Everyone and their grandmother has heard about ICI ardeer and its industrious explosive past. Manged to finally visit this site a few months ago with Speed as part of a larger mid-scotland trip.
Despite dozens of explorers and locals beachcombing the site of all its worth I managed to find a nice roll of film, dated 1968, shot on ilford PanF (50), scracthed to hell and half full of dust and dirt, to all intensive purposes, it was a gonna. Spent a bit of time cleaning her up and repairing to the best of my (basic) film spotting technique, then scanned them up for you all to see.
From my powers of deduction, these fellas aren't on official MOD business, so I don't see a problem posting these images. To me, it looks like 3 fellas on their lunch break blowing shit up for the sake of it (prooving guys are generally just pyromaniacs at heart), and the charges appear to be a kind of concentrated industrial hand wash powder, probably with some kind of bad mother detonator shoved deep inside. Spungle or other actual pyromaniacs will know better than me on that subject
This is my fav, hence first, the guy on the rights cheeky smile makes it all worthwhile.
ZOMG, wires everywhere! Looks like something i'd make! Why is it that MOD blokes tend to be a bit untidy with wiring? My grandad used to be a high end avionics test engineer, so he could wire up some mutha of a plane whilst in flight, but jesus, you couldn't trust him to wire up a 3 pin plug!
Looks like a detonator to me?
Proud of his explosive package! - I really really love photos of people when their genuinely smiling, doesn't matter if you don't know them, its just nice.
another fav - do you reckon the photographer asked them to pose this one? Again the guy with the dark jacket and flatcap makes the photo, got his ruler and pens all lined up in his pocket like any engineer should always have.
Hard at work bodging with tape!
This guy is helping out to position the charges in the centre of the pond.
Showing off the goods! - Nice big box of explosive delights
Now for some explosions! There were loads of these, so just including the most interesting 3 shots.
Appears to have sent that rock into orbit!
Water go boom!
I really enjoyed finding this roll of film, took a bit of work to get the images to a useful condition, but I think its just nice to be able to see them having a bit of fun
I also have a few other rolls from another place, that are from the mid 1970's, and are UNDEVELOPED! I'm thinking of sending them away for professional development, as I really don't have enough experience with out of date films etc to deal with something that was shot over 35years ago! Anybody suggest anything, please speak up!
CHeck my flickR album page for higher res images ICI Ardeer - Workers in 1968 blowing shit up!!!
Despite dozens of explorers and locals beachcombing the site of all its worth I managed to find a nice roll of film, dated 1968, shot on ilford PanF (50), scracthed to hell and half full of dust and dirt, to all intensive purposes, it was a gonna. Spent a bit of time cleaning her up and repairing to the best of my (basic) film spotting technique, then scanned them up for you all to see.
From my powers of deduction, these fellas aren't on official MOD business, so I don't see a problem posting these images. To me, it looks like 3 fellas on their lunch break blowing shit up for the sake of it (prooving guys are generally just pyromaniacs at heart), and the charges appear to be a kind of concentrated industrial hand wash powder, probably with some kind of bad mother detonator shoved deep inside. Spungle or other actual pyromaniacs will know better than me on that subject
This is my fav, hence first, the guy on the rights cheeky smile makes it all worthwhile.
ZOMG, wires everywhere! Looks like something i'd make! Why is it that MOD blokes tend to be a bit untidy with wiring? My grandad used to be a high end avionics test engineer, so he could wire up some mutha of a plane whilst in flight, but jesus, you couldn't trust him to wire up a 3 pin plug!
Looks like a detonator to me?
Proud of his explosive package! - I really really love photos of people when their genuinely smiling, doesn't matter if you don't know them, its just nice.
another fav - do you reckon the photographer asked them to pose this one? Again the guy with the dark jacket and flatcap makes the photo, got his ruler and pens all lined up in his pocket like any engineer should always have.
Hard at work bodging with tape!
This guy is helping out to position the charges in the centre of the pond.
Showing off the goods! - Nice big box of explosive delights
Now for some explosions! There were loads of these, so just including the most interesting 3 shots.
Appears to have sent that rock into orbit!
Water go boom!
I really enjoyed finding this roll of film, took a bit of work to get the images to a useful condition, but I think its just nice to be able to see them having a bit of fun
I also have a few other rolls from another place, that are from the mid 1970's, and are UNDEVELOPED! I'm thinking of sending them away for professional development, as I really don't have enough experience with out of date films etc to deal with something that was shot over 35years ago! Anybody suggest anything, please speak up!
CHeck my flickR album page for higher res images ICI Ardeer - Workers in 1968 blowing shit up!!!
