Has anyone noticed that on the Mythbusters page showing clips from the thermite-ice show, there' an ad at the bottom for "Thermite Supplies?" The advertiser's site includes all kinds of dangerous stuff for sale and even a book called "How Thermite Is Made."

Kinda makes all those "don't try this at home" warnings on the TV show sound silly if Discovery's gonna advertise how to do it.

I personaly do not see the big deal about it. You can buy the supplies to make it or even thermite itself along with magnezium igniter on Amazon, ebay or hundreds of other legit web sites. It is easier to buy than gunpower. The reason why is it is a lot less dangerous. The damage it can do or the potential to do damage is minimal. Its cool to play with make a bunch of it and burn a hole threw a frying pan or put crator into an old engine block ets. once just to say you did it, but in my opinion seeing as it takes a lot of it in direct contact to metal and it only burns downhill (it would be impossible to my knowledge to get it to burn in a sufficient way to cause saficient damage sideways or in any other direction other than straight down.

First off, thermite is not an explosive. It is an incendiary (it burns, and it burn real hot).

Thermite in small qualities is relatively harmless. It takes something really hot to ignite it (I believe I recall that it couldn't be ignited by a lighter and required magnesium or something similar to light it).

The major hazards of thermite is molten metal sparks that come off of it when it burns (similar to the sparks from fireworks, only quite a bit hotter) and that the reaction is very hard to stop once it starts. A secondary hazard is the UV light emitted when it burns (which can be prevented by using UV blocking shades or a welders helmet, or simply not looking at it when it burns).

Buying thermite without any real grounds (for instance you make use of thermite on your job) probably gets you on a government watch-list though as it can be used to destroy electronic equipment and various other things.

Actually you make an inefficient mixture of thermite by combining rust and shaved aluminum (taken from anything made out of pure aluminum).

Somehow, there is supposed to be a way for skiers with aluminum skis to make a fire using a thermite mixture, but I'm not sure what the metal oxide is.


By taking appropriate safety precautions, thermite isn't very hazardous. The hazard does increase as you increase the amount of thermite (most cases under 5-10 pounds is probably fine, above that and your probably asking for trouble). That's also about the minimum you can buy.

where can we post myths

Anywhere you want, but try to keep on a board with a related title.