William Gurstelle: How to make a smoke bomb
My friend William Gurstelle is a frequent contributor to MAKE. He's one of the best all-around DIYers I know, has an intense curiosity about everything, and is really fun to hang out with. You can get a taste of this human dynamo by picking up his new DVD, Barrage Garage, which is full of explosively fun projects. Here's an excerpt that shows how to make a smoke bomb.
Best-selling author William Gurstelle (Backyard Ballistics and MAKE Magazine contributing editor) blends science, humor and the Barrage Garage Gals into an explosive new instructional DVD. It's MythBusters meets Baywatch. It's the hobbyist's ultimate video guide to all things that go boom. Bill shares the origin, historical significance and simple step-by-step instructions for safely creating high-voltage experiments including the Night Lighter 36 Taser-Powered Potato Cannon, Smoke Bombs, a Jam Jar Jet engine, and the world famous Mentos Fountain. Then he turns it over to the Barrage Garage Gals to help do some field testing and high-test high-jinks ensue. Dale Dougherty, Publisher of MAKE Magazine raves, "Bill Gurstelle's enthusiasm and knowledge come through on Barrage Garage. Bill makes you want to build something to amaze your family and friends. It's like magic, only there are no tricks involved."BarrageGarage
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I almost burned my (parents) house down making this stuff as a kid.. took forever to clear the smoke.
No need to cook the concoction unless you want to mold it into something artsy!! just put it in a soda can and light it..
Warning--the stuff burns super hot and will melt the aluminum can.
I did the same damn thing as lowflyer.
This is not a smoke bomb, it's an incendiary device that happens to create a lot of smoke.
Shantanu, I'm on your tail, sucker.
Yeah, I'd just like to reiterate what Lowflyer and BTB said. Incendiary device is a much more accurate name.
Tried cooking it in a soup can once around the age of 13. It started off accidentally on the stove, ended up on the floor, then proceeded to burn a nice big hole in the linoleum.
Ah, the memories ;)
Ah yes, sugar and potassium nitrate. My cousin and I made a couple batches of this stuff back in the seventies.
The first batch went flawlessly. The second ignited on the stove, set fire to his parents' kitchen, and filled it with smoke.
Insurance covered the damage, which was not trivial, but we had to cough up the deductible. Fond memories indeed.
Most people call them smoke bombs and incendiary smoke device isn't as fun sounding as smoke bomb.
I made this recipe in my friend's kitchen when I was 12. We burned down the kitchen when it ignited accidentally.
Well done Mr. Gurstelle, or should I say GORDON FREEMAN! A little recipe he concocted back at the Black Mesa facility no doubt...
WARNING! Smoke bomb may attract superfluous scantily clad women!
Caramelizing sugar is always a touchy business, especially toward the end.
This takes me back too.
I didn't burn down any kitchens though. Do they really work that much better if you melt the stuff together? I just sifted together icing sugar and saltpetre and packed it into an aluminum can or a TP roll.
we enjoyed thermite
KnO3 and sugar? funny that they say mythbusters, since mythbusters 'busted' the sugar and ptoassium nitrate 'myth'
morons
ive done it several time myself- in my personal experience, completely dried but just wet-mixed bombs smoke almost as good as cooked ones
Please don't do this indoors! As many have said you don't need to melt the sugar and Potassium Nitrate together. Just gently mix very finely powdered chems.
Also do not try Potassium Chlorate and Sugar as it can go off with scratch of a fingernail and cannot be heated at all.
++ on the thermite! how'd you ignite it? I pilfered magnesium ribbon from a lab stock room.
Wow. He brings so much enthusiasm to the table that I want to make a smoke bomb right now.
Loved the stories so far and this brings back some good memories: A friend and I decided to mix up a batch and introduce it into a prairie field paintball match, unbeknownst to the rest of the players. I carried the bomb, while the friend carried a concrete cinder block in the hopes of using it as a lighting pad to avoid razing the entire field. The thing lit without a hitch, but instead of a heavy smoke which stuck low to the ground, which we hoped to use for concealment, the thing shot upwards and was more akin to a homing beacon than cover. While it was a neat surprise, all it really got us was a few well placed welts. Any idea on making the smoke "denser", hugging the ground a bit more?
oh crap, see what you made me do? I just got myself 10KG potassium nitrate bag online.
Good memories of me and my friend making little flying saucers out of bottle caps. I wonder what can I blow up with 10KG of this stuff.
The question is.. how do you make COLORED smoke bombs
FYI The 60/40 mix works perfectly, I've done it several times
it's nice to see i wasn't the only dumb-ass kid to try this stunt -- in high school a buddy of mine and i tried this. we were cooking it in a measuring cup over an open flame, and of course it went off. my buddy was running for the back door with it when he dropped it face-down on the brand new carpet. mom failed to see the humor of the situation.
We used to make much safer smoke bombs, thusly:
Take a ping pong ball or two, cut into small pieces, place in a tin-foil cone, open at the top.. light.
Smokey! (no boomy, mad heat though).
For boomy mad heat and sparks, we'd buy a couple of packs of hand-held sparklers, scrape all the crusty stuff off the wire. Next, get a miniature Humbrol paint tin, make a hole in the bottom (just large enough to fit one of the unscraped sparklers for a fuse). Insert the sparkler into the hole, then flip it over (holding the fuse in place) fill the tin with the collected powder, cap tightly, bury up to the fuse.. light!
Whooosh! Huge sparkler fountain, at MAD heat. the little tin will be almostg see-through it's glowing so hot at the end.
Woo, may have to dig the shit out and have another go :)
When I was a kid, we used to make smoke bombs out of those old Ohio Blue Tip "Strike Anywhere" matches. Cut all the match heads off, wrap them up tightly with tin foil, then wrap the foil ball up with masking tape. The added bonus with these is that you didn't have to light them, just throw the ball on the ground really hard and the match heads would strike off of each other to ignite the whole thing...
He's like a cross between Gordon Freeman and Rolf Harris.
FYI, to make denser smoke, add 2 parts ammonium chloride. Doesn't make the mix any less incendiary, but will provide great gouts of smoke.
I made the mistake of buying this DVD from Amazon. Watch on the web or suffer the several minutes of lawyer advisory garbage that you cannot skip or ffwd through. Painful. Really, really, really painful.