Farmer's matches?

[Bruce_A]

zip gun from a bicycle spoke.

[Buzz-sawyer]

I was thinkin they were outlawed by big bro. ...being improvised munitions type stuff?!

[Bro. Noble]

You can put one on an anvil and hit it with a hammer and it will pop like a firecracker ;D

[Kevin]

Noble, sounds like things are really slowing down around the farm.   :D

[Bro. Noble]

Kevin,

Just waiting for Horselogger to teach me how to dance a dovetail jig :D :D

[shopteacher]

Nobel,
  Is that how you light your candle? ;D

[karl]

When I was a kid someone showed me how to make a "firecracker" out of the tips of those strike anywhere matches- using two SMALL bolts and a single nut and a VERY few match tips; assemble and drop on a hard surface to ignite..
Of course we know how young fellas and firecrackers are.....
I think we were up to a couple of !" bolts and about a third of a box of tips when one blew up in my hands- left burn marks in my hands for  months and ringing in my ears for days....lesson learned at that point!

[DanG]

In the interest of any "less experienced" types that may be reading this, I feel like we oughta mention SAFETY!  Matches are very commonplace, and seemingly harmless, but they can be dangerous. One match makes a nice little flare-up, and quickly settles to a steady little flame, but a whole bunch of them makes a BIG flare-up and a steady big flame. When confined, igniting matches are about the same as gunpowder, and can cause serious injury.  A kid I knew in High School made rockets with an aluminum tube and a bunch of match heads. As he was loading one up(the last one) he packed the match heads into the tube with the palm of his hand. It went off, and he ended up with a claw instead of a hand!

[beenthere]

Thanks to all that contributed to this thread, and thanks for all the "playtime" memories with match heads and such. Now going forward with SAFETY in mind, I'll update my predicament of not finding the "strike anywhere matches".

I stopped at a hardware store connected to an ag equipment dealer, and when one of the managers learned that he didn't have the kind of matches I wanted, he called the company (I believe in Ohio) and ordered a 'carton' of them, and said they should be here in a week. Yesterday I called as it had been over a week, and he called back and said they were in.
I dropped by this morning and they were wrapped in packages of three '250 count' boxes so I said I would take 4 packages. The gal at checkout asked if the price that came up ($2.69) was per box or per package of three. Turned out I thought it would be per box which was on my high-price side, but I figured what the heck, they ordered them special for me. Ended up they were just under 90 cents per box. Good deal. Now I have 12 boxes to "play" with.

I may have to get out the hammer, and the bolts, and the rocket launcher, and have me a good ol time again.   ;D

Not!

[J_T]

Sorter like the man hunting a gas leak with his cigareat lighter people in the next county heard him when he found it  ???

[SwampDonkey]

Here's my kitchen matches, strike anywhere. Redbird brand. I buy them at Home Hardware, 2 boxes to a package. You can still get the small boxes in stores too, but not all carry the small boxes. Few years back they were free at the counter. I use'm lighting the furnace fire or burning brush bomb fires out back.



 ;D ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Grandfather figured out a trick to use blank .22 cartridges to light them strike anywhere matches. Even had one guy fooled into thinking the shell was a loaded one, and was pretending to be Jesse James target shooting at matches. One night the guy he was playing the trick on decided he wanted to use loaded ammo in the camp on the matches, until grandfather fessed up.  Wasn't no way a loaded gun was allowed in the camp. :