"John Reilly" <***@birch.net
|I found this recent photo from Pirotecnico Reyes (Mexico) and I assume
| these gems are a new twist on an old item. Probably work better with
| slingshots but doesn't seem to address the reason the original US made
| plastic cherry salute was banned. Maybe the CPSC could staff a Mexico
| City office now that we have the North American "Free Trade" Agreement.
| I'll pop for the first one way ticket and citizenship documents.
|
| http://pyrotechnics.no-ip.org/files/juguete-6%20%20pirotecnica%20reyes%2C%20mexico.jpg
|
|
| Paco
--------------
The Infamous Plastic Cherry Bomb
All 2 messages in topic - view as tree
From: donald j haarmann - view profile
Date: Mon, Sep 1 1997 12:00 am
THE PLASTIC CHERRY BOMB
by Frederick B. Wagner III
American Pyrotechnist Fireworks News
October 1971
The Plastic Cherry Bomb, invented, produced, and distributed by Bernard Semel,
is by far the most unique and powerful exploding item that I have ever purchased
at a place that sells fireworks.
I purchased the cherry bombs in Virginia at a gas station in April of 1963 on the
return from a trip to Florida. In a letter dated July 15,1970, from Jack Leonard, he
said, "I visited a dealer in 1964 located at Baileys Crossroads, Virginia, and he
told me that Prince William County was the place to buy them in 1963." I only
purchased one dollar's worth, or 12 Plastic Cherry Bombs, and they were handed
to me in a paper bag with a warning from the seller that they were extremely
powerful and that I should handle them with extreme caution. Thus, I do not know
if they were ever made up to be sold in one half or full gross boxes as regular
cherry bombs were sold.
When I arrived home, I took one of the bombs to my friend's house where we
inserted it in a rather large plastic model of a ship he had, and just to be extra
cautious, we added about 6 inches of Jetex Fuse so that we would be about 75
feet away when it exploded. The blast was so powerful that it just about atomized
his plastic model! After searching for about an hour, the biggest piece we found
was about one quarter inch square, and the spot on their driveway where the
bomb was located had been broken up by the blast!!! Needless to say, I just
couldn't believe so much explosive power could come from so small an item!
Since then I have never set one off with just the green piece of safety fuse
furnished, but have always added another piece of fuse to be sure never to be
closer than 50 feet from one when it exploded. In the same letter from Jack
previously mentioned he goes on to say, "The dealer at Baileys Crossroads
backs up what you told me about the plastic cherries very powerful. He said that
he threw one on his front lawn, and it blew a hole in it, where a regular cherry
bomb would have only removed some grass." In the next letter I received from
Jack, dated August 1, 1970, he quoted and article in the Baltimore "News
American" in 1963 in which the paper said that; the FBI was running experiments
on the Plastic Cherry Bombs, and found that they were as powerful as a military
blasting cap four times as powerful as the regular type. I have included below
specifications of a Plastic Cherry Bomb.
SPECIFICATIONS:
O.D. 15/16"
I.D. 3/4"
CASING
Smooth round plastic case with a seam in the middle.
FUSE
1/8" green safety fuse, 1 1/4" extending from the plastic casing.
EXPLOSIVE
Unknown as to the composition, produces a yellow circular flash about one foot
in diameter on exploding. Not a flash powder composition.
--------------------------
FOLLOW UP ON THE PLASTIC CHERRY BOMB
American Pyrotechnist Fireworks News
December 1971
After reading Fred Wagner's article on this device in the October issue, K L sent
us a copy of a long article in MAN'S MAGAZINE, unidentified as to issue, titled:
"Fireworks Kill!" by Len Guttridge. In this article, invention of the device is
credited to a William S. Blaum of Maryland, citing a patent dated Nov., 1961,
rather than to Bernard Semel, as stated by Mr. Wagner. It also states that
Marine demolition experts at Quantico, Va. found the explosive effect of the
plastic cherry bomb to be equal to that of four or five military dynamite caps and
the charge is a high explosive fulminate! These things are "fireworks"?
------------------------
A letter from [anon]
Approximately April 4, 1983
Dear Louis,
About the same time Fred bought his I too bought a dozen of these goodies in a
gas station in Va. (maybe the same place) Unlike his one of mine was a dud so I
decided to open It up and see what was in it. This I did by stomping it.* It
contained a great deal of dark grey flash . Probably similar to that M 80 formula.
The reason I suspect these were so horrendous is they 1) contained far more
flash than an ordinary CB and 2) that ultra strong plastic casing . Also the flash in
the PCB may have boon premixed.
*By some miracle I'm not known as peg leg today.
Another important difference I suspect between the conventional cherry and the
plastic CB (besides having far more flash) is that the flash was probably put in
the plastic CB premixed .. in the conventional CB the flash was put in one
ingredient at a time with shifting boards. (See Weingart for more on this device.
The tops were put on and the CB's put into a "sweety barrel" (a device like a
cement mixer) See Davis "Chemistry of Powder and Explosives" where they
were tumbled, sprayed with water glass (or some sort of water soluble glue).
Sawdust and they were tumbled some more. Lastly some. red vegetable dye was
sprayed on them and they were dumped out on a table and allowed to sit until
the outside was dry. At this point a hole was drilled in the outer casing (Oh that
must have been a swell Job!) and the fuse. inserted (and glued 1n place with a
little dab of pyro adhesive).
I suspect the powder often didn't get mixed all that well often times, also some of
the KCIO3 would cake on the damp casing (or crystallize, etc.). Also the casing
had to be largely empty to allow the chemicals to move about.
----------------------
Fireworks Kill
Len Guttridge
In part.
... by those who prefer to celebrate with ear splitting detonations and can't
conveniently obtain hand grenades. That's why the cherry bomb was invented. In
the latest variety, the pasteboard that originally encased the explosive charge
has been replaced by shiny red plastic, which not only catches the eye but
contains the explosion longer, thus generating greater ever force
a force equal
to that of four or five military dynamite caps. That is the opinion of U.S. Marine
demolition experts at Quantico Virginia, following tests of cherry bombs which
cracked bricks in half, ruptured slabs of street metal, and hurled the pieces 50
feet
.
The tests were requested by a U.S Senate subcommittee investigating a rash of
cherry bombings in 1963. One July afternoon the subcommittee's chief
investigator, Bill Mooney, pored through back files in the U.S. Patent Office in
Washington, D.C., and turned up an application for a patent on the plastic cherry
bomb, dated November, 1961. Applicant: William S. Baum, of Maryland. Baum
described his bomb thus: An improved salute emboding a hollow shell having
moisture proof and gas tight characteristics that are provided to assure that the
salute will not become defective if unduly exposed to dampness and also to
assure that the eruption of the shell by the expanding gases from the burning
fulminate will result in a loud and very impressive noise. It is to be understood,
however, that the plastic composition of the shell or housing is of such a nature
that the heat and force of the attendant explosion of the salute will result in a
substantially complete disintegration or pulverization of the same, thus precluding
any danger from flying particles or sharp fragments."
Mooney glowered at the application. Great God, how many pieces did shell find
in the Recinos kid? By latest count 24 fragments of plastic shrapnel had been
taken from the injured son of Andrew Recinos and a local physicians and several
hospital surgeons were sill probing form more . The boy had been cherry
bombed while canoeing on Lake Barcroft, 10 miles south of Washington, by a
teenage gang in another canoe. That Sunday afternoon the same gang had
attacked a swimmer who was dredged up lifeless from the lake bottom the next
day.
State police weren't sure that a cherry bomb could have caused his death, so
they ran tests. A cherry bomb was detonated beneath the surface of the of the
water, 10 feet from a submerged coconut simulating the human skull. It split the
coconut wide open!
Additional evidence of the cherry bomb's extra-lethal force in water wasn't
lacking. A cherry bomb exploded below a boy swimming in the Ohio River. It
killed him. Doctors in the autopsy room found that the victim's heart and stomach
were as hideously mutilated as if he had been beaten to death with a
sledgehammer
.
Colonel Randolph Berkeley, USMC came froward with fragments of Cherry
bomb. Another bomb from the same box, bought on July 4 from a roadside
stand near Woodbridge, Virginia, had burst at his 16 old son's feet and destroyed
the boy's right eye. Investigator Mooney examined the fragments and noted the
small numerals imprinted by the molding device. They matched those
surrendered to the police by an Arlington mother whose son had bought them in
half-gross cartons priced at $5 each, from a traveling dealer in a pickup truck.
--
donald j haarmann
---------------------------------
If all the young ladies who attended the
Yale promenade dance were laid end to
end, no one would be the least surprised.
Dorothy Parker
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