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Written by barry 181091
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Saturday, 18 November 2006 |
More Myths Revisited.
Episode # 64
Original Air Date: October 25, 2006.
More Myths Revisited
The Myth: Salami Rocket II (The Sequel)
In ''Salami Rocket'' Adam and Jamie confirmed the myth that salami can be used ''rocket fuel'' but some viewers claimed that the propulsion of the NOX alone propelled the rocket 20ft and the salami never ignited.
The Experts: None
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Jamie: This is an invention of mine – this is called self-cooking meat!
The Action/Results:
Adam and Jamie decide to do this re-visit inside the bunker and not have an actual “lift-off rocket”.
The first thing Adam has to do is to, once again, is to make more salami-shaped rocket cylinders with long holes in the middle. Another user complaint was that Adam's graphite exhaust nozzles were not strong enough so Adam made the new ones with a much thicker lip to provide a lot more strength.
Next, Jamie builds a special clamp that will hold the rocket in place inside the bunker. At one end of the rocket he puts a digital force meter to tell how much force the NOX, or NOX & Salami gives off at ignition and at the other end he has an analog force meter to also tell how much force the substances produced.
Test 1: They test the force put out by the NOX alone. The NOX alone blew away the analog force meter and the digital meter clocked the force at 78 pounds. At the end of this test Adam reluctantly says “ ...OK...I will give it to the viewers...they may actually be right, the evidence supports it here that just the pure release of NOX from that top tank would be enough to get the rocket off the rocket stand.”
Test 2: For test 2 they are going all-out with salami as the fuel and NOX as the oxidizer to see if the viewers were correct. They also add an igniter to make sure the salami ignites if it can. They set up the salami rocket and countdown. Adam reads the digital force meter and he gets 19.6 pounds. The salami didn't ignite. But Jamie thinks that everything worked but the burning wasn't carried through into the fuel. So what they are going to do is choke down the nozzle more to make more pressure. (That just means they are going to use an exhaust nozzle with a smaller hole).
Test 3: This test is the same as test 2 just with a smaller hole for the exhaust nozzle. The rocket blew out the nozzle with all the pressure and there was salami everywhere. Adam checks the force meter and it clocks in at 218 pounds of thrust! That is 3 times the force of the NOX alone proving that, as Rob says, “salami can act as rocket fuel”.
Test 4: Even though the guys proved the myth, they just wanted to make the nozzle hole even smaller to see how much more thrust they can get. Adam reads the force meter - ”880 pounds of thrust”!
Myth Re-Confirmed.
The Myth: Rocks on the Road.
The myth is that if you are following a vehicle or approaching one and it kicks up a stone onto your windshield, you can put your hand up to the glass and apply pressure, and that will save your windshield.
The Experts: none
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Tory: (while aiming the bb gun at the window) I’ll miss you, buddy!
Grant: (inside the car that Tory is aiming at) I’m gonna catch it in my teeth!
The Action/Results: Grant and Tory decide to first fire rocks at windshields by a slingshot and Tory builds a rig that fires the slingshot with extreme accuracy. First Grant and Tory have to test how fast the slingshot by firing the rocks through a chronograph and tweak it to 76 mph. After tweaking, they set up the experiment; they place a car in front of the shop with a blanket hung over the top of it to prevent flying debris from hitting the other cars.
Test 1: Tory sets up the slingshot aimed at the windshield and the rock hits the windshield perfectly but there is no broken glass. They try this setup again but no broken glass, just a minute crack.
Test 2: For test 2 they decide to use a much larger stone, which weighs 150 g. The stone hits the glass but only makes a spider-web crack.
Grant decides to do a little research and finds out that the window just won’t break because it is a laminated windshield. But other countries have been using tempered glass, which is a lot easier to break. Tory takes out the windshield by throwing a bowling ball at it several times, then finds out that on that particular model of car the rear window is tempered and not laminated. This time they will use a bb gun to strike the window instead of the slingshot.
Test 3: They use a bb gun to fire at the tempered back window of the car. Tory pumps the bb gun and aims at the window. The bb strikes the window and instantly the whole window shatters.
Test 4: Grant puts on a motorcycle helmet and gloves. Then he climbs into the rear seats and braces his hand against the glass. Tory aims the bb gun and fires! The glass shatters, and Grant putting his hand on the glass doesn’t seem to help at all.
Test 5: This time, Tory decides to find out exactly how much force has to be behind the bb before it shatters the glass. 6 pumps of the air gun is the minimum amount of force needed to shatter the glass.
Test 6: Grant assumes the position and Tory pumps 6 times and aims the gun. The window shatters again!
Myth Busted.
The Myth: Tail Gate Up or Down.
In this continuation of the original myth, the guys test whether it is more efficient to:
1) take the tailgate off
2) replace it with a mesh tailgate
3) cover the back of the pickup with a tonneau cover
4) keep the tailgate up
5) put the tailgate down
The experts: none
Memorable/Quotable Moments: none
The Action/ Results: They hook up a flow meter to Jamie's pick-up to test how much fuel is being used in each test. They also decide to use a straight, 5-mile stretch of highway for each test.
Test 1 & 2: This time they just try to re-confirm their original tests for tailgate up or down. Tail gate down uses 5.2 gallons per hour at 55mph and 1.2 gallons per hour at 25mph. Next they test tail gate down and it uses 5.0 gallons per hour at 55mph. At 25mph they don’t say the reading but it confirms their original results.
Test 3: This time they test the fuel efficiency of the tonneau cover. It clocks in at 1.2 gallons per hour at 25 mph and 5.0 gallons per hour at 55mph.
Test 4: Then they test the efficiency of the tailgate mesh. They didn't reveal the results but Adam said the mesh was an improvement of 5% over all the other methods.
Test 5: This time they test the efficiency of no tailgate at all. They didn't reveal the results for this but said it was roughly the same as the others except mesh.
The mesh won in the end at an improvement of almost 5% over the other methods.
Original Myth – Re-Confirmed
The myth that the tailgate mesh improves your fuel efficiency; Confirmed
Taking the tailgate off: Busted
Myth: Sword vs. Machine Gun Barrel.
The myth is that Japanese soldiers in WWII were cutting through American soldiers’ hot machine gun barrels with their swords.
The Experts: none
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Tory: Always remember, use PLENTY of lighter fluid!
The Action/Results: Grant uses the same rig he made for “Cutting a Sword'' but modifies it so can swing at a super human capability, using a pressure cylinder so that it can swing with twice the force. Also, because it is so dangerous for tests they will have to retreat to the bunker.
The machine gun can get red hot when firing, which makes it much easier to cut through, so Tory starts a ''barbecue'' style fire to heat the gun barrel. Tory wants a temperature of 600 degrees. He adds the gun barrel and heats it up to 600 degrees then places it in the rig and runs into the bunker. The sword hits the gun barrel but the sword only gashes the barrel and then shatters.
Next, Tory heats the barrel to 1600 degrees and places it into the rig, then runs into the bunker. The sword cuts into the barrel deeper but still doesn’t slice it.
Then Grant thinks that if the barrel was heated up and then quenched over and over again that this would make the barrel more brittle, which could have happened in war.
To test Grant’s theory, Tory heats and quenches the barrel 6 times, places it into the rig and runs into the bunker. Also, Kari convinced Tory and Grant to use the strongest sword they had for this test. The sword hit the barrel and the barrel shattered at the point of impact but it didn't slice through it as the myth stated.
Next, Kari thinks they should try to slice through a smaller machine gun barrel and they choose a Tommy Gun. Tory heats the Tommy Gun's barrel to 1750 degrees, places it into the rig and runs into the bunker. The sword hits the barrel and bends it.
The final word on this one belongs to Rob Lee, who states, “Myth completely and utterly busted!”
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Episode Descriptions 
