Howdy Y'all,
Those of you who know me, know that I have a way of opening the proverbial "can of worms". Well it's the weekend, so lets open something else, the can of beer. I am opening this thread to document the stupidest experiments as sort of a guide of what not to do. I know I have had plenty of failures that were not very spectacular, however there were a couple that are literally burned into my mind and body. It would be good for everyone to contribute a story or two, because we can learn from each others mistakes, but also because it's fun to laugh at your fellow researchers.
OK, Have fun!
The Jacobs Ladder and the Combination Wrench.
I was in High School electric shop. Our teacher was pretty cool, he gave us a lot of latitude. There was a massive pile of industrial electrical junk in the corner of the shop. Everything you could imagine was back there. Plenty of ways to electrocute yourself. I, being fascinated with arcs and sparks, chose this massive neon lamp transformer. It had giant porcelain terminals on the sides. It was some thing in the neighborhood of 14KV, probably a not good thing for a teenager to be playing with. So I took some coat hanger wire and fashioned the "V" portion of the ladder. It took several hours to get the arc path just right so it would start by itself, and make the arc travel up the "V". This took several more hours of tuning the wire so the arc would behave properly. Finally after messing with this thing for a week I was showing it off. I plugged it in and it just sat there. I was puzzled. So I figured that just needed to give one of the terminals a little push to get it started. So for some reason I grabbed a combination wrench to adjust the terminal. I touched the terminal and Bzzzt! The high voltage caused caused a spastic reaction in my arm. I threw the wrench directly behind me where it stuck halfway embedded in the sheet rock. Needless to say I had shell shock for the rest of the day. This is how I found out what welding gloves are for...
The Alchemists Stove
Alchemy is one of those things that you just have to play with once you learn about it. The allure of gold is irresistible. There were several books that I had read on the topic, and I was thoroughly convinced that I could convert any regular metal to gold. There were many theoretical methodologies which I tried with no success. But the one catalyst that I had not added to any equation was heat. So I prepared the next experiment. I was going to add mercury to molten lead. I was short on resources, and didn't have a smelting pot so I decided to do it on the stove top. My crucible was a corning ware dish, those are pretty solid so no problem there. The heat control was readily accessible, no problem. Got a fire extinguisher, check. Safety glasses, check. I took some lead fishing weights and melted them in my "crucible". I had purchased a tiny amount of mercury, like a 1/4 ounce. So, slowly I started to add the room temperature mercury to the molten lead. The mercury came out all at once, hit the lead and exploded. This wasn't a nice reaction, it exploded so violently there was nothing left in the crucible. It literally blew molten lead and mercury all over the place. I tasted metal for like 2 years after that. This was easily the most stupid thing that I have ever done. Some years after that I found methods to naturally remove mercury from my system. Chlorophyll will bond with the metals and remove them from your system. I no longer taste metal, but I do have a renewed respect for metallurgy.