That reminded me of this story... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_trousers 

In New Zealand in the 1930s, farmers reportedly had trouble with exploding trousers as a result of attempts to wipe out the weed ragwort. Farmers had been spraying sodium chlorate, a government recommended weedkiller, onto the ragwort, and some of the spray had ended up on their clothes. Sodium chlorate is a strong oxidizing agent, and reacted with the organic fibres (i.e. the wool and the cotton) of the clothes. Reports had farmers' trousers variously smouldering and bursting into flame, particularly when exposed to heat or naked flames.[1][2]

One report had trousers that were hanging on a washing line starting to smoke. There were also several reports of trousers exploding while farmers were wearing them, causing severe burns.

The mystery of the exploding breeches was solved by James Watson of Massey University, New Zealand, whose research found that sodium chlorate becomes violently explosive when combined with organic fibres, such as cotton or wool. For his research, Mr. Watson was awarded the agricultural history award.[3]


>>> westfw@mac.com 28 Jan 08 12:42:00 >>>

On Jan 28, 2008, at 9:21 AM, Denny Esterline wrote:

> When you first mix the HCL and H2O2, the etch chemistry is,
> basicaly, free chlorine. Nasty, nasty stuff. But once you've added  
> a fair
> bit of copper it becomes a mixture of copper chlorate

Copper chlorIDE.  Copper chlorate explodes; avoid it!

(and yes, copper chloride etchant is pretty neat stuff.)

BillW


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