Hello Dik!
10 Mar 96, Dik Coates writes to Scott Hoffman:
 >>>>> QUOTING Scott Hoffman to Dik Coates <<<<
 SH>> humidity, and then when it dries out, supposedly it will get
 SH>> 'compressed' and that compression supposeldy can bring it near to the
 SH>> point of spontaneous combustion..
 DC> I understand that in the process of making gunpowder, that the mixture 
s
 DC> moistened and compressed in the process... the resulting 'cake' is then
 DC> broken up and the fineness determines the burning rate...
 SH>> A while ago (last year) a house in my area blew up (well, not the
 SH>> whole house  obviously :) [typical media exxageration].. As was
 SH>> reported, the owner of the  house was believed to be heavily into
 SH>> making his own fireworks and he had very large quantities of black
 SH>> powder which were suposedly stored improperly.. According to the
 DC> When I was a 'kid' I had an old cannon ball that was filled with powder,
 DC> it burned, but it was (as I recall, more than 30-40 years ago) more
 DC> difficult to ignite... than the conventional blackpowder from
 DC> firecrackers... We didn't know, then, that cannonballs had fuses, the 
fuse
 DC> hole had been caked over with mud... and we thought that was how they 
ot
 DC> the metal out from the centre of the cannonball... 
 DC> and that we later learned that were ignited before firing... we thought
 DC> that they exploded on impact. We also tried igniting small 'pinches' by
 DC> striking them with a hammer... because we though that it ignited upon
 DC> impact... to no avail... (not a safe thing to do... but, part of the 
'kid'
 DC> learning process).
 SH>> newspaper article [which I still have hanging on my wall] what I
 SH>> described above is how the police explained it as spontaneous
 SH>> combustion.. I'm not sure if the police were telling the 'whole truth'
Regarding the spontaneous combustion. Some people formulate with potassium 
perclorate. When they add sulfur to the mixture atmospheric or added moisture 
forms minute deposits of sulfuric acid. potassium chlorate is violently 
reactive to sulfuric acid and thus spontaneous combustion when mixed with 
sulfur can occur either fatally or dibilitating.
Wayne
--- GoldED 2.40
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