Explosive wood splitting
Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 4:13 pmA couple of years ago, a huge storm knocked a huge oak tree across the acess road to a few of my neighbors, and I got the call to come clear the road so they could get out. Well, this was one huge tree - hundreds of years old, and my saws could only handle the thinner parts of it (which amounted to almost a year's worth of "free" firewood for me (not quite free, I had to cut and split it, but not bad). Well, there was this piece left over. Paul, my good friend and neighbor (those tend to be synonyms around here) moved it with his loader to a better place, and we planned to tackle it there. Scheduling issues seemed to keep us from getting it done quick, but the recent visit by journalists from Vice magazine provided the excuse to go ahead and get 'er done. Since the first foot or so of this log was hollow, we decided the best way to get it down to size was with a little medium-high explosive, in this case a variant of Tannerite (legal here), which is ammonium nitrate + zirconium hydride. It's about like regular blasting dynamite in det velocity, but a lot "numb-er" in that a regular blasting cap won't set it off - you need something like a very fast bullet with a couple thousand foot-pounds of energy to detonate this stuff - it's pretty safe if you're far enough away - even a high power pistol won't do - you need the real thing.
As luck (and that's largely what it was) would have it, I chose the exact right amount and placement to do the job perfectly, and here's the video result:
http://youtu.be/v0qXQCVLGKQ
Xavier and Gaspard from Vice.com were also filming with super camera-envy cameras, and when I get their footage back, I'll post it here. They spent the entire weekend here getting all the thrills I could produce - from very high Gee and speed rides in John's 1200hp/1100lb "T bucket" to things like this, the concealed weapon carry course, the fusor, the lab, the ... you name it. We had a lot of fun. They'll be taking 3 days of continuous video and trimming it down to 12 or so minutes for their online magazine, due to come out in about a month and a half (this article anyway). They promised me all the footage, so I can select some to post here as well. Nice guys, I think we impressed them, I know they had a blast, and we should see some fairly well balanced reporting, unlike what you'd imagine we'd get from the mainstream media on such things. More when there is more...
As luck (and that's largely what it was) would have it, I chose the exact right amount and placement to do the job perfectly, and here's the video result:
http://youtu.be/v0qXQCVLGKQ
Xavier and Gaspard from Vice.com were also filming with super camera-envy cameras, and when I get their footage back, I'll post it here. They spent the entire weekend here getting all the thrills I could produce - from very high Gee and speed rides in John's 1200hp/1100lb "T bucket" to things like this, the concealed weapon carry course, the fusor, the lab, the ... you name it. We had a lot of fun. They'll be taking 3 days of continuous video and trimming it down to 12 or so minutes for their online magazine, due to come out in about a month and a half (this article anyway). They promised me all the footage, so I can select some to post here as well. Nice guys, I think we impressed them, I know they had a blast, and we should see some fairly well balanced reporting, unlike what you'd imagine we'd get from the mainstream media on such things. More when there is more...