A few years ago we were having some renovations done to our house in Chisholm Heights (ha!). The builders had left a porta-potty on the front nature strip. Sometime around 2am one morning it exploded mightily sending bits of potty as well as the fragrant contents across the front yard and into the neighbours.

A silly and potentially dangerous act by the perpetrators to be sure, but I still reckon it’s piss-funny.

Sorry about your letterbox though, that’s somewhat more serious.

They blew up a stone letterbox? What was it a stick of gelignite?

No way this is true, fireworks were banned years ago, we all know it is impossible that anyone has any.

“Surely if it was a group of kids they could find something better to do before going back to school. “

That brought a smirk to my face…Surely there is something more fun than this…;-)

Sorry about your letterbox. I hope it was full of junk mail.

bundah said :

They blew up a stone letterbox? What was it a stick of gelignite?

You wouldn’t believe the amount of damage a decent sized cracker can do.

Many years back, my housemates and I were woken by a massive boom. Someone had punched a small hole through the back window of their car, and thrown a cracker inside. It blew out all four side windows (my car, parked next to it, was covered in glass), and the front and back windows were popped out of their seals. The floor of the car was noticeably dented.

In an enclosed space, a good sized bunger might as well be a stick of gelignite…

You can’t have a post on a blown up letter box without a picture of the damage!!!!

email it in to images@the-riotact.com

ScienceRules said :

A few years ago we were having some renovations done to our house in Chisholm Heights (ha!). The builders had left a porta-potty on the front nature strip. Sometime around 2am one morning it exploded mightily sending bits of potty as well as the fragrant contents across the front yard and into the neighbours.

A silly and potentially dangerous act by the perpetrators to be sure, but I still reckon it’s piss-funny.

That’s s***house.

chewy14 said :

ScienceRules said :

A few years ago we were having some renovations done to our house in Chisholm Heights (ha!). The builders had left a porta-potty on the front nature strip. Sometime around 2am one morning it exploded mightily sending bits of potty as well as the fragrant contents across the front yard and into the neighbours.

A silly and potentially dangerous act by the perpetrators to be sure, but I still reckon it’s piss-funny.

That’s s***house.

It was a crap job for the coppers who came over too!

So good they banned fireworks.

ps the bloody dog over the back fence is still barking all day long.

johnboy said :

email it in to images@the-riotact.com

photo emailed

thatsnotme said :

bundah said :

They blew up a stone letterbox? What was it a stick of gelignite?

You wouldn’t believe the amount of damage a decent sized cracker can do.

Many years back, my housemates and I were woken by a massive boom. Someone had punched a small hole through the back window of their car, and thrown a cracker inside. It blew out all four side windows (my car, parked next to it, was covered in glass), and the front and back windows were popped out of their seals. The floor of the car was noticeably dented.

In an enclosed space, a good sized bunger might as well be a stick of gelignite…

Yes it was definitely a dynamite stick of some sort…Concrete and bits of stone from the letterbox that were blown off ended just short of our house window, in the other direction bits were scattered across the road. If there had been a car driving past, it would have been damaged and the car windows would have smashed from the impact.

Small pipe bomb?

Definitely not fireworks. I played with some pretty huge bungers as a kid, and they make a lot of noise, maybe trash a wooden letterbox, but wouldn’t damage stone or concrete like that. Thats the result of a home made device of some kind. There’s about as much powder in a .22LR cartridge as there is in even the largest bungers.

There seems to be a general underestimation of what damage a firecracker/firework can do. If it had been a stick of gelignite, the top of your letterbox would have ended up in more than a couple of pieces. The damaged caused by a firecracker is intensified by the density of the object in which it is stored at ignition.

I’d suggest a cracker about 5cm long and 1cm wide would do the job shown.

That’s a lot of damage for a cracker,mind you it does bring back memories of cracker nights with bonfires and cracker fights in the seventies which can only be described as ballistic and would shock gen Y!

Duffbowl said :

There seems to be a general underestimation of what damage a firecracker/firework can do. If it had been a stick of gelignite, the top of your letterbox would have ended up in more than a couple of pieces. The damaged caused by a firecracker is intensified by the density of the object in which it is stored at ignition.

Yeah this is true – if it was an actual explosive there’d be a lot more shattering. It’s definitely a cracker, though I reckon probably bigger than what you’re describing since it did significantly more than just blow the front/back off.
I remember being able to get little yellow crackers about the size you describe in the early 00s before they started really cracking down on fireworks, but there were also bigger ones, about 2cm in diameter and 15cm long – I remember seeing them in the shops as a teenager, though we never got them. My guess is it was something like them – they were basically made to look like a small red stick of dynamite.

Duffbowl said :

There seems to be a general underestimation of what damage a firecracker/firework can do. If it had been a stick of gelignite, the top of your letterbox would have ended up in more than a couple of pieces. The damaged caused by a firecracker is intensified by the density of the object in which it is stored at ignition.

I’d suggest a cracker about 5cm long and 1cm wide would do the job shown.

5cm by 1cm would have the power, but would be unlikely to actually do that damage as the force would all escape out the slot and the door. Now, if you were to silicon up the cracks, then fill the box with water, a cracker sunk to the bottom would easily do it. Or so I have heard.

Alternatively, a large mortar shell (of the commercial type used at things like sky fire) would do the very easily.

Duffbowl said :

I’d suggest a cracker about 5cm long and 1cm wide would do the job shown.

That volume of smokeless powder may be able to do that kind of damage, correctly packed into a small pipe or similar, but the amount of powder in penny bungers and the like is nowhere near that amount. Nowhere near enough to smash stone like that.

Duffbowl said :

I’d suggest a cracker about 5cm long and 1cm wide would do the job shown.

In your dreams.

I’ve blown up lots of stuff and I’ve had extensive experience with a variety of energetic materials, including ANFO, C4, black powder and smokeless powder.

Most fireworks (at least in the good old days) were filled with small charges of black powder. They made a lot of noise, smoke and flame but had little shattering effect because of the small charge size and the low velocity of the blast front.

To shatter stone and concrete like that, and to spray debris at high velocity across the road would take something a lot more powerful than any commercial firework that I’ve ever run across. This is particularly so, given that most of the blast front would’ve been able to take the path of least resistance out the letter slot.

I’d say it would’ve been a commercial firework, a military pyrotechnic (eg grenade simulator) or a honkin’ big home made IED.

The cops should be paying attention to this.

switch said :

Duffbowl said :

I’d suggest a cracker about 5cm long and 1cm wide would do the job shown.

In your dreams.

Now that really would go off with a bang!

I gave up on having a nice letterbox and bought the cheapest, crappiest one I could find. Ever since it’s been blowup free.

switch said :

Duffbowl said :

I’d suggest a cracker about 5cm long and 1cm wide would do the job shown.

In your dreams.

No, as a preteen, it was usually in old mallee stumps on the SA side of Broken Hill using re-purposed crackers.

As a teen, it may have been in derelict buildings in the far northern suburbs of Adelaide, using acquired railway detonators and some chemical compositions put together in a mate’s lab.

As a 20-something, it was at the Holsworthy range, using a variety of explosives and detonation techniques.

My use was put on hold when the soon-to-be-Mrs Duffbowl suggested she preferred me not missing parts of my anatomy due to mishandling, and was not at all appreciative of the aroma that was left behind. Anyone that has spend time using cordite and breathing in the residual smoke may have some idea about the latter

Speaking to the second point above, something like an L1A2 (if I remember my terminology) detonator with a small length of fuse cord could do the trick.

Wow, that is impressive!
Were there any ants in your letterbox? I have heard that in the ongoing war between red ants and black ants, one side has been developing nuclear weapons. Better check for radioactive residue. Just in case.

Now for f. Sake don’t put in a bigger/tougher letterbox. A guy complained to me once that it didn’t matter how strong he made it the Uni students nearby would keep blowing it up….way to play into their hands.

Duffbowl said:
“My use was put on hold when the soon-to-be-Mrs Duffbowl suggested she preferred me not missing parts of my anatomy due to mishandling, and was not at all appreciative of the aroma that was left behind.”

Are we still talking explosives or did you do a subtle change of tack…?

An adhesive mate of mine with a distinctly pyrotechnic streak used to make home made crater makers out of soda siphon bulbs packed with either black powder or the scavenged contents of fireworks.

I’d reckon that one of his little “packages” could just about do that.

Not that I’d know, as I wouldn’t possibly have involved myself in such heinous acts as a young bloke….

LSWCHP said :

The cops should be paying attention to this.

Surely a complaint to the police about a blown up letter box would be typed out on an invisible type writer, as you wait for Detective LikeIGiveADamn.

1. A loaded dog? Because that letterbox would be very attractive to a dog.
2. A hengeless person, seeking raw materials?
3. A certain Ms Rinehart, prospecting for minerals? If you find a foul poem attached to one of the rocks, you’ll know for sure.