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Exploding Lighter/Gunslingers |
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Written by Erikator
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Tuesday, 21 November 2006 |
Exploding Lighters / Gunslinger Myths
Original Air Date: November 1, 2006
Episode #65
Exploding Lighter
The myth: Adam and Jamie examine several circumstances under
which a disposable lighter might explode and cause damage and/or
injuries.
Expert: Bryan Niswonger (fire marshal for the South San Francisco Fire Department) who is taking care of Adam and Jamie and making sure they don’t blow up the entire city of San Francisco.
Memorable/Quotable moments:
Adam: The only thing that differentiates you and me from a couple of 14-year old pyromaniacs is ballistic glass!
Jamie: Pork!
Adam: (snickering) Yeah, I suppose it is more pork.
Jamie (handling a huge ham): I like a pork butt!
The Action/Results:
Welding
The first myth is: When you are welding and slag ends up in your pocket - up goes the lighter. Adam sets up boxes and a steel bar and places a welder close to it. Then he hooks up the welder so it can be triggered remotely. They set the lighter right under the welder tip for maximum fallout. The sparks rain down, the plastic case of the lighter melts, releases gas and the slag sets the lighter on fire. Soon it ignites the leaking gas, and it causes an explosion. They try it with another funny looking plastic lighter and the result is the same. Myth confirmed.
Clothes dryer
The second myth is: When you leave the lighter in your pocket and run it through a cycle in the dryer, it can get hot enough to blow the lighter up. Adam modifies a dryer by replacing the door with laminated safety glass and adding a temperature gauge. Then he puts in the lighter and the dryer starts tumbling. The temperature in the dryer reaches 160 degrees, but no explosion or fire. They leave it there for an hour but nothing happens. Jamie sums it up: there was neither enough heat for the plastic to melt nor an ignition source to set the leaking gasses on fire. Myth busted.
Golf club of death
The next myth is: Can you cause significant damage by smacking a lighter with a golf club?
Adam and Jamie build a mechanical device to hold and swing the club. First the club misses the lighter. In a new try: direct hit but
no spark to light up the gas leaking out from the broken lighter. Jamie guesses they could try it a hundred times to get that lucky shot to obtain a spark and explosion. Adam glues down the striker on the lighter so that the flame will be up when the club hits the lighter. The high speed camera shows what happens next: the club smashes the lighter and as the case breaks, the gas expands to mix correctly with the air and then it goes up! However, there is a delay between the hit and the explosion. Myth confirmed.
Car dash boom
Can a lighter sitting on the dashboard of a hot car explode?
Jamie simulates the dash of a hot car with a toaster oven as in which the temperature can be controlled. As a car dash can heat up to 180F, the toaster is a good choice as Jamie can adjust the temperature. First, they try a temperature of 140F. After an hour, nothing happens. Adam dials it up to 190F. Even after 3 hours the lighter keeps its cool. Jamie suggests cranking it up to a sizzling 500F. At 350F Jamie sees cracks on the plastic case and the lighter suddenly explodes. The thermometer shoots out of the oven. “ No fire, though,” says Jamie. Then he goes: “Whoops!” as just 5 seconds later flames light up the oven. Jamie explains, “Actually, there was fire!" The end piece of the lighter blew a hole in the tray of the oven. Jamie’s time of 5 minutes compared to Adam’s one hour is a good result. The guys like it so much they give it a second go just for the heck of it. As Jamie thinks cars can never get so hot even in the desert in summer, this myth is busted.
Welding myth revisited
Adam and Jamie decide to test the welding myth with a human analog, to determine whether the exploding lighter may cause serious injuries to a human or could be lethal. Jamie drawls, “I like a pork butt!” and he and Adam place the pork into a pair of overalls.
Then they attach a welder to a stand and put a steel plate in front of it. The sparks from the welding fall on the overalls and set it on fire. The lighter catches flame but does not go up. On the pork skin there are injuries only from the welding but none from the lighter. They reposition it and try again with the lighter placed in the vertical pocket. The denim catches fire faster but the lighter still didn’t explode and all the burn injuries on the pig skin are caused by the welding. Myth busted.
500 lighters in one car
Jamie quotes a news article about a salesman in Brussels whose car
burst into flames because of the leaking gas of 500 disposable lighters in his car. Adam and Jamie are plotting and planning to get a car, put 500 lighters in it and heat up the car. As the lighters fill melt and gasses will leak they will trigger a remote ignition source and hopefully blow it all up. They pay a visit to a water control plant and ask for the help of the San Francisco Fire Department. "As long as you don’t blow up the city we are fine with it. " says Bryan Niswonger, fire marshal.
Adam places the car in a high-walled concrete bunker, puts the 500 lighters inside the car and calculates that they contain about 1000 cm3 of butane gas all together. Adam and Jamie hang a heat source, a vacuform machine, above the lighters. This device can heat up the interior up to 800F. In case the vacuform itself wouldn’t ignite the lighters, they build a backup ignition system: a neon transformer will create a spark that will travel down a gasoline soaked rope inside the car to create ignition. They switch on the heating element. A few minutes the lighters melt one by one, burst and release the gas. They would not blow though, so Jamie hits the switch for the sparker and flames sweep across the car, blowing out the back window immediately and burning down the entire car. Adam is overwhelmed by the results and the 500 colorful plastic lighters melted to the board they were fixed onto. Adam’s final comment on the results - “I wanna seal this and hang it on the wall. This is magnificent! This is just what I was hoping to end up with: a little modern art - charred and burned!”
Can 500 lighters be potentially lethal? PLAUSIBLE
Can one lighter be lethal? BUSTED
Gunslingers
The myths: The build team tracks down some of the gunslinger myths originating from the Wild West.
Experts:
Larry Hamby, alias Lightning Larry, competition fast draw expert, who thinks that it is possible to fire the gun three times before a falling coin hits the ground, 4 would be very hard and 5 is extremely difficult.
Veteran cowboy shooter Frank Tabor, who shoots loose the “Californian necktie” of an innocent bloke.
Memorable/Quotable moments:
Lightning Larry, quick draw expert, explaining his nickname: They don’t call me Lightning Larry because I am so fast but because my bullets never hit the same spot twice!
Kari to Tory when he tries to revolve a pistol around his finger and drops the gun: Do me a favor - try not to do that when it is loaded!
Tory to Grant who has some difficulties putting on his holster and belt as it keeps falling down his waist: What the heck is going on here, partner? You got a problem with your gear?
Action/Results:
Quick draw
The myth is that Harvey Logan a.k.a. Kid Curry was able to put a poker chip or silver dollar on the back of his hand, turn his wrist and fire 5 shots with his single action revolver before the coin hit the ground.
Kari and Tory go out to buy two authentic replicas: a 1873 colt
Peacecemaker that takes a 45 caliber bullet, and a single action 1851 Navy Colt with lead ball, percussion cap, and black powder.
To test the actual myth the guys first want to find out how many rounds you can get off before the coin hits the ground.
Grant tries it with the Navy Colt. The Colt is too long, so Grant cannot even get it out of the holster before the coin hits the ground. It is Kari’s turn. She claims to have problems with the trigger - maybe the gun is jammed. But it isn’t - Kari just had a hard time with the trigger. Tory comes last to save the day: He can make two shots before the coin hits the ground. Then Tory tries it with the Peacemaker. But the shooting freaks out the neighbors. “Once again, making friends with our neighbors here at Mythbusters,” says Tory. Since the shooting irritates the neighbors, the guys get inside. To check whether a gun can mechanically fire as fast as in the myth, Grant creates a robot being able to fire the gun repeatedly at high speed. The robot is able to fire the gun four times before the coin drops in .5 second. Kari points out that the robot has an unfair advantage over humans as people has an average reaction time of .2 second. It means that all five shots should be made in .3 second. The gun just was not build for such rapid rate firing and breaks. Grant says, “I definitely think that is a result.” Myth is busted so far.
They call in Lightning Larry, the competition fast draw expert and cowboy action shooter. Larry confirms that the holsters used for the tests are authentic, so are the guns. Larry puts a coin of the back of his hand, turns it, and can get his gun out of the holster and fire his gun long before the coin hits the ground. Actually, he is so fast that the coin does not even pass the gun before he fires for the first time. He attempts rapid fire. Even though only one cap goes off, the high-speed camera records that Larry had three good shots before the silver dollar hit the ground. BUSTED.
Putting a hole in a silver dollar:
The myth here is that you can shoot a hole through a silver dollar with a handgun.
Kari puts the coin on the coin holder and fixes it with 3 screws carefully balancing it as if the coin would be floating in air. The coin is an 1879 silver dollar. Tory fires the Peacemaker with a real bullet. The bullet hits the very center of the coin, makes a huge dent, but fails to pierce it. The Navy Colt is next but it doesn’t make a hole either, just a dent. It seems like cowboy guns don’t have enough force. They get a 357 double action Magnum to see if a modern gun with higher velocity could do the trick. Bullseye! There is a hole. Tory hands over the coin to Kari and says, “You could make a necklace out of it!” Myth busted as cowboy period guns were not powerful enough to put a hole into a silver coin.
Shoot a coin tossed in the air
Is it possible to shoot a hole through a coin tossed in the air?
Lightning Larry uses a period gun and lead coins as lead is softer than silver. Kari tosses the coins and Larry tries to shoot them. After a few tries, he succeeds in turning the coin into a donut. But, as the team has proven, the stunt cannot be done with a harder silver dollar.
Myth Busted
Shooting through the hangman’s rope
This myth says that you can shoot through the rope of a hangman’s noose with a single shot, stopping an execution.
Tory makes the gallows, makes a silhouette of an outlaw and hangs it up with a 150 pound weight to imitate the weight of a criminal. They first attempt it with the 1851 black powder pistol. At first the bullet hits the rope but just grazes it. The guys move the gun up close right to the rope. The bullet hits the rope, but it is not cut through - just burned. They move up to the Peacemaker. The bullet cuts into the rope but the culprit still hangs. The period guns can't make it. Myth busted.
Veteran cowboy shooter Frank Tabor is invited to a shooting field to
help shoot the poor crook’s rope. The team sets up the gallows equipped with a trapdoor and it is time to save the life of that falsely accused outlaw. Frank claims to be able to get it down in two if he is lucky. He grabs his 1888 Winchester rifle, hits the rope second shot and cuts through in 5 shots. Then the entire team cuts loose and shoots until the gallows arm falls down.
Myth Busted
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Episode Descriptions 