Harry (finally) lights the torch! ...and etches some zinc off too!

"Brian Whatcott" wrote in message
...
Maxwell wrote:
...

I saw a 6' joint of 4" heavy wall pipe launch a dead rat over 1000'.



Now I've heard plenty of gas torch brags, but doesn't this one
just beat the band?

:-)

Brian W

Actually I can't take credit for it, but I did witness it years ago on my
shift. One of the funnier things I have seen. The rat traveled hundreds of
feet through and industrial shop, clearing two overhead bridge cranes and
exiting the building through a crane way door at the end of the building. It
was winter time and the main doors were closed. I think the funniest part
was the vapor trail. He was literally smoking and leaving a faint trail as
he left. He had been caught near the lunch tables on a 480 volt rat trap, so
we actually smoked him twice.

Maxwell wrote:
"Brian Whatcott" wrote in message
...
Maxwell wrote:
...
I saw a 6' joint of 4" heavy wall pipe launch a dead rat over 1000'.



Now I've heard plenty of gas torch brags, but doesn't this one
just beat the band?

:-)

Brian W

Actually I can't take credit for it, but I did witness it years ago on my
shift. One of the funnier things I have seen. The rat traveled hundreds of
feet through and industrial shop, clearing two overhead bridge cranes and
exiting the building through a crane way door at the end of the building. It
was winter time and the main doors were closed. I think the funniest part
was the vapor trail. He was literally smoking and leaving a faint trail as
he left. He had been caught near the lunch tables on a 480 volt rat trap, so
we actually smoked him twice.


What did you use for a sabot ??---It looks like the aerodynamic drag on a rats
carcass would be pretty high..Jerry

Jerry Wass wrote:
Maxwell wrote:
"Brian Whatcott" wrote in message
...
Maxwell wrote:
...
I saw a 6' joint of 4" heavy wall pipe launch a dead rat over 1000'.



Now I've heard plenty of gas torch brags, but doesn't this one
just beat the band?

:-)

Brian W

Actually I can't take credit for it, but I did witness it years ago on
my shift. One of the funnier things I have seen. The rat traveled
hundreds of feet through and industrial shop, clearing two overhead
bridge cranes and exiting the building through a crane way door at the
end of the building. It was winter time and the main doors were
closed. I think the funniest part was the vapor trail. He was
literally smoking and leaving a faint trail as he left. He had been
caught near the lunch tables on a 480 volt rat trap, so we actually
smoked him twice.


What did you use for a sabot ??---It looks like the aerodynamic drag
on a rats
carcass would be pretty high..Jerry


You have to sharpen their noses.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

"Dan" wrote in message
...


What did you use for a sabot ??---It looks like the aerodynamic drag on
a rats
carcass would be pretty high..Jerry


You have to sharpen their noses.


I think the sabot was an old wash cloth. The used to buy worn towels by the
pound from a towel rental service.

There did appear to be a great deal of drag, the contrail was very
turbulent. But man.....was he stable!

I guess we should ask not who gives a rats ass about drag....but who can
give us the drag of a rats ass?

"Brian Whatcott" wrote in message
...
Maxwell wrote:
...

I saw a 6' joint of 4" heavy wall pipe launch a dead rat over 1000'.



Now I've heard plenty of gas torch brags, but doesn't this one
just beat the band?

:-)

Brian W

Not so, Brian. The shop I worked in in 1967, the Postal truck ran over
"Freddie", the three-legged cat shop mascot. Killed the poor fellow, and
the welder gave him a big send-off. At the time, he was fabricating a
sign-pole with a 20' piece of 6" pipe, and had already welded the cap on the
end, and had punched the hole for the electrical wires, four feet from the
cap. He stuffed a handfull of paint-rags down the tube to the hole for
wadding and rammed Freddie's carcass down the tube, propped the pipe out the
window and sort of aimed it for the tree-line a hundred yards west of the
cornfield. He filled the charge through the electrical hole, and touched it
off. Freddie went well into the woods, while the pipe recoiled through the
wall into the executive washroom where a young (and somewhat nervous) shop
owner was, at the moment, taking his morning constitutional.

When the plaster dust setttled, he came into the shop, with his pants still
unbuckeld and mentioned in a very quiet voice, that he was taking the rest
of the day off, and sincerely hoped that such disturbances would be confined
to hours when he was at the golf course or the synagogue.

Then, there was also the 2-1/2 inch pipe that they fashioned distinctly for
use as a mortar, to launch Freddie's empty cat-food cans directly 150 feet
up. The crew used to do that just about the end of lunch hour, when the
sheet-metal guy and I were coming around the building returning from lunch.
After Freddie's unfortunate demise, there were no empty cans, so one hot,
humid July lunchtime, they used a full can of Freddie's favorite tuna
catfood. You would just know that the can exploded just as it cleared the
muzzle and we all spent the last of the afternoon smelling of - - -bad tuna.

My wife wouldn't believe anything I told her about it until the sheet-metal
guy and his wife stopped over and explained it all. She thought I had been
somewhere else for a *different* kind of lunch.

Oh, it works, alright.

"Maxwell" #$$9#@%%%.^^^ wrote in message
...

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

Oh, and don't forget one of the greatest tricks of all!

Set your torch just right, then snuff it out on a piece of wood,
without
turning either gas off. Stick the end of the torch in a garbage
bag, and
fill it up. Use a kitchen size, if you fear the big one!


You are either really bad at adjusting a torch, or you have never
really
done this.

Something as small as a half gallon milk carton can be deadly, and
plenty of
bang for the buck. A garbage bag could easily kill someone.

I saw a 6' joint of 4" heavy wall pipe launch a dead rat over 1000'.




Seems to be plenty of people out there doing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4USIrt8aWk
Several other videos on the same page.

We used to go fishing for catfish in a local creek when I was just a
kid, using carbide lantern pellets.

--
Anyolmouse

"Flash" wrote in message
...

"Brian Whatcott" wrote in message
...
Maxwell wrote:
...

I saw a 6' joint of 4" heavy wall pipe launch a dead rat over 1000'.



Now I've heard plenty of gas torch brags, but doesn't this one
just beat the band?

:-)

Brian W

Not so, Brian. The shop I worked in in 1967, the Postal truck ran over
"Freddie", the three-legged cat shop mascot. Killed the poor fellow, and
the welder gave him a big send-off. At the time, he was fabricating a
sign-pole with a 20' piece of 6" pipe, and had already welded the cap on
the end, and had punched the hole for the electrical wires, four feet from
the cap. He stuffed a handfull of paint-rags down the tube to the hole for
wadding and rammed Freddie's carcass down the tube, propped the pipe out
the window and sort of aimed it for the tree-line a hundred yards west of
the cornfield. He filled the charge through the electrical hole, and
touched it off. Freddie went well into the woods, while the pipe recoiled
through the wall into the executive washroom where a young (and somewhat
nervous) shop owner was, at the moment, taking his morning constitutional.

When the plaster dust setttled, he came into the shop, with his pants
still unbuckeld and mentioned in a very quiet voice, that he was taking
the rest of the day off, and sincerely hoped that such disturbances would
be confined to hours when he was at the golf course or the synagogue.

Then, there was also the 2-1/2 inch pipe that they fashioned distinctly
for use as a mortar, to launch Freddie's empty cat-food cans directly 150
feet up. The crew used to do that just about the end of lunch hour, when
the sheet-metal guy and I were coming around the building returning from
lunch. After Freddie's unfortunate demise, there were no empty cans, so
one hot, humid July lunchtime, they used a full can of Freddie's favorite
tuna catfood. You would just know that the can exploded just as it
cleared the muzzle and we all spent the last of the afternoon smelling
of - - -bad tuna.

My wife wouldn't believe anything I told her about it until the
sheet-metal guy and his wife stopped over and explained it all. She
thought I had been somewhere else for a *different* kind of lunch.

Oh, it works, alright.


OK Flash. You are responsible for what you do in public. You are going to
be sued by a couple of guys who read your cat cannon story and it caused
them to rip some stitches from a recent operation. We'll get their names as
soon as they quit making funny noises and rolling around on the floor. The
ripped stitches were bad enough but somehow it affected bladder control as
well.

Flash wrote:
"Brian Whatcott" wrote in message
...
Maxwell wrote:
...
I saw a 6' joint of 4" heavy wall pipe launch a dead rat over 1000'.



Now I've heard plenty of gas torch brags, but doesn't this one
just beat the band?

:-)

Brian W

Not so, Brian. The shop I worked in in 1967, the Postal truck ran over
"Freddie", the three-legged cat shop mascot. Killed the poor fellow, and
the welder gave him a big send-off. At the time, he was fabricating a
sign-pole with a 20' piece of 6" pipe, and had already welded the cap on the
end, and had punched the hole for the electrical wires, four feet from the
cap. He stuffed a handful of paint-rags down the tube to the hole for
wadding and rammed Freddie's carcass down the tube, propped the pipe out the
window and sort of aimed it for the tree-line a hundred yards west of the
cornfield. He filled the charge through the electrical hole, and touched it
off. Freddie went well into the woods, while the pipe recoiled through the
wall into the executive washroom where a young (and somewhat nervous) shop
owner was, at the moment, taking his morning constitutional.

When the plaster dust settled, he came into the shop, with his pants still
unbuckled and mentioned in a very quiet voice, that he was taking the rest
of the day off, and sincerely hoped that such disturbances would be confined
to hours when he was at the golf course or the synagogue.

Then, there was also the 2-1/2 inch pipe that they fashioned distinctly for
use as a mortar, to launch Freddie's empty cat-food cans directly 150 feet
up. The crew used to do that just about the end of lunch hour, when the
sheet-metal guy and I were coming around the building returning from lunch.
After Freddie's unfortunate demise, there were no empty cans, so one hot,
humid July lunchtime, they used a full can of Freddie's favorite tuna
catfood. You would just know that the can exploded just as it cleared the
muzzle and we all spent the last of the afternoon smelling of - - -bad tuna.

My wife wouldn't believe anything I told her about it until the sheet-metal
guy and his wife stopped over and explained it all. She thought I had been
somewhere else for a *different* kind of lunch.

Oh, it works, alright.


Great story, Flash!

Thanks
BrianW

*----

Sorry Leon, but I don't believe you either, and it's very irresponsible to
spin such nonsense on a public form. Someone might very well try it.

But I will leave it to the general readership to test this myth....



I agree that it would be irresponsible for someone to suggest doing
something as audacious as what Leon reported. So.in the spirit of
being audacious......


Believe Leon.....I was there.......If the garage door hadn't been
open, all the windows would have been gone. It did take the hearing
quite some time to return to normal. I also learned about something
called stepedial reflex, where the ear locks up to prevent damage from
loud, sudden noise. The hearing does return...sometimes.
There was a similar event involving tieing a similar bag to a large
sagebrush and launching an Estes rocket next to it. We learned how
Hollywood fakes large explosive fireballs that day.....just use an
excess of C2H2.

And then there was the whole model V2 rocket episode that we won't go
into. It seems that a 20 guage shotgun shell fits the old BT-20
rocket bodies.

As I ALWAYS admonish my high school students. NEVER DO THIS AT
HOME......Go to a neighbors house.

"gorgon" wrote in message
...
*----

Sorry Leon, but I don't believe you either, and it's very irresponsible to
spin such nonsense on a public form. Someone might very well try it.

But I will leave it to the general readership to test this myth....



I agree that it would be irresponsible for someone to suggest doing
something as audacious as what Leon reported. So.in the spirit of
being audacious......


Believe Leon.....I was there.......If the garage door hadn't been
open, all the windows would have been gone.

--------------------------------------------------

Ok fine, but if you want ME to believe it, next time you and Leon get
together set up a video camera and do it again.

I find it extremely hard to believe anyone could detonate 55 or even 32
gallons of properly mixed gas, while standing beside it, and not suffer
extreme injury or even death. I would also not believe it possible to do
such in and average garage, even with the door open, and not do considerable
structural damage.

You are either not mixing the torch right, using smaller containers, or bull
****ting everyone about something that could get someone seriously injured.