Was This EXPLOSIVE Plant Used to Take Photos?

In this video I explore the lycopodium plant and the explosive potential it contains while experimenting with it's supposed historical use in photography, as well as several other bright explosive compounds.

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Created and Hosted by @AndyGeorge
Primary Editing by Emerson Rice
HTME Assistance by Elliot Krueger and Theo Melchoir

[htme]

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[brucerasspen]

for a man who's house burned down he shows no fear of fire. props

[Werevampiwolf]

Fun fact, if you get your camera advanced enough for film, the original "film" like we think of it today, in the thin strip of plasticky material, AKA Celluloid, was made of nitrocellulose, which is also what gun cotton is.
Yes, that's why there were so many fires at movie studios that resulted in many old films becoming lost media. Because they were literally stored on explosive material that was prone to spontaneously combust

[NickTaco]

Nicéphore Niépce (who made the first camera) also built a 'controlled dust explosion' engine before he experimented with cameras, The engine was basically a gas engine but used dust as fuel and used water as a piston (it sounds wrong but it's true). The engine's called the Pyréolophore and I'd suggest you have a look into it. It's simple as it requires no proper machining and could easily made.

[ashe.]

Be very careful with your magnesium! It’s used in flashbangs for a reason! You can easily burn your retinas with that stuff.

As for the guncotton: it’s supposed to burn cleanly with little smoke. Yours leaves a lot on residue which probably means the reaction did not go to completion. There’s hydroxyl groups on the glucose subunits of the cellulose that did not get converted into nitrate ester groups. So, try running the reaction for longer with a larger excess of reagents. That should do the job. Try cooling the reagents individually before dropwise addition of one to the other as well (usually H2SO4 to HNO3 dropwise). This kind of reaction can be quite sensitive to temperature. Use a lot of ice! You may want to titrate the acids as well; that why any stoichiometric calculations you do will be more precise. Hope this helps!

I wish I could be more detailed, but YT has removed my comments for even mentioning the name of this reaction, and explaining the mechanism behind it. Ridiculous.

[kittyprydekissme]

Guncotton can be used to make simple plastics like celluloid.

When you first started the reset thing, you said that your goal was to work your way to building a steam engine. I find it funny that your more recent videos have been dealing with 19th Century technology, so you've already gone past your goal chronologically.

[michelhv]

You need the whitest/bluest possible light for 19thC photography because silver salts are not inherently sensitive to lights other thatn blue and UV. The problem was solved around 1900 with the development of dyes that extended the spectral sensitivity of emulsions.

[johnnyporker]

You should definitively neutralize your nitrocellulose more!
If you don't it might spontaneously combust in storage which would not be good

[jrnandreassen]

About the spores: They tend to grow close to pine trees. We call it "heksemel" or (eng) "Witch Powder".

[gareth]

If anybody wonders , the clip with the Photographer went up in flames was taken from , , A Million Ways to Die in the West
FSK 12 2014 ‧ Western/Comedy ‧ 1h 56m with Seth MacFarlane

[Slikx]

Sometimes i think YouTube forgets that channels like this are based on history and truth. Just because there's a chemical reaction happening, it doesn't mean that its dangerous.
If YouTube wants to make things safer theres so many channels that are fake and are dangerous, but they would shut them down.
Keep doing what you do Andy, you're educating a lot of people. 😀👍

[Mattlon]

i still remember watching the first camera video, love the dedication to the craft and ill never stop watching htme

[ChaosPootato]

I love that magnesium picture, you can barely see there's someone there. The stuff is BRIGHT

[WaxPaper]

In pyrotechnics, there are these things called "Creamoras" that are made with black powder and coffee creamer to produce a big, bright fireball. Sometimes they add a little aluminum powder. But I've also heard about people making them with these spores instead of coffee creamer, because it's supposed to make a more intense flame. I think it's only used occasionally because it's more expensive.

[michelhv]

From guncotton you can create collodion by dissolving into ethanol. You then add the sensitive salts and you pour on a glass plate to create photographic negatives. It’s more involved than that, but it’s the basic principle.

[PKMartin]

The YT algorithm is so twitchy I'm surprised you're allowed to mention charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre in the same video. Best of luck making your further videos around gunpowder

[MikesTropicalTech]

In 8th grade Science, we went across the street into the forest and collected lycopodium plants. We dried them and collected the spore powder. Then we built an explosion vessel out of a coffee can, a candle and a bicycle pump. Kapow! Tons of fun.

[Whitewingdevil]

neat, and here I thought you were going to be playing with epazotes, though I've never actually seen anyone extract the explosives from them.

[Aspydragon]

Finally something that isn’t betterhelp, have you finally listened to us?

[Sir_Shmoopy]

Medical guaze and fluff it up for pure cotton content. They mostly have to be honest about whats in them, but would still check.