Just strange

[Mark]

I bought a stiff brown paper mache ostrich egg at a craft store about a year ago with the thought of trying to see if it would jam jar and perhaps be strong enough to lift itself upward, (some top secret research in this area). It holds a good quart/liter of air. I drilled a half inch hole in the pointy end. I'd say the paper thickness was almost 1/8 inch thick and the egg feels stiff to the touch. After I drilled it, I took a razor blade and trimmed the hole neatly so that no frayed paper would interfer with the old in and out, (Clockwork Orange).
OK, so I spray a few pumps of aerosoled methanol into the ostrick look-alike psuedo surreal craft item. With one hand I held the egg and with the other, lit it with a butane torchette kind of a device. Now methanol usually does a good job of hissing when lit like this. Because the egg was of paper the heat didn't reflect off the walls like it would in a steel vessel, but if you want to do something to make your ears ring reguardless, just try lighting one of these firecrackers! My hand the report went off in kind of stung and a terrifically loud big bang was quite attention getting in my garage. I mean it went bang as in you could string up about a dozen eggs like this and toss them in a fire or some flame and they would detonate the moment the fire touched them!
A paper mache ostrich egg is every bit as loud as a firecracker up close, and you can take my good word for it. Why is it that methanol will take/sense an out if it finds one and you can light the egg and not even blink before the crack/bang stuns the thought processes in your head.
I've done this same thing with coffee cans taped end to end trying to get a resonance going and this crack bang effect is very disconcerting.
If anyone wants to make ostrich fire crackers, use a half inch hole in the pointy end and hand it to some unsuspecting assistant while you light it. First you could do a few typical jam jars to set the experiment up. "OK, lets see if this paper mache ostrich egg will even pulsate like those jam jars."
My god it was loud! Like popping a giant fortified paper bag behind someone's back. The last inch of my four finger tips can still feel the slap they took. I'd almost be tempted to try it again and fork over a couple of dollars for another, but I probably wouldn't hold it this time. And I probably wouldn't trick another into holding it, unless they were really cocky and I wanted to help them understand that not everything is going to behave like they think it will. What a fun lesson I learned, Grasshopper and the Zen of ostrich firecrackers.
Mark

Mark