McCormick (the spice people) sold saltpeter for preserving meat. You could buy it at the local Safeway, It was cheap ! when I found this out .... Boom

Sugar could substitute for charcoal and sodiam ferrocyanate , maybe some powdered aluminum and you were off to the races.

I am lucky to be alive :-)

^^^ JohnO, 15.5 posts per year??? Pick up the pace!

Yes, we had one complete with alcohol burner if I’m recalling correctly. Don’t remember much else....

Side note: earlier this week I met with a group childhood friends in my hometown. Had a discussion about the old times of our hometown and one of the hardware stores of that time(50 + years ago). One visit my Dad spotted a can of carbide pellets (probably used for carbide headlamps?), bought it and an empty paint can.
It was around a 4th of July. And Dad showed me how they made a cannon/noise maker back in the depression. Punch a hole in the bottom of the can, drop a bit of carbide in, close the the can tightly, squirt water in through the punched hole, tape or hold your finger over the hole until the carbide and water combine to form a suitable amount of gas-acetylene, ignite via the punched hole!

I had a hand-me-down kit from my oldest brother. He got bored with it after a few years, and when he was in HS, had our mom sign what she thought was a study-hall permission slip. It was for mail-order chemicals. Some phosphorus, sodium metal, magnesium ribbon, and who knows what else. I got some of the leftover sodium and magnesium ribbon.I was always grinding up saltpeter pellets and mixing with sulphur and charcoal--made pretty good smoke bombs. Oh, and my brother ended up getting his PhD in in-organic chemistry.

#2 Son was bored out of the gate with any of these--very quickly mail-ordered high quality catalog supply and promptly burned, blued or blew-up many an experiment.
While out of town on a work trip I see a news blurb regarding a fire at the town high school Chem Lab - "Not me Dad - I swear!"

He should earn his PhD in Organic Chemistry from Cornell this summer.
Be afraid.....be very afraid.....

I had one in about 1960. It was a Gilbert.

My brother got one. Whatever we did ended up creating some major mess - I remember we tossed it out the second floor window of his bedroom because it wouldn’t stop foaming over and it was all over the siding of the house. Good times.

quote:

Originally posted by BGULL:
Dad showed me how they made a cannon/noise maker back in the depression. Punch a hole in the bottom of the can, drop a bit of carbide in, close the the can tightly, squirt water in through the punched hole, tape or hold your finger over the hole until the carbide and water combine to form a suitable amount of gas-acetylene, ignite via the punched hole!

As a kid, I had one of the 'Bangsite' powered cannons that worked on that same principle. Lots of fun.

( And they're still making them.. Note: they were NOT $100, back in the day)

Also had the Chemcraft chemistry kit shown in the OP, the then-mostly-legal fireworks available in SW MI (cherry bombs, bottle rockets, etc.) and did Estes model rockets, too. Oh, and Jarts - we really liked Jarts.

Somehow, I exited the '60s with all my appendages intact!

I had a big chemistry set down in the basement of our home. I had lots of fun, and some educational experiences.

But making gunpowder (potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal) go BANG eluded me. But I was buds with our small town pharmacist. He provided me with potassium perchlorate, an oxidizer that puts potassium nitrate to shame. Potassium perchlorate and virtually anything burnable will go BANG. Yep, joy!

I also had all of the carbide I wanted. My father owned and operated a welding and machine shop. He kept five gallon cans of carbide (calcium carbide) on hand for acetylene welding in the shop.

For acetylene welding out of the shop he used steel bottles of acetylene (actually acetylene dissolved in acetone).

quote:

Originally posted by pace40:
My first explosion came from one of these. Vinegar and baking soda in a test tube, cover, shake, boom. My chemistry set was taken away after we got back from the doc's.

I had the set with the little white plastic rocket,

put some soda, some vinegar, and press it quickly on a base and stand back,

it would pop and shoot up in the air,

catch it, (or find it) and reload, and shoot again

grandma got made once cause we used all her baking soda and vinegar

quote:

Originally posted by Didls:
Chemistry sets and lawn darts and wood burning tools, BB guns and fireworks and clackers These were a few of my favorite things

had at least one of each,

we used to collect the duds from the cheap firecrackers, cut them open and get the powder, and masking tape it all together, with a very short fuse,

lucky to still have my somewhat good hearing and all my fingers