Cutting Steel With Flaming Bacon Weapons 73
Ed Pegg writes "Theo Gray demonstrates the Bacon Lance, a flaming meatsword that can cut through steel. Yes, with some ordinary bacon, and some pure oxygen, it's possible to cut through security doors. Form the article, 'I recently committed myself to the goal, before the weekend was out, of creating a device entirely from bacon and using it to cut a steel pan in half. My initial attempts were failures, but I knew success was within reach when I was able to ignite and melt the pan using seven beef sticks and a cucumber.' This comes out right after his profusely illustrated book of science experiments, Mad Science."
Theodore Gray (Score:5, Informative)
Is also known as the guy who made a periodic table table [theodoregray.com] (for which he was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize).
Re:Prosciutto is not bacon (Score:4, Informative)
And TFA is wrong.
Prosciutto is an expensive salt cured ham. You do not need to cook it. Even if it came from the same part of the pig and was otherwise identical to bacon(which it isn't) the salt curing would be more than enough to make it different. It's chemically different than regular(or even canadian) bacon and at the least contains a whole heck of a lot of salt which regular bacon does not.
Kindom of Loathing (Score:2, Informative)
Sounds like a weapon right out of that game. And if not, I can imagine them adding it in after this.
Re:also known as (Score:4, Informative)
Actually you can cut steel with pure oxygen - its called a cutting torch. With a cutting torch the flame is only there to get the metal up to the ignition point, after which the metal itself burns in the stream of oxygen. Once you get a cutting torch going and a cut started, you can actually turn off the actylene and continue with just the oxygen jet going.
In the first video when you see the sparks flying, thats the metal buring in the oxygen rich flow.
Real Meat for Rocket Motors (Score:5, Informative)
Mythbusters confirmed (episodes 51 and 64) a story about using salami http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(season_4)#Salami_Rocket [wikipedia.org] as fuel in a hybrid rocket motor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_rocket [wikipedia.org] , with nitrous oxide as an oxidizer. Their contention was that it was or could have been done in the US civil war. It was done in fact by an amateur rocketer. Oxidizing hydrocarbons produces energy, whether it's kerosene/LOX (a common combination since the V2) or lipids/Nox.
Re:also known as (Score:4, Informative)
Parent is correct. I had an oxy-propane torch for cutting and the torch handle has two mixing valves and then a trigger lever. You adjust the mixing valves to get a nice hot flame and then start to heat the metal. once it gets to the point where it begins to get yellow hot and starts to melt you squeeze the lever and out come a stream of oxygen. Then you start seeing sparks fly! At that point the flame isn't doing any cutting, the oxygen is.
The "bacon" lance is a thermal lance that is made of meat. A real thermal lance is easy to make.You take a 1/2 piece of steel pipe, pack it full of thin steel rods and just connect a valve to one end that is hooked to an oxygen tank. You light it with a cutting torch and it works like the torch, only it does not have its own gaseous fuel source but instead burns the steel. They can punch holes through concrete and slice steel I beams like a hot knife through butter. As the lance burns it gets shorter, that is why some are upward of eight to ten feet long. If you ever get to see a bridge or overpass demolished you will see thermal lances used to cut the beams and anchors.