Tim S wrote:
brass monkey wibbled:

"Tim S" wrote in message
.. .
Harry Bloomfield wibbled:

The Medway Handyman expressed precisely :
We also made a paste from potassium permanganate & something
else?
Glycerine!

That mix self ignites fairly quickly (10's seconds to minutes) -
not a contact explosive...

Contact bangers sound more like NI3 - but pot.mang isn't used to
make this AFAIK. Perhaps there's some extra fun to be had with
pot.mang?
Wasn't it something like ammonium iodide? or something iodide.

NI3 = Nitrogen Tri-Iodide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_triiodide

Ah yes... for the benefit of newer readers: my experience with that
*wonderful* stuff is he

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....2b267bcc5ce012

As the sister-electrocuter named by the OP (and yes, she did survive my
ministrations) - as a kid I had a fair amount of experience with
home-made explosives, none of which caused any damage or injury, but for
some reason the instance which most sticks in my mind was when I was
very young and simply left a lit candle in the garage in a plastic pot
overnight 'just to see what would happen'. Went down to see next morning
and all that was left was a charred circle of about 9" diameter on the
wooden shelf and about half-way through its thickness, where the molten
wax must have spilled out and soaked in to the timber as it burned.

Must have been a hair's breadth away from the whole lot - garage, house
- going up in flames overnight. I successfully hid the burn mark under
old cans etc for years - I owned up to my parents a few years ago, and
they never had noticed the burn mark.

David