Sciencemadness Discussion Board

The Preparatory Manual of Explosives!

Siconic - 22-3-2010 at 12:59

Great resource and book for all those interested. Let me know your thoughts. I just found it today, and it has a ton of great information, and the proper formulas and procedures for manufacturing energetic materials. I love the improvised stuff, but sometimes I just want to do it right.

I can put it up on my website, and you are all welcome to download it, but I want to see if there are any interested parties.

Polverone - 22-3-2010 at 13:45

The author of this series is sloppy. I would not trust information he provides without validation from original publications. But if you have the primary literature, his book is superfluous. Davis, Urbanski, and Fedoroff have authored better compilations.

Siconic - 22-3-2010 at 14:23

Quote: Originally posted by Polverone  
The author of this series is sloppy. I would not trust information he provides without validation from original publications. But if you have the primary literature, his book is superfluous. Davis, Urbanski, and Fedoroff have authored better compilations.


Any suggestions on titles?

Very interesting though. I cant say I went through the whole book yet, but his nitrocellulose, RDX, and ETN synths seem spot on.

I do have the Encyclopedia of Explosives(in PDF), which features works from Davis and Urbanski.... I Want it in hardcover so bad but the set, if you can find it, is selling for $2000 or more at auctions!

[Edited on 22-3-2010 by Siconic]

entropy51 - 22-3-2010 at 16:43

Quote: Originally posted by dann2  

Jared Jedgard's an asshole (excuse my french as we say around here). All and everything he writes should be ignored. Nitrate the book.
Dann2

franklyn - 22-3-2010 at 17:58

All experienced chemists that I have conferred with find serious faults and omissions in
the Ledgard series. As an instructional publication it fails to alert readers to problems
present in the procedures as described, that will not be anticipated by an unaware and
unknowledgeable novice following the instructions. That's a hard lesson.

As quoted above read the rest of the comments here _
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=29&...

Notably and prominently discussed here _
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=4624

Read all the discouraging reviews , enter the following into the forum search engine _

Ledgard manual

and select ( All Forums and Sub Forums )

.

mfilip62 - 28-3-2010 at 13:39

Nice book,very informative,but a lot of impractical crap.

For example,author is too obsessed with acids (!?) and
dangers surrounding them.(Someone who works with HE's
should already know that,though...)
in most cases,he recommends diluting 99% HNO3 (or H2SO4) to get
65% or weaker,like he never worked with pricey acids before :-?

In the middle of every procedure there is long and unnecessary
"legal crap",instead just putting it on the first page.

Procedures are unnecessary long (for example mixing often takes hours,what can be done in minutes) and batches are LARGE. :D

I mean,who makes 5kg of HE at once except me! :cool:

In other hand there are some pretty neat info and alternative procedures.

How many of you know that you can make TNT by simply refluxing
gasoline/toluene/HNO3 with some kind of water absorbent!?
Will try it as soon as I got all I need!

hissingnoise - 29-3-2010 at 03:08

Quote:
How many of you know that you can make TNT by simply refluxing gasoline/toluene/HNO3 with some kind of water absorbent!?
Will try it as soon as I got all I need!

Don't try it!
I wouldn't mix HNO3 and petrol (gasoline) under any circumstances!
Such mixtures can be very powerful, shock sensitive HEs!

quicksilver - 29-3-2010 at 08:15

After trying to find almost any patent that was accurately quoted I gave up on the 2nd edition. Additionally Legard quoted some information that is actually wrong regarding copper fulminate. This was a guy who apparently had some fairly nice labs to work in so that the idea of thinning down 100% HNO3 to get 70% is logical to him. He also published a work on chem weapons and drugs. The chem wep book is a nightmare waiting to happen because no matter how much he states that specialized equipment is needed; he also uses expressions like "can be synthesized conveniently" - That make the reader believe it's a simple lab and all you need is a glove-box. Again: very poor on patent accuracy.

A synthesis book written from experience in a profoundly well stocked lab will have in it too many dependencies on chemicals that are simply out of reach to a hobbyist. This is no small element with Legard's 2nd & 3rd editions.
MANY of the labs simply fail from lack of [notation of ] temperature transition notes. Others are actually not well researched (you DON'T make copper fulminate with the same techniques as Hg or Ag fulminate. And frankly except for some notably useful synthesis that had a minimum of valuable info ("keep temp of azide solutions low to avoid needles") Legard's stuff was SO filled with problems that unless you actually am familiar with what he's attempting - - to go strictly by his notes will result in failure on some occasions and waste on others.

The Trinitrophloglucanol synth was so wasteful of acid that I thought it HAD to be a typo. The 3rd edition was really no better. It seemed he attempted to fix some of the patent numbers; but you still get 4 out of 5 wrong.

franklyn - 29-3-2010 at 17:01

HNO3 and Gasoline is rocket fuel , why they are kept separate
until mixed to burn in the motor. See attached

" simply refluxing gasoline/toluene/HNO3" is certainly not a procedure
to be undertaken as an improvisation in a makeshift lab.

.

Rocket Fuel Temps.GIF - 15kB

Microtek - 30-3-2010 at 06:36

I've read and experimented with that patent (the one with refluxing toluene and HNO3 with hexanes/heptanes). The whole point is that it is 60-70 % acid rather than the anhydrous variety, so apart from a little NOx evolution, there really isn't much of a problem. Except that it didn't go much further than MNT in my experiments.

hissingnoise - 30-3-2010 at 06:52

70% HNO3 may be safer than anhydrous acid but Ledgard specifies 99% acid and that qualifies as anhydrous.
The guy's a dangerous idiot!

Mr. Wizard - 11-4-2010 at 06:45

There was a previous thread on highest flame temperatures, and one of the highest was the hydrogen / fluorine flame. The chart in the previous post shows hydrazine and fluorine being over 2800F hotter. I'm sure that's an energetic combination, but is it correct?


[Edited on 11-4-2010 by Mr. Wizard]

Picture 6.png - 3kB

Formatik - 11-4-2010 at 10:59

Quote: Originally posted by Mr. Wizard  
There was a previous thread on highest flame temperatures, and one of the highest was the hydrogen / fluorine flame. The chart in the previous post shows hydrazine and fluorine being over 2800F hotter. I'm sure that's an energetic combination, but is it correct?


Inert gas diluted reaction of hydrogen with fluorine might explain it. That's maybe where the value came from. An example:

The second cylinder was introduced into an environment containing 22.2-29.6 vol. % fluorine, 55.6-66.7 vol. % helium, and 11.1-14.8 vol. % hydrogen to provide a gaseous mixture with flame temperatures from 2000°-2395° K. from http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4309467.html

For further up-thread: gasoline (petrol) and nitric acid react vigorously upon mixing. I've mixed a few drops of them and the reaction developed nitrogen oxides (hypergolics thread). The fuming acid had a density of over about 1.5 and was the result of double to triple distilling mediocre conc. nitric acid with an excess of sulfuric acid. The mixture was a claimed hypergol, so I wouldn't heat them together. Nitric acid forms detonable mixtures with just about anything oxidizable.

I've expressed my thoughts on the book of this thread, in other threads. Poorly written, referenced and researched. Source of misinformation and waste of time in my opinion.