Fireworks on the Fourth of July?

[DoomsDave]

Howdyall:

Every year, in the U.S., we commemorate our split from the UK with lots of drinking of beer, and eating of things like BBQ chicken, hot dogs, chips, etc., etc.

And, fireworks.

Back in the 1980s in Ohio, I bought a bunch with some friends, and we had a blast - literally - to rival the pros. Cops didn't like it, but who ever consults them regarding fun?

Out here in Cali, we have a patchwork of local laws. In La Mirada, there's actual fireworks stands where you can buy them. In immediately neighboring La Habra, and Whittier, they're banned.

So, how about where you are? Legal or not? And, do you partake?

Happy Fourth!

[Jeff Searle]

Hey Dave!

I will be lighting some good stuff off here. I have a friend that makes about 6 trips a year to places in North Dakota and Missouri to bring back really good stuff. He goes to the warehouses when shipments arrive from China. The quality of stuff is amazing and much cheaper than the stuff that Neptune sells here locally. A few of us will be meeting at the nursery Thursday, do a little BBQ 'ing and then wait until dark. My friend actually brought out about 10-12 samples a couple of weeks ago to show Travis,Ryan and myself free of charge. We were done about 9:30pm, so nothing too late and actually someone called the police on us. He rolled into the nursery and was very kool about it.

[DoomsDave]

Jeff, at least Florida is nice and wet in the summer.

To avoid those pain in the ass fires. . . . .

[MattyB]

We get to see at least 5 major fire works displays off in the distance from our deck. The cool thing is that they are all synced together and match to music on the radio.

[_Keith]

Most major mid-sized municipalities in Louisiana have outlawed fireworks. But once you make 100 yards outside of city limits on any major road is a fireworks stand. And of course most of their sales make their way back into the cities. But unless someone gets obnoxious about it, or a neighbor raises a ruckus the cops are pretty cool about it. Now out here in the unincorporated area where I live it is a free for all, and my neighbor can get pretty obnoxious about it on some years. I usually have a sleepless night and all of the animals are fairly well traumatized by morning. But one of the reasons I live out here is that I don't want others (HOA or otherwise) telling me what to do. Sometimes, that is a double edged sword. At the end of the day, we are still friends.

[DoomsDave]

Most major mid-sized municipalities in Louisiana have outlawed fireworks. But once you make 100 yards outside of city limits on any major road is a fireworks stand. And of course most of their sales make their way back into the cities. But unless someone gets obnoxious about it, or a neighbor raises a ruckus the cops are pretty cool about it. Now out here in the unincorporated area where I live it is a free for all, and my neighbor can get pretty obnoxious about it on some years. I usually have a sleepless night and all of the animals are fairly well traumatized by morning. But one of the reasons I live out here is that I don't want others (HOA or otherwise) telling me what to do. Sometimes, that is a double edged sword. At the end of the day, we are still friends.

So, do you like fireworks? I get a sense you don't . . .

[_Keith]

Most major mid-sized municipalities in Louisiana have outlawed fireworks. But once you make 100 yards outside of city limits on any major road is a fireworks stand. And of course most of their sales make their way back into the cities. But unless someone gets obnoxious about it, or a neighbor raises a ruckus the cops are pretty cool about it. Now out here in the unincorporated area where I live it is a free for all, and my neighbor can get pretty obnoxious about it on some years. I usually have a sleepless night and all of the animals are fairly well traumatized by morning. But one of the reasons I live out here is that I don't want others (HOA or otherwise) telling me what to do. Sometimes, that is a double edged sword. At the end of the day, we are still friends.

So, do you like fireworks? I get a sense you don't . . .

I love them, when I am doing the popping. Otherwise it is like being a designated driver. Not much less fun than being sober around a bunch of drunk people. Same theory.

[_Keith]

http://www.weather.com/video/nightmare-fireworks-accident-37700

[Jeff Searle]

Had a great time last night. Good family and friends, and the weather was actually very pleasant. Very low humidity and a slight breeze. And no injuries.

[Walt]

The big illegal (aerial bombs with huge report) are being sold around my environs. Just today a neighbor was sending up some aerial bombs and the report was nearly as loud as the biggest reports one would here at a legal July 4th fireworks event.

I have M-80s, bottle rockets with reports, and all kinds of fire crackers that are more than 30 years old out in my storage shed. My buddy ordered them for me back in the late 1970s from some fireworks company in Ohio. As a teenager I was a fireworks fanatic, as were some of my closest buddies.

In 1966, while in high school, me and some friends drove down to Pedro's South of the Border in Dillion, South Carolina in a large station wagon. This was before I-95 was built. Pedro's was fronting old Rt. 301. It was there I saw my first palm trees. Pedros had lots of large unbooted Sabal palmettos in front of the place. Of course, I didn't know what species of palm they were. I only knew I thought they were cool looking. I think it was at this point of my life that I became interested in palms.

Anyway, getting back to fireworks. My friends and I went into the store called Pedro's Arsenal. We were in awe of all the fireworks., like kids in a candy store.

I remember the shelf prices at the time for a half gross (72 count) of cherry bombs was $2.95. SIlver bulldog salutes (we called them ashcans. They were slightly smaller than an M-80 but more powerful than a cherry bomb) were a little over $3.00 a half gross. M-80s slightly more.

Aerial bombs with four reports (3 smaller reports about three times the size of an M080, and one larger report about a 1/2 stick) for $2.00. Big bricks (80 packs of 16) 1-1/2" firecrackers were very cheap. They had other sizes of fire crackers, like 1-11/16" et al.

We had $225.00 to spend. That wasn't pocket change in 1966. Hence, I said there was no way were were going to spend that much money and pay list price. I had all of our money and I went to the store manager and showed him the wad of cash, asking him what kind of discount I could get if I spent $225. I told him I can go elsewhere. He said I wouldn't be able to buy fireworks anywhere else locally cheaper than he could sell them. He punched a button on the cash register and opened it up, drawing out a piece of paper with prices. I can't recall the discounts on everything, but I remember to this day that a 1/2 gross of cherry bombs was $1.67! That was a 44% discount!

We left the store and drove down some country dirt road with newly planted vegetable fields on each side. We came to a clearing and parked under a big live oak tree. We then got out of the car and started shooting stuff off indiscriminately. Somehow an aerial bomb (lit) got knocked over and shot under the car and went off! Luckily, the gas tank didn't blow up!

Soon some farmer came by raising hell with us for being on his property. We left and went back home to Maryland. We sold stuff to friends and others (at high prices ) to make back all our money, pay for the trip down, and then have plenty of stuff left for us.

TO BE CONTINUED....

[Walt]

To continue from my above posting. The novelty of shooting off M-80s quickly faded. We wanted something bigger. We soon started to come up with ideas. We had lots and lots of boxes of M-80s and Super Bulldog Salutes, so we would take a box of M-80s/salutes and break 72 pieces open and collect all the flash powder. We then would put the powder in a mayanaise jar and punch (pre punched before putting in the powder, of course) and put a long length of water proof fuse into the jar. We bought the water proof fuse through the mail. It came in a coil and was the same type of fuse cherry bombs, M-80s, etc., use.

So what we had, in essence, were bombs! The first thing we blew up was an old abandoned stove we found back in the woods.The oven door had been removed. We placed the mayonaise jar on the ground and then placed the stove (inside oven part) over the jar, lit the fuse and ran like hell. Since the fuse was long it took about a minute before the explosion. But when the jar exploded it blew the stove into several piece, flying 50 feet or so into the air. And like the kids you see on Youtube doing this kind of stuff today -- we laughed like the punky teenagers we were!

We made several bombs like this. One time we blew up a huge piece of concrete about 2 feet in diameter. It pulverized the concrete into small aggragate. Other times we just exploded the bombs for the big boom. We liked to do this stuff at night to rock the neighborhood and get folks all riled up.

Still, we weren't satisfied. One of my buddies had a large mailing tube. The tube was very ridged, and built and looked like a big M-1000 casing (or larger). We filled the casing up with the equivalent of 72 Super Bulldog Salutes and sealed the ends. We then afixed about 10 feet of water proof fuse to the casing. We then went to a local five and dime store that sold large helium ballons and bought about 10 ballons. We afixed all of the ballons to the casing.

It was about 9-10 at night during the fall months, so it was totally dark. We lit the 10 feet of fuse and let the ballons, casing, etc., go. It was so heavy that at first it only ascended hardly at all. We were getting nervous that it was going up so slow. But as the fuse burned the assembly got lighter and lighter and started to rise faster. As it went up in the dark night the fuse was sparkling and dropping firery pieces that would fall for maybe 50 feet before extinguishing themselves. Up and up the ballons rose, dripping firery pieces. We were all laughing and saying how cool it looked. Then, after about 3-4 minutes we saw a big flash, and a few seconds later we heard the big report.

Of course, we still weren't satisfied.

TO BE CONTINUED....

[edbrown_III]

To continue from my above posting. The novelty of shooting off M-80s quickly faded. We wanted something bigger. We soon started to come up with ideas. We had lots and lots of boxes of M-80s and Super Bulldog Salutes, so we would take a box of M-80s/salutes and break 72 pieces open and collect all the flash powder. We then would put the powder in a mayanaise jar and punch (pre punched before putting in the powder, of course) and put a long length of water proof fuse into the jar. We bought the water proof fuse through the mail. It came in a coil and was the same type of fuse cherry bombs, M-80s, etc., use.

So what we had, in essence, were bombs! The first thing we blew up was an old abandoned stove we found back in the woods.The oven door had been removed. We placed the mayonaise jar on the ground and then placed the stove (inside oven part) over the jar, lit the fuse and ran like hell. Since the fuse was long it took about a minute before the explosion. But when the jar exploded it blew the stove into several piece, flying 50 feet or so into the air. And like the kids you see on Youtube doing this kind of stuff today -- we laughed like the punky teenagers we were!

We made several bombs like this. One time we blew up a huge piece of concrete about 2 feet in diameter. It pulverized the concrete into small aggragate. Other times we just exploded the bombs for the big boom. We liked to do this stuff at night to rock the neighborhood and get folks all riled up.

Still, we weren't satisfied. One of my buddies had a large mailing tube. The tube was very ridged, and built and looked like a big M-1000 casing (or larger). We filled the casing up with the equivalent of 72 Super Bulldog Salutes and sealed the ends. We then afixed about 10 feet of water proof fuse to the casing. We then went to a local five and dime store that sold large helium ballons and bought about 10 ballons. We afixed all of the ballons to the casing.

It was about 9-10 at night during the fall months, so it was totally dark. We lit the 10 feet of fuse and let the ballons, casing, etc., go. It was so heavy that at first it only ascended hardly at all. We were getting nervous that it was going up so slow. But as the fuse burned the assembly got lighter and lighter and started to rise faster. As it went up in the dark night the fuse was sparkling and dropping firery pieces that would fall for maybe 50 feet before extinguishing themselves. Up and up the ballons rose, dripping firery pieces. We were all laughing and saying how cool it looked. Then, after about 3-4 minutes we saw a big flash, and a few seconds later we heard the big report.

Of course, we still weren't satisfied.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Walt you are a man after my heart --- we did this during the 70s we used to make homemade flash powder . Virginia you couldnt buy M-80s or the really good fire works . Older fellows would make runs to Tenn and SC to get the good stuff. We used to make are home made version of them amplified tubes rubber pipes tried to not use iron pipe this got me interested in chemistry science and engineering. We had woods and such for cover so we got a way with this amusement . Nothing feels like the fourth more than a good time explosion

Best regards

Ed

888

[Walt]

To continue from my above posting. The novelty of shooting off M-80s quickly faded. We wanted something bigger. We soon started to come up with ideas. We had lots and lots of boxes of M-80s and Super Bulldog Salutes, so we would take a box of M-80s/salutes and break 72 pieces open and collect all the flash powder. We then would put the powder in a mayanaise jar and punch (pre punched before putting in the powder, of course) and put a long length of water proof fuse into the jar. We bought the water proof fuse through the mail. It came in a coil and was the same type of fuse cherry bombs, M-80s, etc., use.

So what we had, in essence, were bombs! The first thing we blew up was an old abandoned stove we found back in the woods.The oven door had been removed. We placed the mayonaise jar on the ground and then placed the stove (inside oven part) over the jar, lit the fuse and ran like hell. Since the fuse was long it took about a minute before the explosion. But when the jar exploded it blew the stove into several piece, flying 50 feet or so into the air. And like the kids you see on Youtube doing this kind of stuff today -- we laughed like the punky teenagers we were!

We made several bombs like this. One time we blew up a huge piece of concrete about 2 feet in diameter. It pulverized the concrete into small aggragate. Other times we just exploded the bombs for the big boom. We liked to do this stuff at night to rock the neighborhood and get folks all riled up.

Still, we weren't satisfied. One of my buddies had a large mailing tube. The tube was very ridged, and built and looked like a big M-1000 casing (or larger). We filled the casing up with the equivalent of 72 Super Bulldog Salutes and sealed the ends. We then afixed about 10 feet of water proof fuse to the casing. We then went to a local five and dime store that sold large helium ballons and bought about 10 ballons. We afixed all of the ballons to the casing.

It was about 9-10 at night during the fall months, so it was totally dark. We lit the 10 feet of fuse and let the ballons, casing, etc., go. It was so heavy that at first it only ascended hardly at all. We were getting nervous that it was going up so slow. But as the fuse burned the assembly got lighter and lighter and started to rise faster. As it went up in the dark night the fuse was sparkling and dropping firery pieces that would fall for maybe 50 feet before extinguishing themselves. Up and up the ballons rose, dripping firery pieces. We were all laughing and saying how cool it looked. Then, after about 3-4 minutes we saw a big flash, and a few seconds later we heard the big report.

Of course, we still weren't satisfied.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Walt you are a man after my heart --- we did this during the 70s we used to make homemade flash powder . Virginia you couldnt buy M-80s or the really good fire works . Older fellows would make runs to Tenn and SC to get the good stuff. We used to make are home made version of them amplified tubes rubber pipes tried to not use iron pipe this got me interested in chemistry science and engineering. We had woods and such for cover so we got a way with this amusement . Nothing feels like the fourth more than a good time explosion

Best regards

Ed

888

Ed,

I finally grew out of that fireworks fanatic stage. However, I still like watching and listening to them.

Me and my buddies did about everything one could with fireworks and small explosives -- until we got caught by the police!

But let me say at this point, before I continue my story, we never hurt anybody nor destroyed private property, etc. We were mainly pranksters, nothing more.

After we sent up the large flash poweder charge by helium ballons, about a week later we thought we'd do it again, but this time with a new twist.

We went back to the five and dime store and purchased the requisite helium ballons to launch a fireworks payload.

This time we took about 15 feet of water proof fuse and attached to the helium ballon bundle. We then, in approximately one foot intervals, taped the fuse of an M-80 to the main fuse. I'd say we taped about 10 M-80s (in one foot intervals from each other) to the main fuse. We had several feet of leader fuse before it would burn down and light the fuse of the first M-80. Once the first M-80 fuse was lit, it would burn free of the main fuse and fall away from the ballons an explode far below the ballons, not exploding the ballons.

As the remaining payload ascended higher, the main fuse would burn to the next M-80, and so on and so forth until all the M-80s would explode. This process would take maybe 15-20 seconds (maybe more) between each M-80 explosion.

We just stood there looking up into the night sky watching the fuse dripping trail (really couldn't see the ballons due to the darkness) and then seeing a flash from an exploding M-80, then hearing the report. We all wondered what neighbors and other folks (maybe driving in a car) thought about what they were seeing and hearing. We all got good laughs from it all.

Then one day me and two buddies were back in the woods shooting stuff off when the police surrounded and nabbed us. They had gotten reports of what was thought to be gun shots. But the noise was just our fireworks. We were hauled down to the police station and told we could be in big, big trouble, since all fireworks were illegal in the state of Maryland. They started telling us that the fine could be $100 for each M-80, etc. We all but knew they were bluffing just to scare us.

We went home and collectively took a small fraction of our fireworks stock and filled a paper grocery bag full. We turned that over to the police. I guess they thought that was a lot of fireworks, so the let us go. We figured they took the fireworks home and shot them off themselves.

Maybe a month later I was suspended three days from school for throwing a pack of firecrackers out of the third floor hall window during lunch hour. Unfortunately, a teacher saw me do it. I was suspended for three days. My two buddies (one lit the fuse) that were with me got one week of picking up trash in the school cafeteria during lunch break. They told me it was embarassing and humilating, that they would have preferred a suspension like I got.

[edbrown_III]

I

we used to do the firecrackers out the window in HS. ash cans in the shower = it wasnt safe to use the stalls for #2 as you were a sitting dock for mayehem. we used to put them on the litle minirocket engines from Estes and create a lttle mortars.

left outh the unfortunate aftermath --- after I left for college my baby brother took the recipes and made a few more and took them to the boys smoking area at the high school. He set one off and they were going to suspend him for good --- the story actually made the Washington Post in 1975 --- trumped up charges but thats what happens . My mother had to get a lawyer to get him back in high school. I was afraid to come home Christmas as she blamed me sortof funny in retroscpect --- I think the last time I shot on off was in my early 30s just for amusement.

[palmmermaid]

I don't like fireworks. And my poor horses spend 3 nights being terrified. The dogs in the area are traumatized. For what? A few minutes of pyrotechnics? Sparlers are just fine - fast, and quiet.

[Walt]

I

we used to do the firecrackers out the window in HS. ash cans in the shower = it wasnt safe to use the stalls for #2 as you were a sitting dock for mayehem. we used to put them on the litle minirocket engines from Estes and create a lttle mortars.

left outh the unfortunate aftermath --- after I left for college my baby brother took the recipes and made a few more and took them to the boys smoking area at the high school. He set one off and they were going to suspend him for good --- the story actually made the Washington Post in 1975 --- trumped up charges but thats what happens . My mother had to get a lawyer to get him back in high school. I was afraid to come home Christmas as she blamed me sortof funny in retroscpect --- I think the last time I shot on off was in my early 30s just for amusement.

Me and my friends also dabbled around using black powder (of a very fine grade). We tried making firecrackers with black powder but it was much too slow burning to get good reports. I once bought firecrackers up in Canada in 1964, and they were black powder type instead of fast burning flash powder. I wasn't impressed at all with the Canadian firecrackers.

Black powder has to be under compression to really get a good bang, so we made steel pipe cannons. We could get some very loud bangs with the cannons. We went to the local hardware store plumbing department and bought long 1-1/4 steel pipe nipples and cast iron threaded end caps. We would drill a fuse hole in the end cap. WIth screwed end cap on the pipe nipple we would put in some black powder, then use a rod and compact in some toilet paper to serve as a compression holder when the powder was touched off by the burning fuse. We got some great bangs doing this. We would add more powder for a louder bang, so much so that we started blowing the back out of the cast iron end caps! I don't recall making a regular pipe bomb per se (where both ends of the pipe nipple were capped), only cannons. Like I said, we were mainly doing this for the loud bang, not for destructive purposes. Even with the cannons were weren't putting projectiles (stones, rocks, ball bearings, etc.) in the pipe. We were only doing it for the noise (big boom).

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

I'm not saying anything until my lawyer says the statute of limitations is up.

[dan.vagnoni]

Dont you cali guys just light Washingtonias on fire?

[edbrown_III]

this is the liars board isnt it?

[DoomsDave]

Dont you cali guys just light Washingtonias on fire?

Oh, that would be epically unwise.

[Hillizard]

To salute this 4th of July

I shan't watch fireworks in the sky,

nor eat hot dogs by the gross,

or get sunburned on the coast,

just quaff ye olde fructose standby.