640 pounds of high explosives stolen in Pennsylvania.

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  • ghuns

    Grandmaster
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    Nov 22, 2011
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    Hopefully just some guy wanting to blow up tree stumps...

    I am old enough to remember grandpa blowing some stumps out when I was a kid. I remember being SHOCKED at the amount of dynamite required to dislodge a 5' diameter, white oak. And then grandpa being mad because he didn't use enough to blow it into manageable size pieces. It basically jumped up out of the crater and landed, in one piece right next to it. We didn't have a tractor big enough to move it.
     

    BehindBlueI's

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    Oct 3, 2012
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    I am old enough to remember grandpa blowing some stumps out when I was a kid. I remember being SHOCKED at the amount of dynamite required to dislodge a 5' diameter, white oak. And then grandpa being mad because he didn't use enough to blow it into manageable size pieces. It basically jumped up out of the crater and landed, in one piece right next to it. We didn't have a tractor big enough to move it.

    If he wanted to break it up, he'd have needed to drill holes, insert charges, and tamp the holes. The effect of an explosive can vary immensely based on how the pressure is contained, shape of the charge, etc.
     

    ghuns

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    Nov 22, 2011
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    If he wanted to break it up, he'd have needed to drill holes, insert charges, and tamp the holes. The effect of an explosive can vary immensely based on how the pressure is contained, shape of the charge, etc.

    He bought his farm and cleared 150 acres of woods with a hand saw, Cat D4 dozer, and a whole lot of dynamite. His answer to most problems when blasting was, use more dynamite.:laugh:
     

    HoughMade

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    Oct 24, 2012
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    Valparaiso
    He bought his farm and cleared 150 acres of woods with a hand saw, Cat D4 dozer, and a whole lot of dynamite. His answer to most problems when blasting was, use more dynamite.:laugh:

    My great uncle was the family stump-guy. Same technique. We have a few great slide shows showing ascending and descending stumps.
     

    ghuns

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    Nov 22, 2011
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    My grandpa was also the go to guy for bringing down old silos in the neighborhood. Wish they'd had cell phones for video back then. It would be entertaining.:popcorn:
     

    hoosierdoc

    Freed prisoner
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    8   0   0
    Apr 27, 2011
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    Galt's Gulch
    Dynamite is a “high explosive”?

    hrm, maybe it’s a generic term like “Kleenex”

    update: it’s a low bar. If reaction goes faster than speed of sound it’s considered “high”
     

    BehindBlueI's

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    Oct 3, 2012
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    Dynamite is a “high explosive”?

    hrm, maybe it’s a generic term like “Kleenex”

    update: it’s a low bar. If reaction goes faster than speed of sound it’s considered “high”

    To clarify, it's the speed of sound in the material that's exploding, not the speed of sound in the surrounding air. The speed of the shockwave traveling through the explosive is known as Detonation Velocity. In a high explosive, DV is much faster than what we think of as the generic speed of sound.

    Sound moves through air at roughly 340 m/s. Nitroglycerin's DV is 7700 m/s, but Dynamite uses fillers and varying amounts of nitro to make Dynamite for different applications, so there's not one DV for all Dynamite. Unigel Dynamite has a DV of 4300 m/s, Unimax is 5300 m/s, etc. (numbers taken from manufacturer's website: https://www.dynonobel.com/practical-innovations/popular-products/dynamite)

    I don't understand the chemistry behind it, but high explosives generally are a "break down" reaction as they explode while low explosives are a "combine" reaction.
     
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