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Feb 15 2008
TV's "Mythbusters" Use DeWalt Cordless Drill to Make a Boom Print E-mail
Written by Ben Jackson   
Friday, 15 February 2008


mythbusters-logo.jpgLast time I talked about  my personal favorite celebrity tool users, Adam & Jamie from Discovery Channel's tv show "Mythbusters", they were building a DeWalt drill powered low-budget animatronic dolphin to see if  great white sharks are kept at bay when a dolphin is present (apparently they are).

This week's episode of Mythbusters had Adam & Jamie testing a Yosemite Sam-esque cartoon stunt: Will a leaking wooden keg full of black powder explode if a trail of  gunpowder left behind it is ignited and catches up with the keg?

Jamie (the guy with the beret) built an armored radio controlled vehicle (out of an electric wheelchair!)  to mount the leaky powder keg on. That way, he could drive it down a track and leave a nice even trail of black powder to simulate somebody holding the keg while moving. At a bomb range used for testing, Adam (the guy with the glasses and red hair) rigged up a remote electronic ignition system to light the black powder. The desired outcome was for the keg-vehicle to drive down a track with a trail of gunpowder behind it  leading up to the leaking powder keg. After a head start of a few feet, the black powder trail would be ignited and catch up to the vehicle and hopefully ignite the remaining gunpowder in the keg, resulting in a Mythbusters "Big Boom".

Simple enough, but as fans of Mythbusters know, simple never turns out to be so simple on the show. The leak hole they had drilled into the bottom of the keg kept clogging because the gunpowder had a tendency to clump. Fortunately, their initial solution was to just make the hole larger...so they brought out their trusty DeWalt cordless drill to  bore a larger diameter hole. 

Of course, it still didn't work. No matter how big the hole was made, the gunpowder would always clump and clog it. Jamie's solution? They needed some sort of agitator to vibrate the keg and keep the blackpowder from clumping. But where does one get an agitator on a bomb range? How about that DeWalt drill they had previously been using to bore holes in the keg? Sounded good to them...so before you know it, they had attached the drill to the powder keg, taped down the trigger, and attached a long piece of metal to the drill's chuck to create the desired vibratory effect. Commenting on the predicted demise of the drill, Adam said "It's really a shame to make this go away" to which Jamie replied "It really is a nice drill".

Sure enough, the DeWalt cordless drill agitator worked like a charm and the powder keg exploded, exactly as desired. 

Even better,  the cordless drill survived the explosion and still worked! Jamie exclaimed "yay!" upon recovering the DeWalt drill, now slightly blackened, but still totally functional. 

Check out this video of the entire sequence here: (if you are viewing this article from our feed or email newsletter, you will probably need to visit this article on Toologics to view the video

 

 

 


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