Topic: Chemistry sets

[72 yellow]

Don R's post about the 4 year old wanting tools made me think back about me receiving a chemistry set when I was about 13 years old.  Anyone else get one and what was the end result?

[cj750]

I had one at about that age. I was disappointed that I wasn't able to make explosives, or recreate the smoking vial of bubbling green liquid that was standard-issue to scientists on TV. But I did manage to stink everyone out of the house a few times.

[demon78]

Yeah it's a bummer no bang bangs no matter what combination. I think many years ago when  was 10 I got one and when my girls were that age I tried to find a chem set no luck but I did get an electronic set one loved it the other no. Oh well.
Bill the demon.

[ekpent]

I had a 'lab' in the folks basement. Loved buying test tubes, beakers and bending glass tube etc with my Bunsen burner. Loved science when I was a young'un.

[72 yellow]

I lived close to a drug store so buying chemicals was no problem.  I did manufacture some gunpowder.  The end of my experiments and chemistry set came one day in January.  A couple of my buddies and I were mixing some stuff and it caught fire.  One of them knocked a container of sulfur into the fire.  A hole was burned in mom's oak dining room table which was in the basement.  When she returned home all the windows were open and a smelly blue haze was exiting the house.  The next day dad told me get rid of the set.  I stupidly asked if I could keep part of it.  Up to this point he was calm.  He grabbed me by the shirt and we were nose to nose.  I never knew he could yell that loud.  I could nearly feel my hair blowing back, like sticking your head out the car window while driving.  I tossed it out as he watched from the kitchen window.  I decided that learning to fix cars and motorcycles was safer.

[Bailgang]

Fortunately for my wife and I our kids fascination for things that go boom didn't last long but of course that wasn't until after they thought it was a good idea to flush a lit bottle rocket down our toilet. Yeah I came home to a mess that day.

[70CB750]

Never had a chemistry set but I sure cooked some explosives and maďe quite few bombs. In todays USA I would be łocked up for life - it all happened before I finished mid school. I was talented terrorist

[fmctm1sw]

Had one as a kid.  I got to looking around a year or so ago reminiscing and I found one from the 1950s that actually had uranium in it.  this one:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_U-238_Atomic_Energy_Laboratory  Saw a few on ebay..

[faux fiddy]

Yeah it's a bummer no bang bangs no matter what combination. I think many years ago when  was 10 I got one and when my girls were that age I tried to find a chem set no luck but I did get an electronic set one loved it the other no. Oh well.
Bill the demon.

I think we crushed out own charcoal, but my kit came with sulfur and potassium nitrate. It was more of a flash than a boom.

I'll tell you sodium metal is about as fun as it gets. My older brother got some one time, a chip about pellet sized and put in in a sink full of water.  Oh yeah, open the windows that puts off hydrogen and can explode.

Then a friend of mine was doing a masters and was in with staff everywhere and he'd get some good sized pieces. We would go throw them in chuckholes full of water after it rained. Larger pieces, dime-sized cubed do make a bang.

[70CB750]

I used my mom's coffee grinder for charcoal.

And sodium metal?  We used it to scare fishermen with it, lol.  Shooting sodium metal with a slingshot to make it land 10 feet from him in the water.  Makes nice light flash at night; scares the crap ou of the fisherman.

I am glad my son is not like me