By: Dan Smith

Dan Smith — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:24:19 +0000

This DOESN”T WORK! It is right out of “Improvised Munitions Handbook”; TM31-210; available at army surplus store or gun shows for about$5. Most of the stuff in this book doesn’t work. Potassium Chlorate CAN be made with 1 or more large, say 1″ x1″ x 12″ carbon or graphite rods, or, even lead wheel weights melted together and the steel clips melted off. Use a few copper tubes or lead for the cathode (negative, “-” end.) Wipe the carbon rod several times with linseed oil (at hardware stores). Suspend them on separate heavy bare copper wires over an old 5 gallon bucket. Mix enough potassium chloride (at supermarkets for water softeners) to saturate 4 gallons of water. Filter it thru an old, clean Tee shirt to remove undissolved salt. Pour in bucket. Connect the rods; the carbon or lead to the “+” side of a heavy-duty battery charger; the other rod to “-”. Do NOT mix them up–it makes a mess! Use a 6 volt 10 amp charger or better, if avaleable. 12 volts will work. Turn on charger; move rods as close together to draw full, but not excess charger current. Do this OUTSIDE as it will spray corrosive salt water and rust things, kill plants, and put out a small amount of Chlorine gas for a whoile. Let it go 3 weeks or so, topping off with some salt solution. You may need to add SMALL amounts of Pool acid or Sulfuric from an old battery to get it started, and from time to time. When done (the charge current will suddenly drop and you can’t get more by moving rods closer); turn off charger and boil the liquid OUTSIDE on a propane barbeque in porcelain pans (don’t use anything else) for 30 min. or so. Filter thru tee shirt.If there is a lot of black sludge from carbon rod; add a few ounces lye(hardware store) to the COLD solution and boil about 30 minutes; filter out the sludge and discard.
Freeze in old 1/2 gallon milk bottles, then filter thru paper coffee filters.Do this quickly, as the Potassium Chlorate will only settle out and separtye when the water is below 10 Celcius or so. Now, simply evaporate the chlorate by pouring it out on trays on the roof (it is 101 degrees , here!) or slowly boil it down in the porcelain pans. If you want potassium perchlorate, you can try heating the crystals to 200 degrees F or so in a Toaster-Over you got at a garage sale, NOT the wifes’s, and again, , OUTSIDE. Sodium Chlorate can be made by this method, but it is much tougher to separate out from the remaining salt. You will find Sod. Chlorate seems to burn fastest; while Pot. Chlorate and the Perchlorates have more energy.

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By: Dan Smith