Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/13/build-your-own-boring-company.html
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Darwin Awards will have a lot of competition this year
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Elon is so good to us.
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Aliens is not my favorite movie in the Alien franchise, but it does feature Ripley wielding a bad-ass flamethrower-assault-rifle-grenade-launcher:
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I still say the reason a Boring Company suddenly put out that many flame throwers is because they awoken something deep within the earth…
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Of course, the above flamethrower is within regulatory limits, just like the Boring Company’s are. You can’t throw thirty feet of flame with anything anyone’s allowed to sell on the unlicensed US market.
But you could always build something from parts…
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Too bad that it’s so useless at clearing snow and ice. Water takes a fuckton of energy to change state.
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I’ve used a weed flamer for years (for brick and decomposed granite paths) but recently, when it broke, I replaced it with a model similar to that, one that uses a 20 lb propane tank. Holy shit, it’s already an offensive weapon.
Every time I start it up, I think of
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If I ever build full Fett armor, I have to at least try to make a working flame thrower for a shoot.
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You’d definitely want to use something else as the basis for that, though, as this is like a jet engine. It pumps out a lot of heat with a roaring blast, but not a lot of visible flames.
Though appropriate flamethrowers do exist…
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Here’s the real thing…
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It’s not a flame thrower. It’s a propane weed torch stuffed in a plastic airsoft gun. They sell them without the plastic housing at Home Depot. Here’s 15 of them mounted to a farm tractor.
Flamethrowers shoot gasoline and/or kerosene under pressure from a non-flammable gas like CO2, burning hotter and shooting much further.
Or just recruit Charlie McGee (warning, may backfire).
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Yes, I did read that its range wasn’t thrower range, but the torch range. Still…
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I’m not saying it isn’t still cool. But it lights a long blue flame. It doesn’t actually throw the fire. I just find it odd that everyone seems to think this marketing gimmick is so edgy when you can literally buy one in any Wal-Mart or hardware store.
Now heavy rocket boosters that execute controlled landings in synchronicity and making Heavy Metal a reality, those stunts were impressive! 
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Thanks for this.
People keep telling me the Boring Co. toy is (pick one) illegal in California (or) legal in California because its flame is less than 10 ft long.
Neither one. It’s legal in California because, under the terms of California law, it’s NOT a flamethrower.
The CA Health and Safety Code has permit requirements for “flamethrowing devices”, but…
“Flamethrowing device” means any nonstationary and transportable device designed or intended to emit or propel a burning stream of combustible or flammable liquid a distance of at least 10 feet.
– CA HSC § 1250 [emphasis added]
The Boring Co. ‘flamethrower’ is a vapor torch, not a flamethrower.
(Nota bene: I am not a lawyer, and free legal advice from the Internet may be worth less than you paid for it. Use at your own risk.)
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LOL, those things kinda suck. I used one just like that except it had a flat head shovel welded to it. It was used for heating up flooring tiles glued down to concrete. There was a local supermarket that was remodeling when I was in college and I spent the better part of a summer with a respirator and towing around a 5 gallon propane tank heating up and peeling glued down one foot square tiles off a concrete floor. The first day I was thought it was pretty awesome having a “flame thrower” by end of the first week I was over it and by the end of the summer I had another job to add to my list of jobs I don’t want to ever do again if I can help it, other jobs on that list included janitor, logger, framing out building foundations and pouring concrete, beer delivery and stocking and tap line cleaner.
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It’s not a matter of range.
Vapor torches mix fuel vapor with air and ignite it.
Flamethrowers ignite a stream of fluid, (usu. unmixed with air) and propel it some distance under pressure.
The Boring Co. device is a vapor torch, not a flamethrower.
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