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It was about 1955 and one of the guys, (it could have been me) saw a program on TV that told how to make gunpowder. Actually, it only told what the ingredients were, Potassium Nitrate, Charcoal and Sulfur. We put our heads together and decided to try to make some for ourselves. "Humm! I wonder if we can buy any of this stuff?"
We were pretty devious little kids, and decided it might not be cool to try and buy all of the stuff at one place. Someone might figure out what we were up to. We made the rounds of drug stores we knew of. At the first stop, we asked about Potassium Nitrate. No problem! We procured a big jar of it for a few bucks. Next on the list was Sulfur.....again, not a problem. Sulfur is used for a lot of things. The last item turned out to be a bit of a problem. No one had powdered charcoal. Finally, one store showed us a jar of huge charcoal tablets. "All we have are these tablets, sometimes farmers give them to livestock. maybe you could crush them up somehow." Good grief! They were about the size of a quarter. Well, we were desperate, so we got some.
A trip to the local library netted us the correct mixing proportions, and we went to work.
The Potassium and Sulfur was already pretty much powder, but what to do with the charcoal tablets? We tried stepping on them, but they were really tough. We tried hitting them with a hammer, they shattered and pieces went everywhere, but the pieces were still too large to use.
Finally, in desperation, we put some in water. Surely, they must dissolve in the stomachs of animals, like a pill. Sure enough, they did just that. This led to another problem. They dissolved in water, however, when they dried out again, they were still hard.
We ended up dissolving the quantity we needed in water, and then added the rest of the ingredients. It came out pretty smooth, but, now we had wet gunpowder!
How about we set it in the sun to dry? Sounds good, but, three hours later, the stuff is still wet! Sheesh! What we need is more heat! Ahah! Momma's frying pan, and a burner on the electric stove turned on low. As it turned out, the mix was a darker color wet than dry, so we found that if we watched really close for it to turn a lighter color, it was done, and crumbled up pretty good into powder.
Well now, what good is gunpowder without something to use it in....like a cannon maybe? One of us scavenged through dad's stuff and came up with a short piece of gas pipe. We made a trip to the hardware and got a cap for the end of it. With a sharp drill, we soon had a fuse hole, and one of the boys had some fuse wire left over from another project. We were set!
We put a piece of fuse wire through the hole, poured in a charge of powder, put some wadded up newspaper on top of that and we were ready to go. We found a piece of two by four board to lay the pipe cannon on, and lit the fuse. Hisssss........POW!! Wow! A pretty impressive bang, lots of smoke, and pieces of burning newspaper showered the sidewalk!
Well, now, over the next several days we set off our cannon at least twice a day. After about the 2nd or third firing, we had the charge amount down pat. Finally, we were just about out of powder, and we had just enough fuse left for one more firing.
Actually, we had more than enough powder for another firing, but we figured what the heck, and poured it all down the pipe. Again on top of that we put some wadded newspaper, really tightly packed, and then, we looked around for something to use for a projectile. Until now, we had just been content with the noise and burning paper that flew out the end of the pipe. If this was our last firing, it needed to be something special.
One of the guys found a small round pebble that would just fit down the pipe, and on top of that went another piece of wadding. We were ready to go. It was my turn to light it, so, we put it on the board, and I lite the fuse. In my haste to get away, my foot hit the board and the cannon rolled off across the sidewalk. "Oh S**t!!"
We knew, because of the amount of powder we put in it, that it would probably be loud. We had no idea! As the pipe rolled across the sidewalk, it went something like this......Hisssssss..........KABLAMMMMMMMM!!!!!!
It was so loud it shook windows for a block around. People all up and down the street came out to see what had blown up. We tried to look surprised like everyone else, but the big cloud of smoke surrounding us was a dead giveaway. We decided it might be a good thing to leave the area for awhile. After about a half hour, and the police hadn't shown up, we decided it was safe to go back. The pipe hadn't exploded, (lucky for us), but when it went off, it was aimed right at our landlady's car, which now had a very deep dent in the door.She was, it turned out, upstairs taking a nap, and slept through the whole thing. I'm sure she must have noticed the dent, but, we never heard anything about it.
That's what happens when kids make homemade gunpowder.