. The Sulfuric acid is slowly added to the Nitric ai ith constant stiring. Never mix them the other way round. Each part of glycerin will yield 2.3 prt o nitroglycerin. The temperature when adding the glycerin to the acids should never go above 25degeescentigrade. If it does or if red fumes appear, the whole mess should be dumped into cold watr fat. D not take this as an encouragement to make nitroglycerin. You specifically asked me for th infomatio and I have given it to you. What you do with it is your responsibility. Because of its extreme popularity, this chapter would not be complete without a discussion of tmite. And so, by poplular demand, I present to you straight from the computer underground for a liie engagement: HOW TO MAKE THERMITE Thermite is made from powdered aluminum and iron oxide (rust). Mix two parts by volume powdereduminum with three parts iron oxide. This stuff is hard to lite, but once you get it going, it geneae so much heat it can burn its way through a steel plate. There are several ways to get it going. One way is to use a strip of magnesium ribbon as a fusef made from finely powdered ingredients thermite can generate a fast enough burning rate to be use san explosive when confined. For melting metel, it is best to use a coarse mixture about the consstnc of ground coffee. Powdered aluminum can be bought at some paint stores or from a chemical supply. You can make yoown iron oxide by burning steel wool in a stove pipe or similar container. Get it started with a poae torch and then blow a stream of air over it with a vacuum cleaner hooked up in reverse. X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X Another file downloaded from: NIRVANAnet(tm) & the Temple of the Screaming Electron Jeff Hunter 510-935-5845 The Salted Slug Strange 408-454-9368 Burn This Flag Zardoz 408-363-9766 realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 510-527-1662 Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 415-583-4102 Tomorrow's 0rder of Magnitude Finger_Man 415-961-9315 My Dog Bit Jesus Suzanne D'Fault 510-658-8078 New Dork Sublime Demented Pimiento 415-566-0126 Specializing in conversations, obscure information, high explosives, arcane knowledge, political extremism, diverse sexuality, insane speculation, and wild rumours. ALL-TEXT BBS SYSTEMS. Full access for first-time callers. We don't want to know who you are, where you live, or what your phone number is. We are not Big Brother. 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