Every scientist of note needs assistance. One of the most notable American scientists of modern times was Thomas Alva Edison; the "Wizard of Menlo Park". He had a small army of assistants and was purportedly the genius behind a whole raft of modern era inventions: the light bulb; the phonograph; motion pictures; etc. However, I believe Edison's true genius was in recruiting brilliant talent and exploiting THEIR genius. Edison was also a genius at self promotion... taking full credit for every successful invention produced. That's why everyone knows the name of Edison, but few can name any of his assistants.
But I digress.
I only mention Edison and his assistants as an extremely pompous and pretentious comparison to myself and my own early high school assistant... Terry Vance. Terry was a childhood buddy and companion throughout grade school and high school. And at least during the first couple of years of high school, he shared my fascination with explosives and rocketry.
In the summer of 1954, during the vacation break between our freshman and sophmore years, Terry had secured a part-time job with a small welding and machine shop. The building had formerly been a chicken hatchery and the proprietor, Paul Blevins, wanted to clear out the hatchery equipment to make more room for his machine shop operations. Terry had become friends with Paul and somehow got himself hired to dismantle the hatchery equipment. I would hang out there with Terry and before long we managed to convince Paul that the dismanteling job could go much more quickly if the two of us worked together at it. Being the good natured, tolerant fellow that he was, Paul put us both on the payroll temporarily for this one time clear-out job. I forget exactly what we were being paid, but I'm pretty sure it was less than a dollar an hour. But you know, in 1954 you could buy a full-sized candy bar for a knickle, a bottle of pop for a dime, a milk shake for 15 cents and a hamburger for a quarter! Man! Those were the days!!
However, a big perk of working for a welding shop was having access to calcium carbide. Calcium carbide is a dark, grainy compound which, when exposed to water, produces acetylene gas! The main purpose of acetylene in a welding shop, of course, is to produce fuel for welding torches. But Terry and I found a few other uses!
Back in my own garage laboratory we rigged up an acetylene generator that consisted of a mason jar containing some calcium carbide with its opening stoppered by a large rubber cork with two tubes through it. One was an 'inlet' tube that allowed water to be dripped into the jar. The other was an 'outlet' tube for the gas produced inside the jar. The more water dripping into the jar; the more acetylene whooshing through the outlet. So putting a lit match near the outlet resulted in a very satisfying bright orange flame giving off a black, sooty smoke. The sooty smoke was a result of incomplete combustion because the acetylene could only mix with the oxygen in the atmosphere as it came out of the tube. In an acetylene torch, the gas is pre-mixed with compressed oxygen before it is ignited. That's why torches produce a much brighter and much hotter flame.
Terry and I soon discovered that our crude generator could produce acetylene under enough pressure to fill up a balloon if one was held tightly around the outlet tube. So we proceeded to fill up a few balloons.
At that time Hobby Center stores carried a product called, "Jetex Motors" designed for use in model airplanes or race cars. These were essentially very small solid fuel rocket kits. A short metal tube with a rounded head had a screw-on conical shaped bottom with a tiny hole at the point so a thin fuse could be inserted. A smooth, round pellet of rocket fuel (I'm not sure what it was made of, but it had a controlled, even burn) would be slid into the tube and the cap screwed on. The Jetex fuse would then be inserted at the bottom and you were ready to go. I don't remember what became of my Jetex engine, but I loved that Jetex fuse! I think it was a phosphorous-based compound coated around a very thin copper wire and it would burn through the tightest of openings. I used that fuse on all of my homemade bomb and rocket applications!
Terry and I had fun with our acetylene-filled ballons by scotch-taping a short length of Jetex fuse to the balloon and lighting it... then releasing the balloon into the air. The balloon would float away until the burning fuse reached the rubber... then POOOMF! A bright orange flash with little wisps of soot curling around. Homemade close-to-the-ground fireworks! But we were limited to one color.
I loved that orange flame! Then I got another bright idea. Wouldn't that flame look neat shooting out of a pipe on the back of my bicycle?! I broached the idea with Terry and, being the able and enthusiastic assistant that he was, we set to work outfitting my trusty Schwinn bicycle with our acetylene generator.
We crudely wired the mason jar generator to the inside frame of the bike. The bottom of the jar rested upon the sprocket & chain guard between the pedals. We wired another, smaller bottle underneath the rear of the bicycle seat. That was our water supply bottle. It was mounted upside down with a one-hole stopper. The tube that ran from the water bottle down to the inlet of the mason jar generator had a small twist valve that I could reach from a sitting position on the bike. That way I could regulate the amount of water dripping into the mason jar and, theoretically, control the amount of acetylene being produced. The outlet tube curved into a 3/4 inch galvanized pipe wired onto the left rear wheel rail of the bike and extending about a foot beyond the rear wheel.
I delayed a test run of my "rocket powered bicycle" because I had a notion that if I drilled slanted holes into the sides of the tail pipe, then air rushing past the pipe would flow through the holes into the pipe and mix with the acetylene and produce a longer, stronger flame shooting out the end. However, drilling a dozen little 1/16 inch holes at an angle through a galvanized pipe with my dad's Black & Decker hand drill proved to be a very tedious job! It took me the rest of the day and evening to do it. And I broke several drill bits in the process!
By the next day, though, I had the newly modified tail pipe wired back into place on my Schwinn and ready for its first test run. Terry showed up with a small can of calcium carbide and we poured about two inches of it into the mason jar and stoppered the jar tightly. This was the largest quantity of carbide we had ever fooled around with for one operation! I carefully attached the water tube line with valve turned off to the inlet tube of the generater. Terry did the same with the outlet tube going into the tailpipe. We were ready to rock & roll!
It was a warm, sunny day and we took the bike to the corner of Main St. and Church St., the only intersection in town with a traffic light in 1954. I lightly turned the twist valve a bit and water started dripping into the mason jar. Terry stood by at the rear of the bike with a flint spark igniter in hand. He held it at the end of the tail pipe and clicked it a couple of times. PRESTO! An orange flame appeared! A small orange flame. I twisted the valve a little more to increase the water drip and the flame got larger. I was a little disappointed to see that there were also tiny little flames burning out of each of the 'air intake' holes I had laboriously drilled into the pipe. Instead of one main rocket exhaust, I had a baker's dozen!
But then, the bike was standing still. Maybe moving it would get the air flow working the way I wanted. I mounted the bike and looked over my shoulder at the rather paltry 4 or 5 inch flame coming out of the tail pipe.
Terry was eyeing it critically too. "Give it more water, Man! Goose it!!"
I reached down to the twist valve and gave it a reckless turn. The tail pipe belched out a good foot of smoky orange flame! My heart soared! I gripped the handle bars and began my glorious rocket bicycle ride down Swanton's Main Street!
For several seconds I was in Tom Swiftian, science geek heaven. People on the sidewalks turned and gawked. One kid yelled excitedly, "Hey! Look!" Motorists in the oncoming lane stared in amazement.
In a euphoric frenzy I reached back with my left hand and turned the twist valve again. I was cruising through downtown Swanton with a yard-long rocket flame shooting out behind me!
Then came the railroad crossing. Perhaps I should've mentioned earlier that one of the manifestations of a water and calcium carbide reaction is HEAT! Yes, the two compounds react beautifully to produce volumes of acetylene gas, but it also produces a lot of heat. And in my enthusiasm to generate a greater volume of acetylene, I had given little thought to how hot my mason jar generator was getting. I had also given little thought to how that jar was wired to the hard metal frame of my bike. Or to how brittle a glass jar can be; a HOT glass jar.
I was quickly educated on all of these factors when my bicycle wheels hit the rough tracks of the railroad crossing... and the bottom of my mason jar broke off, spilling the sizzling contents all over my left heel. I was wearing a loose pair of loafers at the time, so some of the hotly reacting carbide fell INSIDE my shoe. In an instant I went from euphoria to AAAAGGH!!
The "rocket flame" vanished along with my thrill. As soon as I crossed the tracks I pulled over to the sidewalk and ripped off my loafer to shake out any carbide. The sock I was wearing wasn't burnt clear through, but it was beyond mending. Fortunately, there were no pedestrians in the immediate vicinity to witness my humiliation. I put my shoe on and pedaled back uptown to rejoin Terry.
We lauded each other on how great the "rocket" flame had looked and discussed the possibility of devising a better, more durable generator for the bike. But it never happened.
My glorious 'rocket bicycle' ride was a one time fiasco.