Thermite

Thermite, is not exactly an "explosive" persay, it is more of an extremely exothermic burn. However, for its ease of manufacture and extremely interesting effects, it has been included as a "low explosive."

A few interesting ideas have been thought up for thermite, a few have been carried out. Thermite was used in the olden days as the method of joining train tracks. It was easily applied and extremely safe. We have carried out burning thermite on a sandy beach, which resulted in a glassy crater (thermite is hot enough to fuse glass). We have also vaporized chunks of pavement the first few times we carried this out, so be careful! Please note that thermite ignition and burning is bright enough to permenantly damage your retina. To actually see the flame, a blast helmet with dark polarized lenses should be used. Otherwise...turn around and watch the surroundings get brighter. To give you a perception of how bright this is, when we burned this on the side of a lake at night, the entire dock area looked as if it were daylight.

Materials

Aluminum Powder

Easily obtained from the store, grinding up soda cans, the inside of Etch-a-Sketches, or Ebay.

Iron Oxide (Rust)

Also easily obtained using steel wool and a battery. You can simply touch the battery to the steel wool and ignite it, or drop steel wool into a vinegar/bleach solution and wait overnight.

Procedure

1. Obtain finely ground rust and aluminum using any method. Aluminum can and will oxidize in air, so if possible, place in an air tight container soon after creation. Reactivity will increase as these two chemicals get progressively more powdery/fine.
2. Mix 77 grams of rust with 23 grams of powdered aluminum. Amounts can be changed depending on how much thermite is to be made, but ratios should be kept as close as possible.
3. Light using a magnesium strip, oxy-acetelene torch, or sparklers.
   • Note: the torch method can blow the fine powder and form a dust suspension, resulting in explosion. Not a good method.
   • Sparklers should be handled with great care since they give off sparks that can possibly set off the fire. Best procedure if you must use sparklers is to handle them remotely using grapplers and dropping the sparklers unlit end first.
   • Magnesium strip ignition is safest, but unreliable. Still the best choice.