Drano Bomb Goes Off In Detroit School

[Jimaz]

How much damage does an M-800 do? I found one recently in [[of all places) a doctor's parking lot right near the front door. It's 1½ inches long.

Use a plumber's snake for those drains. It's less caustic than Drano and more effective than a plunger.

[Patrick]

The powder Drano works the best for Drano bombs. The old Faygo 3 liters worked well lol.

[Johnnny5]

The powder Drano works the best for Drano bombs. The old Faygo 3 liters worked well lol.

I always used the small 20 oz bottles and straight Muratic Acid instead of Drano. Another trick was using dry ice and a bit of warm water in plastic bottle. Those were a little less predictable, but no caustic acid to worry about.

[gnome]

a cup of baking soda, half cup of salt, 32 oz of vinegar ....let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes. follow up with a quart of boiling water ... will keep your drains clean and happy. I do it every 3 months or so. Works like a charm.

For heavy clogs there is a new product out there called Zip-it. It is a flexible plastic wand with some teeth on it, costs about 3 bucks. Anyone who hates the idea of dumping lye down the drain should get a few and give them out for xmas gifts.

http://www.livingasimplelife.com/zip...cleaning-tool/

[DetroitTeacher]

My son and his buddy made Drano bombs and set them off in my backyard [[he was about 13, at the time). This was right after Columbine. The police called me at work [[I was working nightschool) to notify me that my son "had a bomb lab in the garage". Needless to say, I was shocked because I had JUST been in the garage that morning and saw no evidence of bombs. I ran every red light to race home. When I got there, there were no cops, no "bombs", nothing. The way the cops made it seem, there were wires and timers and a whole setup. I called my future brother-in-law, a cop, and he laughed and said it was a rite of passage to make Drano bombs [[my son fessed up to what they were up to after I scared the life out of him with my "I'm going to kill you" look and lecture). I almost killed the kid. I figured I'd be greeted by the cops and the bomb squad, ready to take me to the pokey for having a bomb maker for a child. I was also pissed that the cops made it sound as if he were getting ready to blow up a federal building or rob a bank! The panic in me had me driving like a crazy person! I could have hurt someone or been hurt, myself.

He's 23 now, has his own house, a wonderful girlfriend, and is a professional snowboard instructor who is also studying Botony. Needless to say, I haven't had Drano in my house since that incident.

[Gannon]

How much damage does an M-800 do? I found one recently in [[of all places) a doctor's parking lot right near the front door. It's 1½ inches long.

Back between 9th and 10th grade, I worked with a City of Dearborn jobs program. Part of our responsibilities included cleaning up Ford Field after the fireworks.

We saw two young fellas excited about their find...which was roughly that size and the diameter of a stick of dynamite...so maybe an eighth of a stick.


My buddy, good ol' Tom Hoagland of the Abreact Theater alumni, decided to take it from them for their own good...and light it on the pitcher's mound of one of the baseball fields.

I stood near a garbage truck on the first base line, while he shielded the VERY short fuse from the wind with his body...basically kneeling around it.

I saw before he did that it caught so I screamed and he jumped away 'just' in time to have the damn thing actually force me against the truck! That was some kinda shock and boom...and we BOTH realized we'd averted a huge disaster.

Probably saved the kids, too. What is the distance between pitcher's mound and the first base line? Add ten more feet to it, and that is the distance the shock wave had to go before moving me.


Some things I'll never forget...and that one was almost 32 years ago. Ugh.

[Russix]

Drano bomb is only a noise maker. When the Hydrochloric acid is reacting with the metal foil, it’s producing a large amount of hydrogen which expands the plastic bottle to the point of failure resulting in a loud boom. If you place one next to a campfire, sometimes the hydrogen will ignite and briefly display a very tall and skinny flame as it burns while simultaneously escaping into the atmosphere. If you want to get really creative, place one in a large cardboard box with a sparkler, when the Drano bomb goes off, if you have a relatively stoichiometric air/fuel ratio[[around 34:1 for H) it should atomize and fill the box before igniting and rapidly increasing the pressure on the walls of the box like a combustion chamber. Great Science!

[gumby]

I was always under the impression that you had to use the Works instead of Drano because the Works is an acid while Drano is a base. We used to make these "bombs" all the time as kids walking home from school. There were some woods with trails on our way home so we went pretty much undetected. Although I am sure my mom wondered why it always took me 45mins to an hour to get home when we only lived about a half a mile from school.

[Gannon]

And I was making a joke about how to clean your bowl...or pipe...

OMG, I'm a bit rusty here. I missed the 'screen' shot.


See what happens when I take time off from imbibing?!

[ejames01]

When I was in college, my roommate made a Dry Ice Bomb and blew it out outside the dorm room. No flame, but it sure made a deep crater and was loud as hell!

[RealityCheck]

Doesn't take much to get us going here, does it?

34 comments | 755 views | Under 24 hours

Way to . . . um, light a fuse, exmotowner!

[Retroit]

What I want to know is, will it unclog the toilet the day after eating at the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet?

[agirlintheD]

According to the story on freep.com, his mom says he was "framed". Sounds eerily familiar to Bernard saying Kwame was being "railroaded".

[Retroit]

^ ...and to top it off, she admitted today that she hasn't spoken to him since he left for school.

[Jimaz]

... Drano is a base....

It's mostly sodium hydroxide, a strong alkali, about 12 or 13 pH.

[Crystal]

Drano bomb is only a noise maker. When the Hydrochloric acid is reacting with the metal foil, it’s producing a large amount of hydrogen which expands the plastic bottle to the point of failure resulting in a loud boom.

A Drano or Works bomb would be harmless if the relative amounts of acid or base and foil are in the correct ratio so that there is no leftover unreacted product. If there is too much Drano or Works, then some could be leftover. The leftover would be acidic or caustic and could be harmful, especially if in an unlabeled container.