From: Jim Newton (jnewton@laurel.com)
Date: Wed Jan 14 2004 - 16:37:03 PST
Hi Jim...
>HAs anyone got a good device to make smoke on demand for use inside a vehicle.
>I must admit I want to mount a device in my bren carrier to simulate a "hit" for the public battles we take it to.
>
>I had thoughts of some form of metal can with a heating element hooked to the battry circuit with an oily rag...
>
>Probably a better way to do this....
Is there a human inside the vehicle at the time? I would never want
you to place smoke in a vehicle if there is a person inside.
Do not use commercial smoke bombs or smoke "candles", because they
burn incredibly hot and could light your vehicle on fire.
I developed my own recipe for smoke compound for use in our
re-enactments and it would work great for your use. They burn nice
and cool and make lots of smoke.
You can make them yourself:
11 Parts Ammonium Chloride
7 Parts Potassium Chlorate
3 Parts Powdered Sugar
3 Parts Water or Agar Agar Gel Solution(*)
(*) Make agar agar gel solution by mixing 5 parts water with 2 parts
agar agar dessert powder, available at Asian supermarkets. Boil the
solution until it is clear, and add a little water if it boils down
too thick. It should be no thicker than cream.
Mix all the ingredients together in a glass bowl with an electric
mixer. It will be the consistency of cookie dough. Put a few
tablespoons of the dough into a small snack-size zip lock bag and
squeeze all the air out and seal. place into a cardboard tube and
insert a fuse or electrical ignitor into the tube next to the bag,
then tape the caps on loosely.
You can make your own electric ignitors too and then you could set off
the smoke with a remote control.
This smoke dough is great because it burns really cool with no flame
at all. And it produces tremendous volumes of thick, white smoke.
Do not burn this powder dry because it burns rapidly with a large
flame. It will also explode if confined in a container. Adding the
liquid dampens it and makes it much safer and more effective.
You can get all the chemicals legally from Skylighter
(www.skylighter.com).
I am currently building 250 devices with this compound (several
hundred pounds of chemicals) for our big January re-enactment event.
My new devices have pull-string ignitors which is available in kit
form from Firefox (www.firefox-fx.com).
Here are some photos of the prototypes I built last year:
http://www.cimmerians.org/smoke.html
One more way would be a metal can with a heating element, filled with
ammonium chloride powder. When you heat ammonium chloride, it
decomposes and produces thick white smoke. It is not flammable. So
you could turn the smoke on and off with your heating element control.
United Nuclear (www.unitednuclear.com/wire.htm) sells nichrome wire
which you can use for your heating element construction.
Good luck, and be safe!
--Jim "Ike" Newton
o 1984 M1007 CUCV Military Suburban 6.2 Liter (378 CID) Turbo-Diesel Engine 5/4 Ton Cargo Capacity, 4WD
o 1971 M35A2 Military Troop/Cargo Truck "Deuce and a Half" 478 CID Turbo-Diesel Multi-Fuel Engine Air Shift Front Axle 2 1/2 Ton Cargo Capacity, 6WD
See These Trucks at www.CUCV.NET Keyword Searching of 22,000 Electronic TMs at www.MILDOCS.com
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