19-10-19, 11:43 PM
(This post was last modified: 19-10-19, 11:46 PM by tommyardin.)
Back in the 60's I did a bricklaying apprenticeship and one of the company projects was building a new a Youth Centre in Guildford (Haydon Place Youth Centre) it was the first time I came across something call a Spit Gun,.
The Spit Gun could fire hardened steel nails into RSJ's (Rolled Steel Joists) now know as Universal Beams, these guns were used on site to fix wooden battens to the steel beams to facilitate the fixing of cladding.
The nails were propelled by small cartridges and these brass cartridges were colour coded for strength of charge, Red, Green, Blue and Black.
Well being a young lad of course I nicked a few of each of them, well they did make an almighty bang, I now realise that a lot of the almighty bang was from the nail penetrating the steel beam and the beam resounding.
Anyway back home, cartridges in hand I placed a black one on the brick steps that lead up to my back garden, Ball Payne hammer in one hand and 3 inch cut nail in the other I gave the cartridge firing pin an almighty blow and was almost blinded by the flash (I was bending over the cartridge) my ears ringing I felt an incredibly painful stinging/burning on the front of my thumb, I was beside myself with pain and I looked down to see a dark lump under my skin just above the top thumb knuckle.
Now a brass cartridges if not contained within a muzzle of some sort send out red hot bits of shrapnel as it splits, this bit was only the size of a match head but it was red hot and had gone down under my thumb nail and had stopped when it hit my bent thumb joint.
I have come off numerous motorcycles over the years, fallen off ladders and once buzzed my foot with a chain saw but I have never felt pain like that shrapnel burn before, or since.
The remaining cartridges went back to the building site on the Monday morning.
I actually dug the piece of shrapnel out of my swollen Pusey thumb about a week later and the nail came off about a week after that.
Don't fuck with explosives. :'(
The Spit Gun could fire hardened steel nails into RSJ's (Rolled Steel Joists) now know as Universal Beams, these guns were used on site to fix wooden battens to the steel beams to facilitate the fixing of cladding.
The nails were propelled by small cartridges and these brass cartridges were colour coded for strength of charge, Red, Green, Blue and Black.
Well being a young lad of course I nicked a few of each of them, well they did make an almighty bang, I now realise that a lot of the almighty bang was from the nail penetrating the steel beam and the beam resounding.
Anyway back home, cartridges in hand I placed a black one on the brick steps that lead up to my back garden, Ball Payne hammer in one hand and 3 inch cut nail in the other I gave the cartridge firing pin an almighty blow and was almost blinded by the flash (I was bending over the cartridge) my ears ringing I felt an incredibly painful stinging/burning on the front of my thumb, I was beside myself with pain and I looked down to see a dark lump under my skin just above the top thumb knuckle.
Now a brass cartridges if not contained within a muzzle of some sort send out red hot bits of shrapnel as it splits, this bit was only the size of a match head but it was red hot and had gone down under my thumb nail and had stopped when it hit my bent thumb joint.
I have come off numerous motorcycles over the years, fallen off ladders and once buzzed my foot with a chain saw but I have never felt pain like that shrapnel burn before, or since.
The remaining cartridges went back to the building site on the Monday morning.
I actually dug the piece of shrapnel out of my swollen Pusey thumb about a week later and the nail came off about a week after that.
Don't fuck with explosives. :'(