pudge's Journal: Fireworks

We had two near mishaps tonight with the fireworks.

First one wasn't our fault. We got a product like this one that shoots flaming balls into the air ... supposedly. The first shot went DOWN instead of up, blowing out the bottom of the unit and tipping it on its side, where it proceeded to shoot flaming balls at homes, cars, and people. We got it upright before it hurt anyone or anything.

The other mishap was user error. Dude got some huge mortars and put the first one in the tube upside down. We all looked up, and saw nothing, then BOOM. It blew the fiberglass tube to hell, and luckily no one was closer to it than about 20 feet, but even 30 feet away you could feel the shockwave. Again, no damage to property or persons.

Well...

[FroMan]

Well, I don't exactly say to no fault of your own. Playing with fireworks more or less invites a certain amount of risk. This isn't to say that like any other red blooded American male I haven't done my own, but to recognize that one is indeed playing with fire.

Re:

[pudge]

Well, I don't exactly say to no fault of your own. Playing with fireworks more or less invites a certain amount of risk.

Yes, but that isn't what "through no fault of our own" means, it's just saying that we did not handle that product improperly in any way.

Fiberglass?

[multimed]

Mortor tubes should never be made of something like fiberglass or any other material that would break into sharp pieces and act like shrapnel if it exploded. Typically, cheaper tubes are made of cardboard, and the nicer ones of high density polyethylene. PVC is really tempting - one year we created a bunch of extra tubes with Schedule 40 (thicker than standard PVC) so we would do a lot of rapid fire & simultaneous shots. I can say conclusively that PVC will crack into sharp piece if shells blow up in

Re:

[pudge]

Mortor tubes should never be made of something like fiberglass or any other material that would break into sharp pieces and act like shrapnel if it exploded. Typically, cheaper tubes are made of cardboard, and the nicer ones of high density polyethylene.

Not entirely sure what it was, but not all fiberglass shatters. This didn't. Regardless:

PVC is really tempting - one year we created a bunch of extra tubes with Schedule 40 (thicker than standard PVC) so we would do a lot of rapid fire & simultaneous shots. I can say conclusively that PVC will crack into sharp piece if shells blow up in it.

We also learned that when we made a hockey goal out of PVC.

Just found out that the place we did the fireworks, in-laws' house, had a fire late last night. Some idiots had illegal fireworks, were using them illegally (very late at night, like 2 a.m.), and were hitting other houses and yards (which caused a fire in the yard, setting off some bark). The cops showed up, thankfully.

Re:

[multimed]

Somewhere along the way, we grew up and got more serious about things - safety & courtesy to neighbors actually became important. As I'm sure you'll infer from that, there was a time when we weren't...

When we were young and stupid, we had bottle rocket wars. At it's peak - or valley depending on your perspective - I think we went through 5000 of them in a night. In addition to launching all matter of firework at each other, it did go on very late into the night. Plastic whiffle ball bats make great

Re:

[pudge]

I was never that bad. In college we played hockey with fireworks though. We'd light up the little spinners etc., and we'd skate around in the street and hit the fireworks around, and last person to touch it before it went out got a point.