HEXAMINE. PLEASE READ!

Kadushu

If Carlsberg made grumpy people...
Jul 29, 2014
944
1,024
Kent
Basically anything flammable can be used to make an explosive. I'm slightly surprised how easy it's been to buy nitric acid up until now. *shrugs*
 

Laurentius

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aug 13, 2009
2,528
697
Knowhere
I think this is one that will be honoured in the breech more often than not, it is another cock up like the dangerous dogs act, some of those things are common household substances like hydrogen peroxide. As for poisons, Oxalic acid indeed, we are bushcrafters are we not and know you can find that in Rhubarb and Sorrel, never mind what else is out there in the woods and beside the riverbank.

I expect in the eyes of plod I am now a fully fledged terrorist complete with Esbit tabs, Zombie knives, and a GTN spray. Now where did I leave my copy of the antichrist's cookbook?
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
39,133
4,810
S. Lanarkshire
I did a lot of natural dyeing. Oxalic acid's a basic.
Hydrogen peroxide is used to clean the black mould of the window surrounds...it's also used as a medicinal steriliser.....and it's an ingredient in of all things teeth whitening compounds.

Going through that list it's quite surprising just how many things I have to get rid of....with no suitable alternatives.

So, is it worth the hassle of donating £39.50 to have a licence ? or is it a way of seeing who has what ?

The car battery thing truly has me stumped though.
 
Last edited:

Stew

Bushcrafter through and through
Nov 29, 2003
6,608
1,404
Aylesbury
stewartjlight-knives.com
No, it's one licence to put you on the books.
However, it doesn't apply if you use EPP chemicals for business use (it's home use only because you might be a dangerous subversive rather than someone being taxed).
Like conc nitric for etching jewellery, for example...
So the dozen or so bottles of 95% sulphuric (one shot) that I’ve got at work are ok? I don’t have a licence!
 
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Chris

Life Member
Sep 20, 2022
945
1,088
Somerset, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire
I did a lot of natural dyeing. Oxalic acid's a basic.
Hydrogen peroxide is used to clean the black mould of the window surrounds...it's also used as a medicinal steriliser.....and it's an ingredient in of all things teeth whitening compounds.

Going through that list it's quite surprising just how many things I have to get rid of....with no suitable alternatives.

So, is it worth the hassle of donating £39.50 to have a licence ? or is it a way of seeing who has what ?

The car battery thing truly has be stumped though.

Personally I’m going to completely ignore it because whoever wrote it has clearly spent too much time ingesting some other questionable chemicals. Utter nonsense.

Policing is done by consent in this country and the less the general public put up with these clearly absurd, ill considered pieces of legislation which in essence criminalises the entire population, the better.

I can’t imagine a court in the land would convict someone of owning a hexi stove which a child could’ve walked into a camping shop and bought. Unless there was plenty of other material evidence to show it was going to be used for nefarious reasons.
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
39,133
4,810
S. Lanarkshire
Are we sure this isn't a spoof ? because the internet is full of hexi tablets for sale.

Even the 'solid fuel' tablets are often later described as hexamine.
 

Laurentius

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aug 13, 2009
2,528
697
Knowhere
I can’t imagine a court in the land would convict someone of owning a hexi stove which a child could’ve walked into a camping shop and bought. Unless there was plenty of other material evidence to show it was going to be used for nefarious reasons.
You mean like Jimi Hendrix posters on the walls.
 
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ESpy

Settler
Aug 28, 2003
925
57
54
Hampshire
www.britishblades.com
Are we sure this isn't a spoof ? because the internet is full of hexi tablets for sale.

Even the 'solid fuel' tablets are often later described as hexamine.
Sadly, not a spoof. A demonstration of classic governmental-style joined up thinking perhaps.

There's more to hexy than it being an RDX precursor (or one step removed from being a precursor). It can create some seriously/dangerously unstable stuff.

And it honks when it burns and soots up your pans, which are compelling reasons not to use it :)
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
39,133
4,810
S. Lanarkshire
Sadly, not a spoof. A demonstration of classic governmental-style joined up thinking perhaps.

There's more to hexy than it being an RDX precursor (or one step removed from being a precursor). It can create some seriously/dangerously unstable stuff.

And it honks when it burns and soots up your pans, which are compelling reasons not to use it :)

Like many here I suspect that I'm not alone in having a couple of those wee fold down hexi stoves, just in case.
They're cheap, they're easily obtainable (my last one literally cost a pound from a pound store) and they come with the hexi blocks tidily packed inside.

I cannot say they are a favoured way to cook, but they're reliable for a brew up regardless of the weather and the wee stove though it seems flimsy actually works as a stable platform.

There must be literally hundreds of thousands of them in the UK.....and it looks like we're all now criminals because we don't have licences.

This is just stupid.

The stoves have been a stalwart of the British army for generations.

Somewhere in Holland, there's a clay field where my wee bother and his battalion were on exercise. He's a creative blighter my wee bother, and he was told to dig a trench and bed down.
So, he duly dug a trench, and fitted it out, etc., and then to their folly his officers let him get bored.
My bored wee bother took his pocket knife and carved the wall of that clay trench into a stone fireplace and set his hexi burner in it. He kept going and carved the rest of the trench walls into what resembled a castle wall, with gargoyles, etc., The bored-er he became the more creatively he carved.
They were there for nearly three weeks, he did a lot of carving, clay hardens when heated well.
Perhaps sometime in the future some archaeologist is going to scratch their head wondering what on earth a 'devotional hearth' is doing in the middle of a clay field in Holland :rolleyes: and it's only fixed because he burned that hexi stove to heat the whole thing up.
It won't have properly ceramicised, but it'll have hardened enough to become changed just enough to bind. He said it was rock solid when they did a hasty back fill and left.

Hexi burners are often the first stove youngsters are given to brew up on. They're simple, they work, they're disposable.....and now it seems they're pretty much illegal because there's no way that everyone who has them will apply retrospectively for a £39.50 licence.

If Tantalus is right, the same applies to every one of us who has a car battery too.......
 

Damascus

Native
Dec 3, 2005
1,698
224
66
Norwich
Sodium chloride (I think that’s the right name, correct me if wrong), one of the best weed killers, was for sale incredibly cheap to buy. Withdrawn in case terrorists make bombs with it, about 8-10 years ago, yet all during the troubles in Northern Ireland, IRA choice of ingredient for their bombs was SC. Now you have to buy bottles of round up or similar for about ten to fifteen times the price, I sometimes think it’s not for our safety but big companies personal gain.
i’ll had my victor moment and get my coat!!!!!
 

Stew

Bushcrafter through and through
Nov 29, 2003
6,608
1,404
Aylesbury
stewartjlight-knives.com
Like many here I suspect that I'm not alone in having a couple of those wee fold down hexi stoves, just in case.
They're cheap, they're easily obtainable (my last one literally cost a pound from a pound store) and they come with the hexi blocks tidily packed inside.

I cannot say they are a favoured way to cook, but they're reliable for a brew up regardless of the weather and the wee stove though it seems flimsy actually works as a stable platform.

There must be literally hundreds of thousands of them in the UK.....and it looks like we're all now criminals because we don't have licences.

This is just stupid.

The stoves have been a stalwart of the British army for generations.

Somewhere in Holland, there's a clay field where my wee bother and his battalion were on exercise. He's a creative blighter my wee bother, and he was told to dig a trench and bed down.
So, he duly dug a trench, and fitted it out, etc., and then to their folly his officers let him get bored.
My bored wee bother took his pocket knife and carved the wall of that clay trench into a stone fireplace and set his hexi burner in it. He kept going and carved the rest of the trench walls into what resembled a castle wall, with gargoyles, etc., The bored-er he became the more creatively he carved.
They were there for nearly three weeks, he did a lot of carving, clay hardens when heated well.
Perhaps sometime in the future some archaeologist is going to scratch their head wondering what on earth a 'devotional hearth' is doing in the middle of a clay field in Holland :rolleyes: and it's only fixed because he burned that hexi stove to heat the whole thing up.
It won't have properly ceramicised, but it'll have hardened enough to become changed just enough to bind. He said it was rock solid when they did a hasty back fill and left.

Hexi burners are often the first stove youngsters are given to brew up on. They're simple, they work, they're disposable.....and now it seems they're pretty much illegal because there's no way that everyone who has them will apply retrospectively for a £39.50 licence.

If Tantalus is right, the same applies to every one of us who has a car battery too.......
Do the army still use hexamine?
 

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