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Author: Subject: Police Seize Huge Cache Of Explosives From Colorado Home
Winter
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[*] posted on 24-6-2007 at 23:26


Quote:
Originally posted by Sauron
Sodium azide is NOT an explosive nor is it an ingredient in an explosive mixture AFAIK nor it it a propellant or rocket fuel.

It can be used to make many many other compounds.

A SMALL number of those compounds are primary explosives, such as lead azide or cyanuric triazide. Such explosives are used as initiators (detonators) for secondary explosives (boosters) and high explosives. Most primary explosives are by definiton rather sensitive to shock, heat, and friction and therefore are hard to handle. Care has to be taken in their preparation not to let larger crystals form in many cases because the internal stress of the srystal can be enough to cause explosion.

AFAIK it is not illegal to possess sodium azide in any quantity nor is it an unsafe material to store even in a residential area. I would much rather live next to a house containing a 200 Kg drum of NaN3 than a house containing a 200 L drum of gasoline, or 40 five gallon cans of it.


thanks for this ... I am working on another article for the series and the more I learn as soon as possible the better it will be ... so if anybody else sees anything else in the original reporting or in my work or in this thread that seems screwed up, please say so!

thanks again -- you guys are ok after all :D
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[*] posted on 24-6-2007 at 23:45


Quote:
Originally posted by Sauron
Sodium azide is NOT an explosive nor is it a propellant or rocket fuel.

It is certainly used as a propellant in automobile air bags. It's latent energy is
comparable to hydrogen peroxide which has established utility in moving objects.
If both are combined to react hypergolically the result will certainly be uplifting.
4 NaN3 + H2O2 -> 2 Na2O + 6N2 + H2 , it's cost however makes this unlikely.

.
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 01:30


Quote:
Originally posted by Winter
~~~

A common public misconception says you wouldn't use explosives AS rocket fuel because they would destroy your rocket ... I'm getting the idea from you guys (and others) that you might want to use an explosive IN rocket fuel to make it more powerful ... is that an accurate way of putting it?

In other words you might not like the idea of a rocket powered by (for example) TATP; and I don't like that idea very much either BTW, but on the other hand you might want to throw a pinch of TATP in with some other things, and as long as you keep the concentration of TATP below a certain limit it won't explode ... but it will give the fuel a bit of a kick it wouldn't have otherwise ... is that a reasonable way of looking at it?

~~~


Traditional rocket 'fuels' consist of 2 components, a fuel, and an oxidiser. These 2 components react vigourously with each other when ignited (in most cases) producing vast amounts of gas and in return producing the thrust of the rocket engine. The 2 components can be mixed with caking agents, reaction supressing agents and so on.
I suppose explosives used as rocket fuels can be understood as those 2 components combined in 1 molecule, together with a combustion supressant where needed. Properties of certain explosives lend themselves favourably to such applications while others certainly don't.
I hope I explained that correctly.




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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 04:38


Also, whether or not something is an "explosive" depends on the use to which it is put, and the conditions it is subjected to. Ammonium nitrate, unless it is mixed in the proper proportions with a fuel, and triggered by a fairly significant explosion, such as that produced by 1/4 to 1/2 stick of dynamite is fairly inert. Nothing in a normal environment is going to make it "explode". You might as well worry about the hydrogen in a glass of water suddenly undergoing atomic fusion and going off like a hydrogen bomb.
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 04:52


I take your point but maybe you never heard of Texas City? A shipload of AN went up for no apparent reason and took a major chunk of the area along with it. The year was 1947.

ANFO even with a good HE boost often fails to detonate completely and some of the charge gets wasted.

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

So NaN3 can be used as a gas generator, producing nitrogen, hydrogen, and (solid) Na2O? Of course the H2O2 will be as a soln, so the Na2O produced will react with excess water if any (must be) and leave NaOH, isn't it so?

This is still not a pyrotechnic mix, at least not as used in auto safety airbags, is it? It would not do to have heat or reaction ignite the H2. Of course in absence of O2 nothing would happen anyway.

At what % H2O2 does rxn with NaN3 turn into a propulsive combination? (If any)?

I have not seen anything about this fellow Swerlein having any unusually strong H2O2, or any H2O2 at all for that matter. My surmise, were I in the business of surmising, would be that he had other plans for the sodium azide. What other plans, deponent knoweth not.




[Edited on 25-6-2007 by Sauron]
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 05:20


@ Sauron
Not certain that refers my post or not , hard to follow your shorthand.
For deploying an airbag NaN3 is ignited on it's own for the N2 it produces
3NaN3 -> Na3N + 4N2

My conjecture in using a peroxide rocket situated ahead of a solid matrix
booster made of NaN3 is my own musing. Such an arrangement would be
throttle-able , a desirable but difficult to achieve ability in solid propellant
compositions.

Quote:
Originally posted by Sauron
At what % H2O2 does rxn with NaN3 turn into a propulsive combination? (If any)?

Your're quite right , I did not indicate the decomposition of H2O2
so then _ 8NaN3 + [ 2H2O + O2 ] -> 4Na2O + 12N2 + 2H2

Update

Oops this should teach me not to assume what I don't know for fact.
Although Lithium does form a nitride readily Sodium does so only by heroic effort
so the decomposition of the azide only yeilds Nitrogen and elemental Sodium !
http://sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0008ACD8-5...
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/topstory/8020/8020notw9.html

Additionally , the acidified hydrolysis of Sodium azide does yeild Hydrazoic acid
gas which is comparable to Prussic acid in biological effect.
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/sodiumazide/basics/facts.asp

Apparently there has been research for applying Sodium azide as a propellant.
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metad...


[Edited on 8-7-2007 by franklyn]
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 05:44


Check the actual circumstances of the Texas City disaster. The ship was on fire for a LONG time. The ammonium nitrate, as I recall, was wet with oil to keep down dust. The steel walls of the hold where the ammonium nitrate was held were red hot. There were 100s of tons of ammonium nitrate already undergoing autodecomposition at high temperatures, and I think they used explosives to try and let sea water in. Hardly a "normal environment".

There was a Discovery Channel show about great disasters that covered this several years ago.

Lot's of things can be MADE to explode in the right circumstances, such as flour in a grain mill silo, but that doesn't make them dangerous, volatile, EXPLOSIVES.

[Edited on 6-25-2007 by Eclectic]

Sauron, do you have OTHER PLANS for your prize possessions?
Such baseless, prejudicial speculation serves no good purpose.

[Edited on 6-25-2007 by Eclectic]

Sauron, I realize you didn't mean it that way. I just noticed that it COULD be taken that way, if quoted out of context. Not that anyone would ever do that...

[Edited on 6-25-2007 by Eclectic]

In this context, dangerously volatile, explosive phrases and ideas can be far more destructive than actual things.

[Edited on 6-25-2007 by Eclectic]
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 06:36


It's funny that it had been mentioned so infrequently that IF this man meant any harm he would have disguised his purchases.......he had the stuff sent to his home and experimented in a relaxed (non-clandestine) fashion. Which were, perhaps, the gist of his problems but subtle proof to his lack on criminal intent. This guy certainly had the intelligence to get the chemicals sent elsewhere, etc. Simply sounds like he though his neighbors wouldn't be put off by some noise......
NG is commonly available in smokeless powder in 1,4,8 pound, and larger lots. It's use in a propellant is very common but expensive. Rocketry? Certainly could be features of a rocket hobby stuff happening there; who knows....? I don't think that's the point.....he was no real threat to the neighborhood. I seriously doubt that this guy had anywhere near 1/2 lb of NG. Think about the field response to it's discovery.
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 06:50


To some (IMO foolish) people, any non-commercial, non-institutional lab is a clandestine lab unless, one supposes, he put up a huge sign in the front yard saying THIS WAY TO THE LAB.

The very concept of a legitimate personal, private home laboratory without any connotations of criminality has been eroded by the drug cooks and their antagonists, by the media, and by the last six years of antiterror paranoia.

I had a home lab as a pre-adolescent and adolescent. After that I had a real lab at the university, first in a group lab and then my own private one with bench and 2-meter hood.

But those were kindler gentler times.
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 09:13


Exactly. As I said before:

The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street. <--(click here) No, really. Click Here! And read the whole thing. :D



[Edited on 6-25-2007 by Eclectic]
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 09:30


That's a title of a (Rod Serling) Twilight Zone episode, except that I think it was Main street but I could be wrong.
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 13:10


I was always under the impression that NaN3 was quite explosive. So how can the cylinder of NaN3 in an airbag decompose so swiftly were it not for a detonation? ;)
I certainly would not situate myself next to large amounts of it. (If not because in contact with moisture it can form hydrazoic acid... not a vitamine by a long shot :D)




F. de Lalande and M. Prud'homme showed that a mixture of boric oxide and sodium chloride is decomposed in a stream of dry air or oxygen at a red heat with the evolution of chlorine.
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[*] posted on 25-6-2007 at 13:17


It's mixed with other stuff so that it makes lots of nitrogen gas very fast when triggered WITHOUT exploding. Also without peppering you with molten sodium. It wouldn't be much of a safety device if it involved 100 or so grams of explosive going off right in front of you!
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[*] posted on 26-6-2007 at 08:03


Sodium azide is not explosive.

Some metal azides are primary explosives and some organic azides are as well. As a general rule I would suspect all organic azides of potentially being explosive (shock/heat/friction sensitive) till proven otherwise, it's just prudent lab practice.

I seem to recall that in Malaysia a couple years ago some suspected jihadist type was arrested after buying sodium azide and some other pretty innocuous chemicals. However I do not regard the actions of the Islamist police state in that country of being worthy of emulation elsewhere, and so I still regard sodium azide as a routine and mostly harmless reagent unless and until additional facts indicate it is being abused for nefarious purposes.
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[*] posted on 26-6-2007 at 08:12


I haven't said much lately as I've been busy on the Swerlein case as well as a few other things but I AM reading and I appreciate all your comments very much! So thanks again.

Here's a question for anybody who's game

=====================================

What do you think of the following quote?

=====================================

Warren Musselman, a board member of the Northern Colorado Rocketry Club, said on Tuesday that the explosive chemicals police have identified from the home are not components of fuels used in model rocketry.

“Our stuff burns at a predictable rate and creates a lot of gas,” he said. “Explosives don’t burn. They detonate.”

Musselman said chemicals like PETN and sodium azide are dangerous and are simply not model rocket fuel ingredients.

“Explosives of any kind don’t have anything to do with the rocketry hobby,” he said.

He estimated that only 2 percent of hobbyists make their own propellents, which typically consists of ammonium perchlorate, epoxies and powdered aluminum or magnesium.

People in the small rocketry community don’t remember Swerlein attending any meetings or events, he said.

http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=17004

=====================================

All points of view gratefully accepted. As always.

Thanks again.
WP
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[*] posted on 26-6-2007 at 08:46


Those are guys who fire small model rockets propelled by hobby shop rocket motors. They have a great interest in distancing themselves from public suspicion that their hobby may be in ANY way hazardous. You need to pay more attention to propellant chemists and folks that are members of Tripoli Rocketry Association:

Tripoli <--This is a Hyperlink, go there!

The difference between an explosive and a propellant is a matter of intent, formulation, and mode of combustion. A pint of gasoline mixed in the proper proportion with air and detonated will make one hell of an explosion, ie: a fuel/air explosive. Yet you don't see gas stations being shut down and having their inventory seized and destroyed. But 5 gallons of kerosene are viewed with suspicion as a dangerous volatile explosive accelerant liquid, once allegations are levied, and suspicions and fears aroused. Do explosives have any legitimate use in modern automotive technology? What kind of dangerous lunatics would heat their homes with EXPLOSIVES?!!


[Edited on 6-26-2007 by Eclectic]
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[*] posted on 26-6-2007 at 22:14


I'm just wondering how the police department, who claimed they couldn't initially identify the source of the explosions, could then serve a search warrant first without confronting Swerline after figuring out where it was coming from.

It's just seems so obvious that the overzealous 'tough-guy' police/bomb-squad had every intention to ensure they twisted the scenario to make their actions seem vindicated. They put on a big "show" to validate their over-inflated budgets.

The citizens and news reporter seemed to be your typical run-of-the-mill brainwashed zombie-types who are completely ignorant to this particular discourse of science. The only terrorist involved were the police. The man in question certainly didn't helped his case by his unsociable behaviour, however.

The problem I see here is:

(a) the government/police seem to think that they're the only ones who are qualified to have extraneous amounts of guns/weapons (save gun-dealers, who are also victims of harrasment).

(b) freedom of the press has erroded, and one can be pressumed 'guilty' until proven innocent based on the nature of the books the subject checks out at the local public library.

(c) who's watching the watchers? In this case, the press is used as a tool to instill fear in average citizens towards amateur scientists, and the actions of the police are also backed-up by paid associates/specialists.

These citizens should be more concerned about the ease of which one's private dwelling can be invaded, than some geek's responible interest and pursuit in the study of energetic compounds/mixtures.
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[*] posted on 26-6-2007 at 22:31


as it happens, some details about the police and how they got the warrant have just been published

... here's a link (subscription required)

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/jun/24/swerlein-armory-...


and here are some excerpts

*****

Sean Hardy was sitting in his Sunset Drive living room at 11 p.m. on June 9 when he heard what sounded like a bomb detonating right outside his house.

When he went outside to investigate, he later told police, he saw Swerlein's garage door open and whitish-gray smoke billowing out. Hardy then watched the man unscrew a light bulb inside the garage, making it dark, and begin picking debris up off the ground.

Hardy said he didn't know much about his neighbor across the street, except that he had an awful lot of UPS deliveries. It seems none of the neighbors knew much about Swerlein and his wife, Julie Dadone, who have lived in the home since 1981.

Longmont police dispatchers, however, were quite familiar with Swerlein's neighbors, who complained of loud, bomb-like noises that woke some out of deep sleep in the middle of the night. Police reported fielding 15 complaints of bombs, fireworks and shots fired from the area over the past 18 months. But by the time an officer arrived, there were no leads to follow.

Hardy said an officer once parked his car on the street for most of the night to try to crack the case, but that night there were no explosions.

Bob and Cathy Evans said Swerlein was a quiet neighbor who kept to himself.

"Until like 3 in the morning," Bob Evans said.

A bad back keeps Evans awake at night, he said, and during smoke breaks on the back deck, he occasionally heard explosions and saw flashes of light. Police guessed they were firecrackers, he said.

"I was in the Marine Corps, and I know what a bomb sounds like," he said.

Their neighbor Ray Balzer became obsessed with finding the source of the explosions, the Evanses said.

One night, he sat awake in a park at the end of their street all night, hoping to catch the culprit. But again, that night the neighborhood was silent.

Balzer also knocked on all his neighbors' doors, asking if they, too, had heard the noises. All said they had — except for Swerlein.

Balzer called police June 13, when he learned they were looking for help finding who was leaving small bomb devices at the Longmont Clinic. His wife warned police to be careful because of the number and size of the explosions, according to a police report.

Police move in

Longmont police called in federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to help.

After going through Swerlein's trash June 15 and reporting that they found empty UPS boxes that once contained signal flares or signal pistols, a magazine for a semi-automatic handgun and blackened fragments of a pipe bomb, they asked a judge for a search warrant. They were given permission to go in.

*****

Having gained permission to search the place, the police don't appear to have hesitated too much

more excerpts:

*****

That night at 6:00, SWAT team members surrounded the house and announced they had a warrant. After nobody responded, they shot tear-gas canisters in through the windows, including a large, plate-glass window in the front of the house, police said.

Swerlein and his wife then emerged through the front door. They were handcuffed and taken to a nearby park for questioning.

Officers also took Swerlein's shorts to examine them for evidence, giving him a gown to wear.

Police wearing gas masks swept the house. They said an upstairs bedroom was full of bottles of chemicals, and it appeared there was bomb shrapnel embedded in a wall.

More chemicals were found stuffed in an upstairs closet and strewn around the basement, police said. Several bottles filled a refrigerator, and more were stashed underneath the stairwell.

Police said it looked like things had been blown up in the garage.


*****

more here:

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/jun/24/swerlein-armory-...

or here:

http://winterparking.blogspot.com/2007/06/boulder-daily-came...
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[*] posted on 26-6-2007 at 22:58


Obviously Swerlein was committing a public nuisance and disturbing the peace by setting off explosions in the middle of the night.

Had he engaged in even minimal outreach to his neighbors and done a little constructive PR about his hobby, confining his tests to daylight hours, or even better, doing them off in the countryside, he probably would not now be in hot water.

Soe of the neighbors do sound like nosy busybodies. Is it a crime now to get a lot of UPS deliveries? Or were the UPS drivers all Arabs?

(That is a reference to a case in Calif. where two Arab UPS drivers made a complaint against their boss dor jokingly referring to them as terrorists.)
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[*] posted on 27-6-2007 at 04:28


Am I the only one here who is bothered by the statements from the police and press that Swerlein had 200-400 CHEMICALS? As if chemicals were somehow inherently illegal, dangerous, suspicious, and EVIL?
I wonder how the poor dope is expected to clothe or transport himself, eat, drink, breathe, or carry on any of the functions of a living, or even dead, organism, if he is not to be allowed possesion of CHEMICALS.

EVERYTHING is CHEMICALS!


[Edited on 6-27-2007 by Eclectic]
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[*] posted on 27-6-2007 at 05:56


Try reading this whole thread out of context with your morning coffee..... It's sort of pathetic but it's also somewhat funny.

"THE GUY MUST HAVE HAD HUNDREDS OF CHEMICALS IN HIS HOME"....."I SAW THAT HE HAD A LOT OF UPS DELIVERIES"...... "JOE BLOW, FROM THE NORTHERN COLORADO FRIGHTENED ROCKETRY CLUB SAID 'WE DON'T USE ENERGETIC MATERIALS, JUST PERCHLORATES & LOW EXPLOSIVES' " - "DEAR LORD HE HAD A BOTTLE OF SODIUM AZIDE!" THE NEIGHBOR SHRIEKED AS SHE HELD HER CHILDREN CLOSE.....
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[*] posted on 27-6-2007 at 06:14


Quote:
Originally posted by Eclectic
Am I the only one here who is bothered by the statements from the police and press that Swerlein had 200-400 CHEMICALS?


I'm actually a lot more bothered by some of the other details ... police fired seven canisters of tear gas into his house because he didn't answer when they told him to come out ... then they spent five days ransacking his house while the local paper ran quotes which basically discredited his story and turned out to be false ... the CHEMICALS have now been destroyed (although he had every right to own most of them, and maybe even all of them) [? my sources disagree on this one] ... now he's free to go back to his trashed house ... and the Muslims are ticked because there are lots of Muslims in prison for alleged bomb plots who never got near any explosives ... and rocketry guys are ticked (ahem) ... and civil liberties guys and pro-2nd-amendment guys can't be too happy ... and for what?

It's not as if there's been a big national media splash and somebody's using the story to promote his agenda -- it's more like they're keeping a lid on the story. So who stands to gain here? Or is it all just one big mistake?

Here's my latest article BTW in case anyone is interested

http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/06/ronald-swerlein-fr...

comments? questions? complaints? please post 'em.

[Edited on 27-6-2007 by Winter]
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[*] posted on 27-6-2007 at 07:51


FINALLY! Thank You WP! Now if someone would just turn their attentions to the behavior of the Longmont paper reporters and police departments who clearly were eager to advance their careers, and damn the expense and damage their efforts might cause. In my case, the accusation was "METH LAB", then when it became obvious there where no drugs to be found, EXPLOSIVES, as I too had a lab bottle of sodium azide, and various pesticides and gardening supplies, then DANGEROUS TOXIC CHEMICALS. Luckily for me, I'm a bit more articulate than Swerlein, and had an attorney with better connections to the local press, DA and public health department. Local hysteria dissipated within a week, and even Google references to EPA actions became mysteriously absent after a month or so.

Still, the cost to clean up and replace destroyed items has amounted to more than $10,000. :mad:



[Edited on 6-27-2007 by Eclectic]
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[*] posted on 27-6-2007 at 08:20


Well, @Eclectic, that explains why you are understandibly interested and sensitized.

HOWEVER, I doubt that you were setting off explosives at 0-dark-thirty on your front lawn or in your driveway and antagonizing your neighbors, were you?

Swerlein's case is a self inflicted wound.

Did the police over-react? Apparently.

Did the local media behave irresponsibly? Obviously?

Were the neighbors likely busybodies and snoops? Clearly.

But in the end Swerlein has who to blame?

HIMSELF. He needed a low profile. Not "clandestine" but non-obnoxious. Instead he was a loner who likes to make loud BOOMs at 3 a.m. NOT SMART!
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[*] posted on 27-6-2007 at 08:27


There is that! But I'm not attempting to defend Swerlein. Just trying to inject some "Fair and Balanced".

I do think a large portion of the "blame" should rest on the press and law enforcement though. Think of a well trained pack of service dogs gone feral. Any time the government declares a "War" on something, what it REALLY means is "We can't be bothered with pesky checks and balances, or archaic notions like rule of law, innocent until proven guilty, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Magna Carta", etc.

And Now, For Something Completely Different:

"The Cyanide Came In The Mail"

(Mine arrived today. :D)


[Edited on 6-27-2007 by Eclectic]
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