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How Building Implosions Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark and there's Charles W. H. Bryant. That means
0:15
Speaker 1: that this stuff we should know. We know. That's right. Really, yeah,
0:21
Speaker 1: we are imploding this show today. I'm imploding. Josh is
0:26
Speaker 1: imploding today. That should be interesting. That's better than exploding,
0:31
Speaker 1: though I've been doing a little bit of that too. Yeah,
0:34
Speaker 1: that's no good because that affects those around you. When
0:36
Speaker 1: you implode, at least you contain the turmoil within. It's like, really,
0:41
Speaker 1: the you know, don't be selfish, don't explode, we should
0:44
Speaker 1: probably say, because I guarantee there's people out there who
0:47
Speaker 1: are like, buildings don't actually implode. Um, you, we should
0:53
Speaker 1: call this the how buildings how detonating buildings so that
0:58
Speaker 1: they collapse in on themselves due to gravity. It's not
1:02
Speaker 1: an actual implosion where everything is sucked in towards the center. Right,
1:06
Speaker 1: that's a scientific thing that this is not. It's not
1:10
Speaker 1: happening when the building implodes you. But if you're not
1:14
Speaker 1: a jerk, then you just call them building implosions. Yeah,
1:17
Speaker 1: that's the nomenclature. Yeah, that's what people say. I should say,
1:20
Speaker 1: You're not a jerk if you are up in arms
1:22
Speaker 1: about that kind of thing. But I challenge you to
1:24
Speaker 1: email us and tell us what we should really call it,
1:27
Speaker 1: what what words should stand in them for implosions, and
1:30
Speaker 1: we will read it out on the later episode. So
1:34
Speaker 1: considering that we're still around, then that's right. Um, Chuck, Yes,
1:40
Speaker 1: are you familiar with the city of Detroit. Yes, we
1:44
Speaker 1: love Detroit. We do love Detroit. Probably my favorite name
1:47
Speaker 1: of all time. Yeah Detroit. Yeah, human being was named
1:52
Speaker 1: yeah Detroit. Yeah. Um, I grew up in Toledo, been
1:55
Speaker 1: to Detroit plenty of times. Love the Tigers, yeah, Um.
2:00
Speaker 1: Sparky Anderson was a great man. I'm a Matt Stafford.
2:02
Speaker 1: Place for the Lions. Oh yeah, that's another big Detroit link.
2:06
Speaker 1: Christ loved the Red Wings when I was a kid,
2:08
Speaker 1: the Pistons. When you hear me talk smack about Detroit,
2:12
Speaker 1: I'm joking lighting up, like, I find it extraordinarily satisfying
2:16
Speaker 1: when people write it was like you need off Detroit,
2:18
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, you need to listen to all
2:20
Speaker 1: the episodes of the podcast. I think it'd be funny.
2:22
Speaker 1: I always thought if we ever went to Detroit, which
2:24
Speaker 1: I think we should at some point for an event
2:26
Speaker 1: that like people would be like awesome, we know you
2:29
Speaker 1: guys love this, and then five percent when just they
2:31
Speaker 1: would come and sit there with their arms crossed, like
2:34
Speaker 1: you got a lot of make it up to do. Yeah,
2:36
Speaker 1: what's ironic is that if you switch those ratios, you'd
2:39
Speaker 1: have the number of people who live in houses with
2:43
Speaker 1: roofs in Detroit and the number of people who don't.
2:48
Speaker 1: So Also, one of my favorite things about Detroit is
2:50
Speaker 1: a website called Forgotten Detroit dot com. Yeah, that's a
2:53
Speaker 1: good one. I've mentioned it a few times. It bears repeating.
2:56
Speaker 1: There is a website called Forgotten Detroit dot com. And
3:00
Speaker 1: I get the impression that the guy was maybe German,
3:02
Speaker 1: Austrian or Dutch, and he's obviously knows what he's talking
3:07
Speaker 1: about with architecture, because it comes through when he's documenting
3:10
Speaker 1: the building and talking about it. But he wandered around Detroit.
3:14
Speaker 1: Whoever made this website wandered around Detroit and did a
3:17
Speaker 1: lot of urban exploration of abandoned buildings, photo documented building
3:21
Speaker 1: after building after building, went back and found original schematics,
3:25
Speaker 1: wrote about the history, and just made this exhaustive web
3:28
Speaker 1: website called forgotten Detroit dot com. And the reason why
3:33
Speaker 1: it's so awesome, in addition to the fact that it's
3:35
Speaker 1: just abandoned building photos, which are like the greatest thing
3:39
Speaker 1: on the planet, uh, is that he documented buildings that
3:43
Speaker 1: are not there any longer. A lot of them have
3:46
Speaker 1: been torn down and some of them have been imploded
3:50
Speaker 1: for lack of a better word, Yeah, just to make
3:54
Speaker 1: room for something better and bigger. Yeah, to take care
3:56
Speaker 1: of the blight to ye, just like, yeah, this is
4:00
Speaker 1: been here for too long with broken windows, right, and
4:03
Speaker 1: no one's been in it occupied it since, you know,
4:07
Speaker 1: So let's get rid of this. Instead of a slow
4:09
Speaker 1: demolition over the course of fifty years by vandals, let's
4:13
Speaker 1: just take care of it now exactly. So that's how
4:16
Speaker 1: that site ties to this episode. Very nice. Okay, that's good.
4:21
Speaker 1: That's a good old fashioned intro. Thanks man. So, like
4:25
Speaker 1: we said, it is, gravity is really what's going on here.
4:28
Speaker 1: It's a pretty simple concept. What they're doing when you
4:31
Speaker 1: implode a building or let's this is general demolition basically
4:35
Speaker 1: up front, is they're removing the support structures at very
4:38
Speaker 1: specific points to cause them to fall down one upon
4:44
Speaker 1: the other from the top down. And actually, you know
4:47
Speaker 1: you start at the bottom, but it will still fall
4:49
Speaker 1: from the top down, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
4:52
Speaker 1: And um, this is usually for specific height buildings, like
4:56
Speaker 1: if you've got a five story building, you're probably gonna
4:58
Speaker 1: bring in a wrecking ball, some X excavators and a
5:00
Speaker 1: guy with a little black lunch pail exactly who's gonna
5:03
Speaker 1: sit on an ibam and eat it? Exactly? Uh? And
5:07
Speaker 1: anything over maybe eight, you're gonna start to get into
5:11
Speaker 1: the concept of of using demolition from the heights generally.
5:15
Speaker 1: This article said, I don't know if there's a rule
5:18
Speaker 1: of thumb height. Yeah, I guess what the key here? Safety?
5:22
Speaker 1: You want to do it safely. So the key is
5:25
Speaker 1: the buildings, Like where is it situated? Is it right
5:27
Speaker 1: in the middle of an apartment complex? Then you may
5:31
Speaker 1: want to implode because you don't want this thing falling
5:33
Speaker 1: left or right. If you've got nothing around there but
5:35
Speaker 1: empty parking lot. You're right, maybe a twenty story building
5:38
Speaker 1: could be fine because it's just gonna fall in that
5:40
Speaker 1: abandoned parking lot with graphs going through Italy and who
5:44
Speaker 1: cares about that? Exactly? Uh? All right, So let's get
5:47
Speaker 1: into this. The first thing that you have to do
5:51
Speaker 1: is see if you can dig up the original blueprints
5:54
Speaker 1: for this thing. They may exist, in which case you're
5:56
Speaker 1: all set and you can you know, if you know
5:59
Speaker 1: what you're looking at, you can see where their support
6:00
Speaker 1: structures are and where you need to kind of start
6:02
Speaker 1: your your journey here to implode this thing. Even better,
6:05
Speaker 1: if you can find the architect, the principal architect on
6:09
Speaker 1: that job, he or she may remember some things about
6:13
Speaker 1: that job that are like didn't show up in the
6:15
Speaker 1: bloodprints or little little foibles that the building HAPs. And
6:18
Speaker 1: be gentle with them. They may have a tear in
6:20
Speaker 1: their eye about this whole prospect. You know, don't just
6:23
Speaker 1: bang on the door and say, hey, we're gonna tell
6:24
Speaker 1: your building down, like where is it strong? You know,
6:27
Speaker 1: your crowning achievement exactly the only building you ever made. Uh,
6:33
Speaker 1: So that's just some personal advice. Be gentle with these people. Uh,
6:37
Speaker 1: they're gonna um draw up their plan of attack based
6:39
Speaker 1: on experience. And we should point out there's not a
6:42
Speaker 1: lot of companies that do this. It's not there's not
6:45
Speaker 1: five hundred demolition companies that implode tall buildings. There's like
6:48
Speaker 1: a twenty or so no. And here's the reason why
6:50
Speaker 1: it's very difficult for a young up and comer to
6:54
Speaker 1: get into the demolition business with their own company because
6:58
Speaker 1: it's so dangerous, yes, and risky not just to human life,
7:04
Speaker 1: but to other surrounding buildings. Areas Like insurance companies are
7:08
Speaker 1: all nervous watching this. That you build a track record
7:13
Speaker 1: of carrying out building implosions, and you have, you're on
7:17
Speaker 1: easy Street. That's what people hire you based on. Is
7:20
Speaker 1: your your successful track record? Yeah, and trust me, we
7:23
Speaker 1: know Josh and Chuck Implosions, LLC. Did not. We didn't
7:26
Speaker 1: get any calls. It was a bad We wasted a
7:29
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of money with that Kickstarter campaign. Well,
7:32
Speaker 1: your mom called, but she was just trying to pump
7:35
Speaker 1: us up exactly, Honey, you're good enough. You can empload
7:37
Speaker 1: this this thing. So they draw on their experience. Um. Sometimes,
7:42
Speaker 1: if they don't have the blueprints, or if it's a
7:45
Speaker 1: little more complicated, they may even do three D computer
7:49
Speaker 1: model and try it out ahead of time. Yeah. I
7:51
Speaker 1: would guess that that's pretty standard these days. Yeah you
7:54
Speaker 1: think so. Yeah. Um, I I read this awesome article
7:57
Speaker 1: about people who I think it was maybe be wired
8:01
Speaker 1: people who salvage huge huge like um ships that haven't
8:06
Speaker 1: sunk yet, that are but are about to these people
8:08
Speaker 1: like figure out how to keep them from sinking, and
8:12
Speaker 1: um even in that case, like they'll have some some
8:15
Speaker 1: guy fly with them and build a computer three D
8:17
Speaker 1: model on the on the fly. I think everyone's just
8:20
Speaker 1: get playing with three D models, right exactly, you know.
8:23
Speaker 1: But so I'm sure if they're doing that to like
8:24
Speaker 1: salvage tankers, they're doing it for like demolition too, you know,
8:31
Speaker 1: if for no other reason than as children we all
8:34
Speaker 1: love to build destroy models. I get to press in
8:36
Speaker 1: her next. Um. So, like we said, we're cover implosions
8:41
Speaker 1: in a second. If you don't have to implode, and
8:43
Speaker 1: you can just knock this thing over in an empty
8:45
Speaker 1: parking lot, you're gonna do it kind of like you
8:46
Speaker 1: would a tree. You're gonna if it's you want it
8:49
Speaker 1: to fall north, you're gonna weaken it and blasted on
8:52
Speaker 1: the north side. And sometimes you might even have cables
8:54
Speaker 1: pulling it that way, just like you would that oak
8:57
Speaker 1: tree in your front yard. Pretty basic stuff. If there
9:00
Speaker 1: is a bunch of junk around there that you have
9:02
Speaker 1: to protect you need it to follow in its own footprint,
9:05
Speaker 1: then you're gonna have to go the implosion route, right,
9:08
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. I think everyone likes watching
9:10
Speaker 1: these videos. Oh yeah, that's a really fun way to
9:14
Speaker 1: spend the day. Yeah, And there are enthusiast even as
9:16
Speaker 1: we learned in this article, that get a little too
9:19
Speaker 1: close sometimes to see these things in person. Like building
9:22
Speaker 1: implosions are like the mic rib of the demolition world.
9:26
Speaker 1: Like it's got groupies and like people go around the country.
9:29
Speaker 1: Doesn't happen that often. You gotta take it while it's there. Um,
9:33
Speaker 1: and it could kill you. Yeah, so um, if you're imploding.
9:39
Speaker 1: They set these blasters and they look at the building
9:42
Speaker 1: basically as a series of towers instead of a one building.
9:46
Speaker 1: And what I gathered from this is that each tower
9:49
Speaker 1: quote unquote is like a support structure. Is that is
9:53
Speaker 1: that right? Yeah? Like, if you're looking at just like
9:55
Speaker 1: a um rectangular building, yeah, I would guess you probably
10:00
Speaker 1: break it up into four quadrants and then go after
10:04
Speaker 1: the support structures in each quadrant, and then the aim
10:08
Speaker 1: is to bring them all down towards the center. So,
10:11
Speaker 1: like you said, if you wanted to bring a building
10:13
Speaker 1: down to the north. You put some blasts, some charges
10:17
Speaker 1: on the north side to weaken it. Well, if you
10:19
Speaker 1: had four quadrants that you were trying to bring down
10:21
Speaker 1: towards the center, you would weaken the side closest to
10:24
Speaker 1: the quadrant and then have them all fall in towards
10:27
Speaker 1: the center and then collapse the building downward, right. Or
10:30
Speaker 1: another option is to actually weaken the center of the building,
10:34
Speaker 1: and uh, that would cause everything to fall in word
10:37
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, but if you if you broke it
10:39
Speaker 1: into quadrants and then collapse everything towards the center, you
10:42
Speaker 1: would want to time it because you don't want everything
10:45
Speaker 1: just collapsing towards the middle and just holding one another up.
10:49
Speaker 1: You know that that's theays the blasters worst nightmare. Then
10:53
Speaker 1: you have the Transamerica building, Oh yeah, exactly in that
10:57
Speaker 1: triangular Yeah, at the in San Francisco. Yeah. Um, So
11:02
Speaker 1: let's say, for example, you have a twenty story building.
11:04
Speaker 1: You're not just gonna up set charges all on the
11:06
Speaker 1: first floor and I hope that gravity does its work.
11:10
Speaker 1: You're gonna set charges on the first floor and then
11:13
Speaker 1: maybe like some on the twelfth floor, and then maybe
11:15
Speaker 1: some on the six floor. Yeah, and typically like just
11:19
Speaker 1: a couple or just blowing up the first and second
11:22
Speaker 1: floor and then adding just a little bit of gravity. Uh, well,
11:26
Speaker 1: that will demolish the whole building. But you're doing the
11:30
Speaker 1: twelfth and say the fifteenth floor to to kind of
11:33
Speaker 1: break up the material that's coming down the rubble, to
11:36
Speaker 1: make clean up a little easier, right, because you know,
11:39
Speaker 1: you watch the video on YouTube and it takes five
11:42
Speaker 1: seconds and then you click on you know, guy gets
11:45
Speaker 1: kicked in the groin or sports bloopers next, and then
11:49
Speaker 1: you don't think about the fact that, yeah, guy's gotta
11:51
Speaker 1: clean the stuff up, right exactly? You want small pieces,
11:54
Speaker 1: is my long winded way of saying that. But in
11:56
Speaker 1: the blasters like, hey, I put some charges on floor
12:00
Speaker 1: twelve and fifteen, you can thank me later. In the
12:02
Speaker 1: cleanup guts thanks and the I told you to thank
12:06
Speaker 1: me later, he says kind of I'll trade you an
12:09
Speaker 1: apple for that tuna sandwich. He's like, you're kidding me.
12:13
Speaker 1: My wife's tuna. Give me the apple and bane and
12:15
Speaker 1: that cookie. And then the third one comes up and
12:18
Speaker 1: he's like, hey, you got the mots. Remember those ads?
12:23
Speaker 1: Remember like a little little kid motsa apple sauce like
12:27
Speaker 1: the little single served ones. There's a kid who looked
12:30
Speaker 1: like his name should be Spike or something and be like, hey,
12:33
Speaker 1: you got the mots. It was a really dumbad campaign.
12:37
Speaker 1: A bully. Yeah, he looked like a bully, but I
12:39
Speaker 1: don't think he was actually supposed to be a bully.
12:41
Speaker 1: Weird casting decision. Yeah, man, I didn't realize. I was
12:46
Speaker 1: walking around with that one, and I thought you were
12:49
Speaker 1: about to say, and that kid grew up to be
12:51
Speaker 1: shy la buff Okay, where were we? Okay? Was that
12:58
Speaker 1: a Paul Harvey reference? No? No, So they've got their
13:01
Speaker 1: plan in place, that the detonators, this blasting company has
13:04
Speaker 1: the plan in place, and now they have to actually
13:06
Speaker 1: prep the building. Yes, first step in prep is um
13:10
Speaker 1: they wash it. Well, they don't watch it. They survey
13:13
Speaker 1: the site, they walk through the building several times because
13:17
Speaker 1: you don't want to just make a cursory glance. You
13:19
Speaker 1: want to do your due diligence. Well, you need to
13:21
Speaker 1: clean everything out of there. Even before that, like some
13:24
Speaker 1: crew has come through and gotten all the drywall and
13:26
Speaker 1: all that stuff out, Like everything you want to as
13:28
Speaker 1: empty as possible, take out any non low bearing walls.
13:31
Speaker 1: You want to make it easier to tumble this thing.
13:34
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'll even uh cut into uh some of these
13:38
Speaker 1: support structures to give it a bit of a head start,
13:41
Speaker 1: hit it with sledgehammers. Yeah, release a little uh pin
13:44
Speaker 1: up frustration, you know, exactly. So then the blasting crew
13:48
Speaker 1: comes through, is making note of all this stuff. That's right,
13:51
Speaker 1: because they've already looked at the blueprints. But blueprints are
13:55
Speaker 1: those are just pictures for college boys. You want to
13:58
Speaker 1: get in there and really see what's going on firsthand. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
14:03
Speaker 1: because the blueprint, I mean, you know, there could be derivations.
14:06
Speaker 1: You never know. Um So, then once you have everything
14:09
Speaker 1: cleaned out, maybe weekend, some of the support columns with sledgehammers.
14:13
Speaker 1: It's sort of it's not teetering, but mentally it's teetering.
14:17
Speaker 1: It's beginning to think about teetering. The building knows like
14:20
Speaker 1: a boy, time to come down. My my time is
14:23
Speaker 1: limited here. I was accounting achievement once. Um So, then
14:27
Speaker 1: the blasters come in. They start loading these columns with explosives,
14:32
Speaker 1: um dynamite. If you're using concrete, it's a good way
14:35
Speaker 1: to go. Um They drill these holes, they bore holes.
14:38
Speaker 1: It's really kind of rudimentary and stuff explosives into them. Yeah,
14:41
Speaker 1: and we should say also, um, it's not just a
14:44
Speaker 1: guessing game. In most demolitions, from what we understand, they
14:48
Speaker 1: will say I picked the support column, maybe probably up
14:52
Speaker 1: on like the twentieth floor something like that, rather than
14:55
Speaker 1: down low, and they will blast it. They'll attach some
14:59
Speaker 1: explosive to and do like a test blast. Yeah. I
15:02
Speaker 1: don't think they're trying to blow it up. They're just
15:04
Speaker 1: trying to They're trying to do a small charge to
15:07
Speaker 1: see how much damage that small charge does and then
15:09
Speaker 1: they can predict how much a larger how much amount
15:12
Speaker 1: of a larger charge they will need to use to
15:16
Speaker 1: like blow the columns up right, or they might blow
15:19
Speaker 1: a column, but they'll wrap it in like chain link
15:21
Speaker 1: fence and a shield to kind of keep it in
15:24
Speaker 1: place and so it doesn't go everywhere and you know
15:26
Speaker 1: hurt people obviously. And um, what they want to do
15:30
Speaker 1: is and this is covering to know. They want to
15:33
Speaker 1: use the minimum amount of explosives that it takes to
15:36
Speaker 1: bring this thing down. They don't just go in there
15:38
Speaker 1: willy nilly and just say loaded up boys. You know,
15:41
Speaker 1: they want to use the smallest amount to still get
15:43
Speaker 1: the job done exactly, because if they use too much,
15:46
Speaker 1: then you've got a bunch of chunks flying everywhere and
15:48
Speaker 1: there's damage the surrounding buildings and people get hit in
15:50
Speaker 1: the heads, bad news, lawsuits. Used too little, you've got
15:54
Speaker 1: that building still kind of standing, and that's extremely dangerous
15:58
Speaker 1: as well, because you have to bring in a crew
16:00
Speaker 1: to knock it down like you would a lower, smaller building. Um,
16:04
Speaker 1: but it's a tall building that's just kind of half standing,
16:08
Speaker 1: and it's it's like a Jenga tower. Now, yeah, that's
16:11
Speaker 1: no good. No, that's very dangerous. So you want to
16:13
Speaker 1: use the minimum amount, put the right amount. Yeah, Well
16:19
Speaker 1: that's one reason the World Trade Center was so dangerous afterward,
16:22
Speaker 1: because it obviously it wasn't some controlled implosion, unless you're
16:28
Speaker 1: Charlie Sheen and you you know, get on the internet
16:31
Speaker 1: and say that it's a government conspiracy. Well he was
16:34
Speaker 1: an uncontrolled implosion himself. Wasn't exactly. Uh, but you know,
16:40
Speaker 1: nine level is so dangerous to clean up because it
16:42
Speaker 1: wasn't done on purpose, so they didn't know what was
16:45
Speaker 1: weak and what wasn't and it was pretty precarious getting
16:48
Speaker 1: in there and trying to clean anything out, super dangerous work.
16:52
Speaker 1: So uh stating obvious, Well we've got the test plast done. Yeah,
16:56
Speaker 1: we've got them. Now they're going around and they're they're
16:59
Speaker 1: drilling bore holes. Let's say we're doing a concrete building.
17:02
Speaker 1: So you got your dynamite. Yeah, And what is dynamite
17:04
Speaker 1: is just basically like a kind of a paper material
17:07
Speaker 1: soaked in combustible, highly explosive liquid chemicals. Yep. That it
17:15
Speaker 1: takes actually am an explosion to explode dynamite. So you
17:21
Speaker 1: you might have a fuse. I think if you're demolishing
17:24
Speaker 1: and building in N two, you've got a fuse going
17:27
Speaker 1: to the stick of dynamite. But in between the fuse
17:30
Speaker 1: and and the dynamite is a blasting cap. It's a
17:32
Speaker 1: small charge of explosive material that's lit by a fuse.
17:35
Speaker 1: That's right, it's a primary charge. And the point of
17:37
Speaker 1: using dynamite and why you want to use it in
17:40
Speaker 1: um concrete structure column um is that it expands, creates
17:47
Speaker 1: a bunch of hot gas all of a sudden, really quickly,
17:52
Speaker 1: and when it's doing that inside a concrete column, it
17:56
Speaker 1: explodes the concrete column into rubble. Now that will work
17:59
Speaker 1: for concrete. But you got yourself a steel structure, you're
18:03
Speaker 1: gonna have to use something else called r d X.
18:06
Speaker 1: That's right. And I'm not even gonna say the long name.
18:08
Speaker 1: I'll try. I don't want to try it, all right,
18:10
Speaker 1: you're ready cyclo, try methylene, trying naitramin. Damn, dude. I
18:17
Speaker 1: stumbled a little bit in the middle, but I still
18:19
Speaker 1: got it done. No, that was that was perfect. I
18:21
Speaker 1: mean you look at it and it looks like the alphabet.
18:23
Speaker 1: It's such a long word, you know. UM. But yeah,
18:27
Speaker 1: r d X will call it r d X, and
18:28
Speaker 1: that's what you want to use if you have steel
18:30
Speaker 1: supports and UM. If dynamite explodes at a rate of
18:35
Speaker 1: about six dred tons per square inch, r d x
18:38
Speaker 1: um explodes at about twenty seven thousand ft per second.
18:44
Speaker 1: That is like some serious stuff. And you're not exploding
18:48
Speaker 1: steel because you can't explode steel. What they're actually doing
18:50
Speaker 1: there is they are cutting through the steel, splitting it
18:54
Speaker 1: in half thereby weakening it. Yeah, it's like um using
18:59
Speaker 1: a lub or a scalpel. Yeah, exactly. Uh. To easy
19:04
Speaker 1: to one of these, though, like you said, you need
19:05
Speaker 1: a blasting cap. That primary charge the fuse, and the
19:09
Speaker 1: fuse is just explosive junk inside of a chord, like
19:14
Speaker 1: when you see like the old timey fuses, you know,
19:16
Speaker 1: like a sparkler. That's explosive material just packed inside like
19:20
Speaker 1: you know, a tight chord. Right, And the whole point
19:23
Speaker 1: of the fuse is it's a delays the blast. So
19:27
Speaker 1: depending on how you want to sequence your blast, UM,
19:30
Speaker 1: you're gonna use varying links of fuses. Again, if it's
19:33
Speaker 1: nineteen o two, that's right, Um, And that fuse eventually
19:38
Speaker 1: will reach the point where it sets off the primary
19:40
Speaker 1: charge and that's where the action happens. UM. These days,
19:42
Speaker 1: they use electrical detonators mainly, UM, probably exclusively, don't you
19:47
Speaker 1: think I would think so? And that is, you know,
19:50
Speaker 1: sort of like a fuse, except it's just it's a
19:52
Speaker 1: lead line made of electrical wire, or it is electrical wire. Um,
19:56
Speaker 1: You've got your debtonator end where the wire surrounded by
19:59
Speaker 1: this explosive material and then that's attached directly to the
20:02
Speaker 1: primary charge and then the main explosives and they you know,
20:06
Speaker 1: they have some sort of battery device heats up the
20:09
Speaker 1: wire and eventually it'll get hot enough to set off
20:12
Speaker 1: that junk on the detonator end sets off the primary
20:17
Speaker 1: charge triggers the main show, right, Like you know the
20:20
Speaker 1: old plunger that they use like in in Bugs Bunny
20:23
Speaker 1: cartoons to blow up stuff. You mean when the when
20:26
Speaker 1: the mocking bird lands on Italy behind coyotes back and
20:30
Speaker 1: it slowly depresses. Um. Apparently that is an electrical um
20:36
Speaker 1: detonator where you would have a charge going and then
20:39
Speaker 1: you press the plunger and it would release that charge. Um.
20:44
Speaker 1: That's the same thing, except we we don't use that
20:46
Speaker 1: old timing box and plunger any longer. Um, But it's
20:50
Speaker 1: still the same change. It's very gratifying. But yeah, I
20:53
Speaker 1: would imagine. I think I wonder if they have fake ones,
20:55
Speaker 1: just sort of like a ribbon cutting like that you
20:59
Speaker 1: like connect your I phone. Well that actually works though,
21:02
Speaker 1: well I'm sure this works to know, but if you
21:04
Speaker 1: just have a fake when you like the owner of
21:05
Speaker 1: the company is very old school. We have to set
21:07
Speaker 1: this up for him so you can push it down. Yeah,
21:09
Speaker 1: he loves giant scissors. Yeah, but no, I mean, like
21:12
Speaker 1: maybe there's like the little uh, the little remote control
21:15
Speaker 1: is in the box and when you press the plunge
21:17
Speaker 1: on it pokes the button and the owner of the
21:20
Speaker 1: company is like, yeah, exactly, do it again. Wow, that's funny.
21:26
Speaker 1: I guess we're both three year olds a part um. Okay,
21:29
Speaker 1: So they have to control this sequence sometimes, like maybe
21:33
Speaker 1: they don't want the first floor in the twelfth floor
21:36
Speaker 1: going off at the same time. Maybe there's a delay
21:39
Speaker 1: so they can actually have a delay in the fuse
21:41
Speaker 1: areas where the fuse burned slower than others, right, or
21:45
Speaker 1: you just like I said, you use longer lengths of fuse,
21:48
Speaker 1: you know, um, but yeah, you can put a a
21:51
Speaker 1: little you can put say, uh, you could charge a
21:56
Speaker 1: fuse and then add a little extra fuse between the
22:00
Speaker 1: original fuse that you just delivered the charge too, and
22:03
Speaker 1: like a delay fuse and the blasting cap and then yeah,
22:08
Speaker 1: you can time it, and you want to time it again.
22:11
Speaker 1: You don't want everything falling down on top of itself
22:16
Speaker 1: and ending up supporting itself. You want like columns coming
22:20
Speaker 1: down and then columns coming down all on top of
22:23
Speaker 1: each other and they're pushing one another down. Remember in
22:25
Speaker 1: the World Trade Center episode that we did it, it's
22:29
Speaker 1: called pancaking. It's where the rubble on one floor hits
22:34
Speaker 1: the rubble on another floor with enough force that that
22:37
Speaker 1: floor comes down and it again and again and again. Yes,
22:41
Speaker 1: and it picks up speed as well. That's right. And
22:44
Speaker 1: you know once that happens, like there's there's no going back. Yeah,
22:47
Speaker 1: and sadly, as we all saw a nine eleven. And
22:49
Speaker 1: if you've ever watched the internet videos, it only takes
22:53
Speaker 1: a few seconds and it's done. Yeah, it's very quick process.
22:57
Speaker 1: Apparently people are surprised by how fast happens, Like who
23:02
Speaker 1: people who have never watched these videos. It says in
23:04
Speaker 1: the article that the people people, it's the one thing
23:07
Speaker 1: they're surprised by most is how quickly a building collapse.
23:11
Speaker 1: Show me these people. I love it when I think
23:13
Speaker 1: when people write these articles like that, they just sort
23:15
Speaker 1: of say I was surprised. So people are full Yeah
23:18
Speaker 1: to do in journalism? Um, all right, So let's say
23:22
Speaker 1: you're gonna take down a building in a neighborhood. You
23:24
Speaker 1: might want to hire a consulting firm to come in.
23:28
Speaker 1: And the idea I get is that they sort of
23:31
Speaker 1: document the process, maybe work with the neighbors, um in
23:36
Speaker 1: a little pr sense to assure them that everything's gonna
23:39
Speaker 1: be okay, Yeah, they're gonna film it, of course, because
23:42
Speaker 1: you can learn a lot from watching it. Yeah, not
23:44
Speaker 1: only put it on YouTube, Yeah, you can put it
23:46
Speaker 1: on YouTube, but also like that's also how one of
23:49
Speaker 1: the ways you're going to figure out how to take
23:51
Speaker 1: down the building you're working on now is going back
23:54
Speaker 1: and looking at how you've taken down similar buildings. So
23:57
Speaker 1: the owner would come in and say, hey, pull the
24:00
Speaker 1: the bank in Houston from eight. That one was perfect
24:03
Speaker 1: and it looks just like this one. Yeah. Um, so
24:07
Speaker 1: you've called in your consulting firm, they've done all their
24:09
Speaker 1: due diligence, they're working before things hit go time. You're gonna,
24:14
Speaker 1: of course do a really thorough check to make sure
24:17
Speaker 1: no one's in there. Um, you don't want to. Like
24:19
Speaker 1: in Heathers, remember that movie, Hea, there's uh there's a
24:22
Speaker 1: riveting Magnum p I episode where Magnum and Higgins are
24:26
Speaker 1: in not only in a building it's about to be demolished,
24:29
Speaker 1: trapped in an elevator in a building. That's about it.
24:32
Speaker 1: It was almost unwatchable, it was so tense. I don't
24:34
Speaker 1: remember that one. Yeah, and Heathers, I think the dad
24:36
Speaker 1: was an implosion expert and like killed the mother that way, right.
24:40
Speaker 1: I don't remember that because you said something about Christians
24:43
Speaker 1: later since about yeah mom, I saw a mom in
24:46
Speaker 1: the window or something, and oh yeah that's right. Yeah yeah,
24:49
Speaker 1: I think the mom kill herself was the implication. Oh
24:52
Speaker 1: by being in there. Yeah, I love my dead gay son.
24:55
Speaker 1: Yeah that was man, that's a good movie. That's a
24:57
Speaker 1: great line. Um, so they've calculated the perimeter obviously as well.
25:01
Speaker 1: Not only going to check inside the building, you're also
25:03
Speaker 1: gonna to make sure that you have a safety zone
25:06
Speaker 1: around the thing allowed implosion enthusiasts like to sneak a
25:11
Speaker 1: little closer, shaking his head in dismay. Right now, why
25:18
Speaker 1: just do you have a computer? Do you have access
25:21
Speaker 1: to the internet. I guess there's nothing like seeing it
25:24
Speaker 1: in person, maybe you know, Oh yeah I can. I
25:27
Speaker 1: can understand people who go around and like check that out,
25:29
Speaker 1: but to get closer, to get within the blast zone,
25:33
Speaker 1: which has been carefully calculated by the blasting company. And
25:37
Speaker 1: then they have said this is a dangerous area. Yeah,
25:42
Speaker 1: this is a safe area. You can see it from
25:44
Speaker 1: the safe area, so just stay in the safe area.
25:48
Speaker 1: Uh So what you want is a very controlled situation. Um,
25:51
Speaker 1: you don't want, like we said, over over blasting. You
25:55
Speaker 1: don't want underblasting. You want to do it just right. Um.
25:59
Speaker 1: The impression I get is times out of a hundred,
26:02
Speaker 1: it goes according to oil and it's just you know,
26:06
Speaker 1: it works out great, No one gets hurt. You might
26:08
Speaker 1: blast out a few windows of businesses around there to
26:11
Speaker 1: be expected. Yeah, of course with this kind of stuff
26:14
Speaker 1: if if you're close enough to it. So wait a minute. Now,
26:16
Speaker 1: there's been a ten minutes siren, a five minutes siren. Yeah,
26:20
Speaker 1: the air is totally still. It to crisp day. This
26:24
Speaker 1: guy is blue, Maybe a bird flies by. You have
26:27
Speaker 1: the higher up, Michael Buffer to do your ten eight countdown?
26:32
Speaker 1: Who's that? He's the looks get ready to room d
26:37
Speaker 1: D D D d D. Do you know which money
26:39
Speaker 1: he gets paid for doing that? I imagine a lot.
26:42
Speaker 1: So you get the one minute siren and then the countdown.
26:45
Speaker 1: That's right. If you're using an electrical detonator, you your
26:48
Speaker 1: guy has had his finger or her finger on the
26:51
Speaker 1: charge button, and it's very much like charging a camera
26:55
Speaker 1: to the camera flash. Yeah, you can't stop one after
26:58
Speaker 1: the other. Just gotta build up that charge it's like
27:00
Speaker 1: anybody's seen Um Silence to the Lambs at the end
27:03
Speaker 1: when Jodie Foster is being approached by Buffalo Bill, one
27:07
Speaker 1: of the greatest. Yeah, but remember that high pitched sound.
27:10
Speaker 1: That's the camera flash charging again. That's what you're doing
27:13
Speaker 1: with the electrical Debtonary's got the finger on the charge
27:16
Speaker 1: and then they get to one and you press fire
27:19
Speaker 1: and the electrical charge is released and the building goes kaboom.
27:25
Speaker 1: That's right. Have you ever played the camera flash game? No,
27:28
Speaker 1: I need to say this because it's really one of
27:30
Speaker 1: the more fun things you can do, and I don't
27:31
Speaker 1: think it can hurt you. I'm gonna look this up after.
27:34
Speaker 1: I think it's very safe. Go. Uh. If you have
27:37
Speaker 1: an old fashioned camera flash that you can charge and
27:39
Speaker 1: pop off like that, get into a pitch black room
27:41
Speaker 1: with your buddy, you know, find where your faces are,
27:45
Speaker 1: so you're a couple of feet apart like we are,
27:47
Speaker 1: and UM point the flash towards your own face, have
27:52
Speaker 1: them looking at you, and you pop it off and
27:55
Speaker 1: immediately you get this perfect black and white in you know,
28:01
Speaker 1: it registers with your brain and you can see it.
28:04
Speaker 1: It's like right in front of you and it's really
28:06
Speaker 1: really cool and creepy. My brother and I used to
28:08
Speaker 1: do it all the time. It's a lot of fun.
28:10
Speaker 1: So you get a perfect image of the other person's face. Yeah,
28:13
Speaker 1: Like they're pointing it like I would point it at
28:15
Speaker 1: my face. You're looking at me when the complete dark. Uh,
28:18
Speaker 1: And I popped the thing off and then you see
28:21
Speaker 1: like this, weird It's almost like a lithograph of my face.
28:25
Speaker 1: It's very very cool. Did you know that if you
28:28
Speaker 1: if you write that, that ultimately damages your eyes permanently.
28:31
Speaker 1: I don't think so. If you if you take a
28:33
Speaker 1: flashlight and you look like you hold the flashlight up
28:37
Speaker 1: to your face with the beam pointing away from you,
28:40
Speaker 1: and you look right over the top of it, like
28:42
Speaker 1: right over your knuckles, and just basically down the beam
28:45
Speaker 1: and just shine it around on the ground, you can
28:47
Speaker 1: see spider's eyes. I'm not sure what that means. You
28:50
Speaker 1: can see the eyes of little spiders that you could
28:52
Speaker 1: never see in the dark, but you can see their
28:55
Speaker 1: eyes reflecting back at you. It's really neat and unnerving,
28:59
Speaker 1: but there you you get you all of a sudden
29:01
Speaker 1: start to grasp just how many spiders there are around
29:04
Speaker 1: you at all times, so just like on your kitchen floor, yeah,
29:07
Speaker 1: or outside better wow? Yeah, I mean you just just
29:12
Speaker 1: take a take a flashlight and hold it up to
29:14
Speaker 1: your face and just look down the barrel of the
29:16
Speaker 1: flashlight under the ground between that and just shining a
29:18
Speaker 1: flashlight on the angle of reflection. It doesn't work. You
29:23
Speaker 1: have to look right, and I'm not This isn't like
29:25
Speaker 1: an old listen snipe hunting or anything I've done to myself.
29:28
Speaker 1: Like you, you just look down the barrel of the
29:30
Speaker 1: flash lighting and check out the little spider's eyes looking back.
29:34
Speaker 1: It's terrifying. It is. It's surprising it for it's not
29:38
Speaker 1: like that, but it's it goes from like not seeing
29:41
Speaker 1: anything all of a sudden you're like you realize, okay,
29:44
Speaker 1: there's a spider and look there's another spider. And I
29:46
Speaker 1: didn't even realize that I could do this. And they're
29:49
Speaker 1: green and tiny to all the ones I've ever seen
29:52
Speaker 1: with little green eyes. Totally trying that tonight. And if
29:56
Speaker 1: I'm telling you it doesn't work, don't be like Josh
29:59
Speaker 1: got me, Like, just keep trying and just the angle
30:01
Speaker 1: or something. You'll you'll see it. Okay, boy, that was
30:05
Speaker 1: along us sorry about that. Um, so we've we've detonated,
30:09
Speaker 1: you've detonated. The building has imploded. It's gonna send a
30:11
Speaker 1: huge dust cloud up, as you've seen on uh YouTube,
30:15
Speaker 1: as we've said two thousand times, and uh it may
30:18
Speaker 1: be a bit of a pain for the neighbors. But um,
30:21
Speaker 1: they will argue, the blaster guys will argue that it
30:25
Speaker 1: beats like a month of slow demolition, like this cloud
30:28
Speaker 1: will dissipate pretty soon and then it's gone forever. Apparently,
30:32
Speaker 1: if you have allergies in the area, they say, just
30:35
Speaker 1: go away for the day and when you come back
30:38
Speaker 1: it'll probably be fine. So, Josh, I want to be
30:40
Speaker 1: a blaster? Can I go to Blast University? Yes, it's
30:45
Speaker 1: uh Blasters, right, it's an adjunct of Brown University. Um,
30:50
Speaker 1: and uh, you just go and roll there. They'll let
30:53
Speaker 1: anybody in. It's free and you'll be a blaster the
30:56
Speaker 1: day you get out after two weeks of training. Bamn.
30:59
Speaker 1: Not there is no such program at all, no organized school. Um.
31:04
Speaker 1: The best way to get involved in this business is
31:06
Speaker 1: to get a job. Um, probably sweeping up I would imagine,
31:12
Speaker 1: at first for one of these companies, and work your
31:14
Speaker 1: way to the top. And um, like we said, there's
31:18
Speaker 1: only about twenty well established ones in the world or
31:21
Speaker 1: in the United States, probably in the world. And uh,
31:24
Speaker 1: you know, work your way up if you're into it,
31:26
Speaker 1: and maybe one day you can start Josh and Chuck
31:28
Speaker 1: Demolition LLC. Maybe, but yeah, you probably do better to
31:32
Speaker 1: try and warm your way through the company. Plus you
31:35
Speaker 1: will also owe it's royalties if you name your company
31:37
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck Demolition, LLC. That's right. Okay, well, I
31:43
Speaker 1: guess it's implotions, right, I got nothing else. We nailed
31:46
Speaker 1: that one, didn't we, I think so. I hope you
31:49
Speaker 1: guys didn't skip this. Obviously you didn't if you're hearing
31:51
Speaker 1: me say this right now, and if not, then they
31:54
Speaker 1: never knew. But good for you for for getting into it,
31:57
Speaker 1: because it's pretty neat stuff. Uh. If you want to
32:00
Speaker 1: learn more about building implosions, you can type building implosions
32:03
Speaker 1: in the search part how stuff works dot com. Uh.
32:06
Speaker 1: And that means, of course it's time for message break
32:15
Speaker 1: listener mail please listen to mail time. Okay, I'm gonna
32:20
Speaker 1: call this, um. Leeching still happens real. Yeah, So this
32:26
Speaker 1: is from Annie. His husband leeches. He works for the
32:32
Speaker 1: Mayo Clinic. So this is legit. Well, what does he
32:36
Speaker 1: do for the movie? He sneaks leeches into people's beds. Hey, guys,
32:41
Speaker 1: just listen to the E c T podcast. At the end,
32:43
Speaker 1: you guess what would be the next archaic medical procedure
32:46
Speaker 1: to make a comeback, and you specifically mentioned leeching. News
32:49
Speaker 1: for you, leeching is still totally happening. Don't call her comeback.
32:53
Speaker 1: My husband isn't. Uh, boy? What is he in? Otor
32:59
Speaker 1: oh Oto laryng Jola jollagist Oto laryngologist. Never heard of that.
33:07
Speaker 1: He does a surgery on patients that need facial tumors removed.
33:10
Speaker 1: I would call myself a facial tumor remover LLC. That's right, uh.
33:17
Speaker 1: And they take tissue from other places on the body
33:20
Speaker 1: to repair the site. And if the flap doesn't have
33:22
Speaker 1: good circulation after the repair, they will stick leeches on
33:25
Speaker 1: it to get the blood flowing and um. The medical
33:29
Speaker 1: grade leeches are huge and greenish and they fall off
33:33
Speaker 1: when they're full, so the nurses have to keep an
33:35
Speaker 1: eye on them in the hospital. Isn't that crazy? I
33:39
Speaker 1: had no idea that that went on, honestly, So that's
33:42
Speaker 1: still going on, and she ends by saying, so gross
33:46
Speaker 1: leeches and more love Annie, that was a great listener mail. Yeah,
33:52
Speaker 1: short and sweet and who knew good one? Annie. Uh,
33:57
Speaker 1: if we have mentioned something that's sweet, thought was done
34:01
Speaker 1: but is still going on, we want to hear about that.
34:04
Speaker 1: We want to know what's going on basically, So tweet
34:07
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K podcast or go
34:10
Speaker 1: on to Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know
34:12
Speaker 1: and tell us what's going on, or send us an
34:14
Speaker 1: email with the subject line what's going on you now
34:17
Speaker 1: with the question mark because I'd be asking us what's
34:20
Speaker 1: going on and we want to know what's going on.
34:22
Speaker 1: You would direct that email to Stuff podcast at Discovery
34:25
Speaker 1: dot com. Or you can find out what's going on
34:29
Speaker 1: at Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on
34:37
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34:40
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