Exploding piano?

[ffutures]

This is a serious work-related enquiry, believe it or not...

Many years ago there was a film clip of the BBC getting things a little wrong when they wanted to blow up a piano - the first explosion made the piano fall apart but it wasn't very dramatic, so they tried it again, this time adding some flour which was supposed to puff out and make it look more impressive. What actually happened was that the explosively dispersed flour also burned, adding a few pounds of fuel-air explosion to the miss. The piano was blown to smithereens sending fragments many yards in all directions.

I have an idea that this was for one of Michael Bentine's shows, either that or Spike Milligan. It's been shown a few times on blooper shows.

Can anyone point me at a video clip of the explosion? Or does anyone have it in a form we can convert to a video clip? We need it for science lessons!

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Can't find it, but there are plenty of you tube clips of flour explosions (strangely enough, go to YouTube and search for "flour explosions"!) if they are of any help ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3vLol2fF1E
(not not sure it's an explosion, as it's not contained in any way, but shows a fuel-air mixture combusting I believe ... can't recall the technical definition of an explosion ... something about travelling faster than the speed of sound was it?)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much the experiment we're doing but on a smaller scale.

[armb.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/2007/07/hear_hear.shtml claims there was a picture 'in one of the late B D Shaw's chemistry lectures on "Rapid Oxidation Reactions"', which doesn't get me any further with Google, but might mean something work-related to you.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That's the one - thanks, gives me a clue.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Can't help you there I'm afraid but please tell us when you've found a clip because I'd love to see it.
Flour explosions are great. I remember one from a science class in school that did go a little wrong as well and not only caused a flame that almost reached the ceiling but also left most of the class with ringing ears for the rest of the lesson. Nobody was hurt because the washing powder drum went straight up but it was quite a formidable bang. ;o)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

will do.

[draconin.livejournal.com]

I used to be a total nutter in high school with explosions. My favourites were brake fluid & pool chlorine (it gave a 20 sec 'fuse'), potassium nitrate and icing sugar, or aluminium powder, potassium permanganate & sulphur. I lost my eye brows on that last one leaning in to light it!

<;-P

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

We have a new chemistry teacher who is very into this sort of thing, and seems to be infecting the rest of the science staff with his madness. Tomorrow's year 8 lesson, for example, will have a version of the powder / air thing, alcohol / peroxide / permanganate, hydrogen / oxygen, and methane bubbles / air.

[trinfaneb.livejournal.com]

Why couldn't any of my science teachers have blown things up? I now feel like I missed out :)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Basically, science teachers / technicians devote a lot of time to making sure that things don't explode, going the other way requires a certain light-heartedness with regard to some safety regulations. You do pay attention to safety, obviously, but it's basically setting up a potentially unsafe situation and containing it, the more conventional approach to safety is to keep things from being dangerous in the first place.