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When I was in college in Toronto in 1961 there was a surplus store. All manner of WW2 radios etc. I looked at one pile and it was about 15 rolls of primacord. T
by aurizon 4y ago
When I was in college in Toronto in 1961 there was a surplus store. All manner of WW2 radios etc. I looked at one pile and it was about 15 rolls of primacord. This was a long 5/16 hollow tube of vinyl filled with pure TNT. It resembled rope = rope pile/ $3/roll of 100 feet. 2/$5. I knew what it was, so bought it all. it being worth $25-30/roll/
I was an Engineering stoont and Russia had just set of their Czar bomba. We engineers had a group called the BFC(Brute Force Committee), so we had to have a bomb for Skule Nite. In the quad we set off about a quarter pound of this prima cord with a lighted fuse detonator. We paced off a 100 meter circle for crowd control and Mr Riggs set it off. Prima cord has a hugely fast rate of propagation of the detonation wave, so we heard an intense CRACK, not a boom with a few tens of milliseconds, but a true faster than sound detonation wave. No harm was done as had just set of the Skule cannon which alerted people to cover their ears.
I explored these rolls with playing with the Monroe effect, A nice shapely rabbit hole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge
I stamped initials in steel beams etc. Hardest thing was getting detonators = well controlled. Never tried to make a tank buster.
- jacquesm 4y agoActive surplus?
- aurizon 4y agoHercules Sales = sold Surplus on Yonge at Wellesley. The strip around there had Electro Sonic, Radio Trade Supply, Paramount Equipment and 2-3 small surplus and parts sellers. When transistor came along, radios never broke, TV's never broke and the parts and surplus ecosystem went away. Efrem Kohn came from Israel in the mid 60's and his Uncle Frank and Peter Eben who owned Active Machinery gave Efrem(Freddie) one of their store fronts = Active Surplus. He carried on until Queen W got gentrified and electronics from Taiwan and later China totally swamped Canadian electronics = all died off = no more surplus. The surface mount assembly also made parts salvage by hobbyists a waste for most people. Now there are only Creatron and one other place on College. I had 7 stores in 1985, closed the last in 2002. I was Parts Galore, a few remember me at trade shows, but I went into mining in 1995 and sold my company in 2018 and retired.
- jacquesm 4y agoSuper interesting, thank you for the backstory. I lived in Toronto from 1998 to 2003 and spent quite a bit time roaming around the dustier parts of AS. Fond memories!
- aurizon 4y agoYes, thanks. The Toronto surplus area was minuscule compared to Canal STreet in New York city in the 50's and low 60's. You might find some rabbit holes on google of the old days?.
- aurizon 4y agoRabbit holes for NY and Radio Row https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/the-history-of-radio-row-nycs-first-electronics-district https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/the-history-of-radi... https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/29/garden/shopping-canal-st-new-york-s-attic.html https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/29/garden/shopping-canal-st-...