Exploding Firedog

[Barrycdog]

May 12, 1864 The Mountain Signal Dahlonega, Ga

 

[Dilba]

What's a firedog? Apparently something that is not supposed to explode in your living room?

 

[Frederick14Va]

Firedog = another term to denote fireplace andirons... helps hold logs in the fireplace and/or supports them up slightly so the logs burn better...

Over the years have found a couple such accounts... solid shot not a problem... shells... yeah a potential problem...

 

[unicornforge]

There was even a case, if memory serves me, that a shell was painted and used as a children's toy for many years. However, I have to wonder about a shell being converted into a fireplace andiron because would not the shell have to somehow been attached to a metal base to become an andiron, unless they were simply leaning the shell against the wood in the fireplace.

 

[Frederick14Va]

An Andiron being a specific designed type of device, but also appears the term was also used generically to denote any object that accomplished or sorta did the same or similar objective... Firedog.. a more obsolete term... basically found to refer to any such object....

I have two 9 inch Dahlgren shots sitting on reproduction sabots sitting one on each side of my fireplace... but not in it....

 

[diane]

That reminds me of a chilling article I read about people in Cambodia and Laos making homes out of the various bits of ordnance leftover from the wars... Every so often the family cooking fire lit some of it off.

 

[johan_steele]

Buddy of mine who was EOD told me of being sent to a house in the desert because the local Sheriff had a panic attack upon walking in and seeing a lamp... old gent had found a WW2 vintage aricraft rocket in the desert and thinking it a practice or dud had converted it into a lamp. It wasn't a practice rocket but a very live one that probably fell off a plane courtesy of that old reliable called gravity. After said old gent died the fashion concious wife called in someone to get the god awful thing out of her house. Said gent wisely called the local law because he didn't want to touch it. Local law went 'aw hell no!' and called EOD because USAF EOD was apparentl less likely to blow up the thing in place depriving the nice littel old lady of her house.

SSgt Diaz made a point of explaining that it was very live and the old gent had run an electrical cord, old 2 conductor, WAY too close to what would have made it go boom. They properly disposed of it in the desert... and it did indeed go boom.

I suppose the moral of the story is don't assume it's a dud just because it's laying on the ground intact.

 

[diane]

Also, I remember reading an article about a landslide on a beach in Britain where literally tons of unexploded practice ammo was deposited on a popular beach! It was leftover from both world wars and had been mostly forgotten - people had been playing around this ammo dump for decades oblivious to any danger.

 

[Pvt.Shattuck]

I met an elderly gentleman who told me that as a boy in the 1940s he liked to hang around the local museum in the small town where he grew up. He was there so often the ladies who ran it pretty much gave him the run of the place. There was a Civil War musket on display that had been turned into a lamp at some point. He was fascinated by it and eventually was able to procure a percussion cap which he placed on the nipple, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger. Sure enough, the piece was loaded and he blew a big hole through the ceiling, terrifying the poor ladies and getting himself permanently banned.
I bet the lamp came from a G.A.R. Post somewhere. I don't know what those old boys were thinking.