Police say the man behind ballot box fires has metalworking experience and might plan more attacks
Police say the man behind ballot box fires has metalworking experience and might plan more attacks
Investigators say the man suspected of setting fires in ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state is an experienced metalworker and may be planning additional attacks.
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Probably just whipped up some thermite.
Not something you typically do on a whim. The process isn't exactly without risk.
50/50 Aluminum powder and rust that's stable enough to resist igniting under a blow torch. What's dangerous about making it?
Attaching it to some kind of ignition, most commonly.
But even past that, you typically want a very fine concentrate and even distribution of aluminium and rust. Grinding that shit up and mixing it is nasty for your lungs, without quality equipment on hand.
I mean a cheap rock tumbler with steel balls for the grinding and standard magnesium sparklers for ignition
doeswould do the trick, I imagineIn theory, lots of things work great. In practice...
You generally want some kind of background and some proper equipment. I'll concede that making thermite can easily go wrong in the opposite direction - cooking up a recipe that doesn't ignite at all.
well the guy knows how to weld at least.
I use to make, sell, and ship thermite online when I was 15. It's easy for anyone to do
The problem is that you’ll typically need something like a magnesium strip to set it off. Shit needs to meet with something burning like the surface of the sun before it kicks into chaos mode.
Or just mix potassium permanganate and glycerine and it will ignite the thermite.
Detonators are difficult to build and transport. In a high risk activity, like domestic terrorism, the offender has a bias towards getting the thing to work and away from personal safety. This compounds the risk of accidents.
And that's before you get into the process of milling the combustion material. Which, again, not great for your long term health if you're just trying to hack it in your garage or kitchen.
You can buy premixed thermite online. Granted, you'll show up suspicious when they start looking up sellers and their buyers.
Oh sure. You can buy tannerite explosives as part of a gender reveal kit, ffs. But, like with any kind of fireworks or similar explosive materials, there are risks to improper transportation and use.
You can buy firecrackers from stales on the side of the road in some states. But people injure themselves with firecrackers all the time.
Tetanus?
It's one of the easiest high-energy reactions to prepare, contains only very stable powdered iron and aluminum (though you can add other things as buffers to slow the reaction, such as boron or carbon) and it can only be kicked off by VERY intense heat, like from burning magnesium or the burning titanium powder in a sparkler. Thermite can be shipped through the mail with no special considerations. Were you thinking of something else?
Making thermite is pretty easy actually!
Thought about trying it for kicks, but making the AL powder sounds painful without proper gear.
You can buy it online real easy.