7 ms·

Assuming you did this in the past 30 years, it’s doubly worrisome that you got this blessed, because the book is absolutely notorious for being dangerously inac

Assuming you did this in the past 30 years, it’s doubly worrisome that you got this blessed, because the book is absolutely notorious for being dangerously inaccurate. Supposedly the “The Terrorist Handbook” series of filez from Usenet corrected the errors, but I’m not a chemist, so I can’t judge either’s reputation.

sb8244 4y ago
We did not say that we got the idea / recipe from this book of course. We actually got the idea from our previous chem teacher who retired the year before. (Meaning first year for the new teacher.) This was in 2010.
- DavidPeiffer 4y ago
  In ~2006 a group in my brother's AP Chemistry class got permission to make thetmite for their class project. Set it off in a fume hood which I believe was already scheduled to be replaced that summer. In 2010 my AP Physics teacher gave us all really long leashes in terms of how much we could. One fellow made what equated to a water bottle capacitor, charged on a Van de Graff generator. After playing with it for a few days, trying to get the practicum teacher to touch it, and various other shenanigans, he felt a shock across his chest and was writhing in pain on the ground for a few minutes. We all lost Van de Graff privileges after that. Somehow that happened in 2010-2011 and there wasn't really concern to call for medical supervision. He's still doing great today thankfully.
WalterBright 4y ago
> the book is absolutely notorious for being dangerously inaccurate I always wondered if that was propaganda in order to discourage people from trying things out in it. I've also wondered if the corrections were also propaganda in a malicious way. I wouldn't touch any of that stuff without being a trained chemist. A friend of a friend blew his guts out with a homemade pipe bomb. My friend had the dubious pleasure of driving him to the hospital with him bleeding out all over the car.
- KMag 4y ago
  A few years ahead of me in high school, the wrestling team had a one-handed wrestler. A friend of mine on the wrestling team told me it was because the guy was helping a guy make a pipe bomb, using a hammer and a wooden dowel to pack match heads in a pipe. One guy was holding the pipe, and the other was swinging the hammer.
  - phkahler 4y ago
    That seems unlikely to explode and more likely to push the dowel and hammer back while creating a fountain. But I guess it might explode.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      I can hardly think of a more certain way to get matchheads to explode. The guy's lucky he only lost a hand.
      - diydsp 4y ago
        it depends if they're strike anywhere or safety matches. making them with strike anywhere will probably just blow up while you're making it. safety matches can be compressed like crazy, I heard.
        KMag 4y ago
        Supposedly a wild strike caused the steel hammer to strike the steel pipe and spark, and there was a narrow flammable channel next to the dowel leading to the main charge.
        yetihehe 4y ago
        They can be compressed like crazy, but that sensitivises them for strikes. My father told me about this method - get some match heads into a nut, screw it tightly with two screws, tie a string and use that string to accelerate into some hard object. Luckily, no one got hit by exploding screws.
philwelch 4y ago
The reliable counterpart to the Anarchist Cookbook is TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook, which is also freely available without copyright by virtue of being an unclassified US Army technical manual subject to FOIA.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  The IMH contains a whole host of instructions that may lead to loss of digits. Its kind of a "safety third" document for really shitty situations, lol.
  - philwelch 4y ago
    Is there a safer way to make IED’s? I would assume that guerrilla warfare is inherently a “safety third” type of situation anyway.
    - nibbleshifter 4y ago
      There are relatively safer ways to achieve the same objectives. A lot of the safer ways to do things are also a lot more efficient. Safety is quite relative when it comes to anything that explodes.
- diydsp 4y ago
  That was a classic that got passed around our high school... My favorites were the ones that started with practically nothing. IIRC, they made gunpowder from campfire ashes, a 5 gallon bucket, and a t-shirt filter. Another one - was it rocket fuel? - was made from urine! I think you could even progress that one from urea nitrate to nitric acid, and with the improvised sulfuric acid from elsewhere in the book, make actual dynamite! but our high school teacher warned us that many high school geniuses had blown themselves up making dynamite. Anyway we actually didn't care about blowing things up, really.... we were into fireworks!!!! So we enjoyed concentrating the powder from zillions of sparklers to make an "artificial sun." We also made humungous smoke bombs that went on for a long time making the neighbors antsy.
nibbleshifter 4y ago
A lot of the Usenet/BBS files are equally ... Well, let's just say you will lose your fingers probably.
Natsu 4y ago
NI3 isn't hard to make, there are only two ingredients and I also made it in chemistry class by pouring ammonia on the crystals which we left on filter paper. The real 'trick' is not to use that much iodine crystal so you don't get a huge bang. You want to stay under 0.1g of crystal. There's precious little you can do wrong with the synthesis other than using too much iodine to make too much of it. It won't become particularly unstable until it dries a bit, but after that, yes, it may just go off on its own.

sb8244 4y ago

We did not say that we got the idea / recipe from this book of course. We actually got the idea from our previous chem teacher who retired the year before. (Meaning first year for the new teacher.) This was in 2010.

DavidPeiffer 4y ago
In ~2006 a group in my brother's AP Chemistry class got permission to make thetmite for their class project. Set it off in a fume hood which I believe was already scheduled to be replaced that summer. In 2010 my AP Physics teacher gave us all really long leashes in terms of how much we could. One fellow made what equated to a water bottle capacitor, charged on a Van de Graff generator. After playing with it for a few days, trying to get the practicum teacher to touch it, and various other shenanigans, he felt a shock across his chest and was writhing in pain on the ground for a few minutes. We all lost Van de Graff privileges after that. Somehow that happened in 2010-2011 and there wasn't really concern to call for medical supervision. He's still doing great today thankfully.

WalterBright 4y ago

> the book is absolutely notorious for being dangerously inaccurate I always wondered if that was propaganda in order to discourage people from trying things out in it. I've also wondered if the corrections were also propaganda in a malicious way. I wouldn't touch any of that stuff without being a trained chemist. A friend of a friend blew his guts out with a homemade pipe bomb. My friend had the dubious pleasure of driving him to the hospital with him bleeding out all over the car.

KMag 4y ago
A few years ahead of me in high school, the wrestling team had a one-handed wrestler. A friend of mine on the wrestling team told me it was because the guy was helping a guy make a pipe bomb, using a hammer and a wooden dowel to pack match heads in a pipe. One guy was holding the pipe, and the other was swinging the hammer.
- phkahler 4y ago
  That seems unlikely to explode and more likely to push the dowel and hammer back while creating a fountain. But I guess it might explode.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I can hardly think of a more certain way to get matchheads to explode. The guy's lucky he only lost a hand.
    - diydsp 4y ago
      it depends if they're strike anywhere or safety matches. making them with strike anywhere will probably just blow up while you're making it. safety matches can be compressed like crazy, I heard.
      - KMag 4y ago
        Supposedly a wild strike caused the steel hammer to strike the steel pipe and spark, and there was a narrow flammable channel next to the dowel leading to the main charge.
      - yetihehe 4y ago
        They can be compressed like crazy, but that sensitivises them for strikes. My father told me about this method - get some match heads into a nut, screw it tightly with two screws, tie a string and use that string to accelerate into some hard object. Luckily, no one got hit by exploding screws.

philwelch 4y ago

The reliable counterpart to the Anarchist Cookbook is TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook, which is also freely available without copyright by virtue of being an unclassified US Army technical manual subject to FOIA.

nibbleshifter 4y ago
The IMH contains a whole host of instructions that may lead to loss of digits. Its kind of a "safety third" document for really shitty situations, lol.
- philwelch 4y ago
  Is there a safer way to make IED’s? I would assume that guerrilla warfare is inherently a “safety third” type of situation anyway.
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    There are relatively safer ways to achieve the same objectives. A lot of the safer ways to do things are also a lot more efficient. Safety is quite relative when it comes to anything that explodes.
diydsp 4y ago
That was a classic that got passed around our high school... My favorites were the ones that started with practically nothing. IIRC, they made gunpowder from campfire ashes, a 5 gallon bucket, and a t-shirt filter. Another one - was it rocket fuel? - was made from urine! I think you could even progress that one from urea nitrate to nitric acid, and with the improvised sulfuric acid from elsewhere in the book, make actual dynamite! but our high school teacher warned us that many high school geniuses had blown themselves up making dynamite. Anyway we actually didn't care about blowing things up, really.... we were into fireworks!!!! So we enjoyed concentrating the powder from zillions of sparklers to make an "artificial sun." We also made humungous smoke bombs that went on for a long time making the neighbors antsy.

nibbleshifter 4y ago

A lot of the Usenet/BBS files are equally ... Well, let's just say you will lose your fingers probably.

Natsu 4y ago

NI3 isn't hard to make, there are only two ingredients and I also made it in chemistry class by pouring ammonia on the crystals which we left on filter paper. The real 'trick' is not to use that much iodine crystal so you don't get a huge bang. You want to stay under 0.1g of crystal. There's precious little you can do wrong with the synthesis other than using too much iodine to make too much of it. It won't become particularly unstable until it dries a bit, but after that, yes, it may just go off on its own.