If you have posted questions about bomb-making to rec.pyrotechnics, you have probably not gotten the answer that you hoped for. Sometimes you get no response at all. Sometimes you get a bunch of nasty replies saying that you are stupid or a criminal. Sometimes you get bogus advice; people are laughing at you behind your back.

If you have the patience to read this all the way through, I will tell you why you get such replies. I will also tell you what you can do to get the people who have the real information to help you out with your little projects.

First, let's examine why you want this information. There are billions of possibilities, but just a few really strong motivations:

• Revenge - Somebody did something to you and you need to pay them back.
• Status - You are more cool than anybody else because you have the power.
• Pranks - Some people just beg to have tricks played on them, even if they don't to anything to deserve it.
• Fun - Making something go "boom" is fun; made a little more exciting by the possibility of danger.

Frankly, I understand the last motivation the best, because I think that it is a universal human trait. Ever since cave men discovered fire, there has been a romance between humans and energy. Sometimes we do good things with it, like use gamma rays to burn up brain tumors; sometimes we do bad things with it, like blow up cities. But no matter what we do with energy, I believe that the love of fire is programmed into us.

Now, you have to learn a little about the people who treat you like slime. For starters, most of them were once just like you. They occasionally ran into people who needed payback; they liked the status that you get by doing what nobody else can; they were playful enough to enjoy pranks; they liked making smoke and noise.

More than feeling what you feel, they often did what you are trying to do. I think that at least a quarter of the boys in this country have tried making black powder. I suppose that as many as one in ten has tried to make something out of match heads. I played around with yellow phosphorus and thermite before I got to high school. I survived. So did the rest of the folks in rec.pyrotechnics who have learned by experience. The ones who didn't survive no longer post to rec.pyrotechnics.

So why aren't the "experts" helpful to the "teenie bombers"?

Here, too, there are a lot of reasons. High on the list is the acknowledgement that what we did when we were young was stupid: we survived and don't want you to risk not surviving. Another important reason is that what many of you propose can hurt other people: if you blow a couple of fingers off playing with Armstrong's Mixture, you are stupid; if you kill your sister in the process, you are evil. Most of the people who know what they are doing prefer not to promote evil. Additionally, many of the proposed teenie bomber projects are illegal and most of those who have grown up to become authorities do not feel compelled to help you break the law. Lastly, some of the posted questions are just plain lazy, and that's not an attribute that will get you any respect around here. After all, the people with the answers got them through research, reading, experimentation and practice. They get really ticked off when they read yet another post asking about where you can get potassium nitrate. You can expect to be treated like some lower form of life.

What do you think makes you better than an animal, anyway? A gorilla is stronger; a cheetah runs faster; mosquitoes are more prolific; peacocks are more beautiful! The thing that makes you different is that you have quite a better brain. When somebody posts a very basic question, they are advertising that they prefer not to use their brain. The message is "Hi, I am an unintelligent animal. Feed me, take care of me, and show me how to blow you up!" I doubt that you want to convey that message to people who have bothered to exercise their gray muscle on the chemistry and physics of energetic materials, and learn the art of fire. Especially since whenever a barbarian does something stupid with a bomb, the law clamps down on everybody, including those who merely enjoy fire in the sky and a good report.

So, what's the solution? Well, it has to come from two places: the teenie bombers and the experts.

The teenie bombers need to be less lazy and more intelligent. Don't ask simple questions; look them up and do some reading [start with the FAQ]. Post intelligent questions and you will get intelligent answers. Reading does not necessary entail the expense of buying tons of books. Visit the library, find out what they have, check it out, read it thoroughly, copy the parts that seem useful into your notebook.

You should also steer away from the violent and damaging stuff to things that are safer, with good effects. Take a look at these this recent posting:

> Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996
> I'm looking for a simple bomb, rocket, etc. That is easy to make
> with common chemicals, and potent. I don't want to go to some High
> tech Chemical plant to get some exotic stuff. If you know of
> anything that is simple to make and will go BOOM!!! ...

"potent" means "do a lot of damage"; "simple to make" means "I am lazy"; "common chemicals" means "I am cheap, lazy, and gutless". Most of the experts will write this guy off as some kind of social misfit who wants to do something bad. Don't expect any meaningful answers!

This one is a little different:

> Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996
> Does any one know of an easy to make bomb out of chemicals that can
> be obtained rather easily, that will produce a satisfying thump, but
> not enough to really blow something up..  (informational purposes
> only)

"informational purposes only" is crap; "easy to make" once again means "I am lazy"; "obtained rather easily" is another term for "I am cheap, lazy, and gutless". BUT "satisfying thump" does not mean that he wants to hurt somebody; it could just mean that this fellow just wants fire and noise. Hell, we all want that, or we wouldn't be hanging around in rec.pyrotechnics!

In my opinion, the first posting deserves some ridicule. The second deserves a straight answer. What he got instead was a reply screaming in horror and another telling him how to pop a paper bag.

That brings me back to the second change: the experts need to cut the teenie bombers some slack when a reasonable question comes in. Here's why: if you don't accommodate reasonable questions that have acceptable goals, the guy with the questions will give up and do something unsafe of stupid.

A couple of months ago, there was a positive example of this. A poster asked about stuffing flammable things into a CO2 cartridge. He was flamed by other posters because of the danger involved. Somebody else defended the original poster, saying that only a metal case could give the confinement necessary for a strong noise. That triggered another avalanche of flames indicating that paper and cardboard are safer, more effective, but require a bit of effort.

That exchange eventually headed in the right direction, but it would have been more productive if it started out on the right foot in the first place. Like this:

  Question - I just want to make a loud noise.  I have heard about some
             people who use metal casings, but I thought about little
             bits of metal flying all over the place and it sounds
             dangerous.  How can I make a strong container that will
             present less shrapnel danger?
  Answer - You are right about the shrapnel.  Several years ago, one of
             my friends got his left hand badly sliced up.  Since then,
             I use nothing but paper and glue.  Newspaper is cheap or
             free, but if you look around....

Be aware that if you still want to make something dangerous, just phrasing your question differently will not get you the information that you crave. If you ask for pipe bomb information, you will get little meaningful response. If you ask for just a big noise, you might get more meaningful responses, but not anything that will help you build a pipe bomb.

That means that you must reconsider not your original motives, but the route that you propose taking to satisfying them. Let's say, for example that you wanted to get a little more respect from the guys at school. You could try it by blowing the windows out of the chem lab fiddling around with bombs, or you could get the science teacher to let you make a nice ammonium dichromate volcano. You can probably get him to take the whole class outside for ten minutes to watch it set off in the parking lot. I think that the latter can get you at least as much respect, while being quite a bit safer.

Your comments, posted or via E-mail, are welcome.

- Dennis Griesser