Jawbreaker Broken

April 18, 2015 1:48 PM

What happens when you put a red hot ball of nickel on a huge novelty jawbreaker (Red hot nickel ball previously)
posted by The Whelk (113 comments total)

Finally, someone asking the important questions.
posted by phunniemee at 1:53 PM on April 18, 2015 [19 favorites]

I think putting this on YouTube basically makes it a foregone conclusion that Slugworth is gonna find out about it.
posted by nevercalm at 1:53 PM on April 18, 2015 [16 favorites]

Great now I have to hide all my nickel balls from the neighborhood children thx metafilter
posted by danny the boy at 1:55 PM on April 18, 2015 [11 favorites]

That's how you get ants.
posted by killy willy at 1:59 PM on April 18, 2015 [34 favorites]

Weirdly, I feel like the huge novelty jawbreaker might have won that round.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:00 PM on April 18, 2015 [12 favorites]

Answer: you get the picture of what every elementary school kid has in their mind's eye when they're putting together their baking-soda-and-vinegar paper mâché volcano for the school Open House/Science Fair.
posted by blueberry at 2:01 PM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

I rather enjoyed the moment where I'm imagining them realizing "oh shit, maybe putting it _in_ the bowl will work better than on top of the bottom of the bowl."
posted by kmz at 2:05 PM on April 18, 2015 [44 favorites]

I like how the third or fourth time he does it and there is the massive hole in the jaw breaker and the video waits a beat as if to say "Okay. It's over." Then a quick cut to a fresh hot ball of nickel bring dropped in as if to say, "NO! IT'S NOT OVER! NOTHING IS OVER! I WANT TO SEE THIS THIS THING SUFFER AND PAY FOR WHAT IT DID! "
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 2:06 PM on April 18, 2015 [34 favorites]

And that, kids, is how the Earth got its nickel-irron core. Probably. Whatever that was awesome.
posted by 1adam12 at 2:07 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

Apparently this is this person's major hobby? Heating up a ball of nickel and putting it on stuff? Here it is on some Velveeta. I can almost smell it. Mmmmm.
posted by dis_integration at 2:08 PM on April 18, 2015 [6 favorites]

I will never get tired of this dumb backyard-science kinda thing—reminds me of my misspent youth. Someday when I have a house with a yard and a garage and such, I am gonna have so much fun doing stuff like this.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 2:09 PM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Same thing that happens to everything else."
posted by entropicamericana at 2:13 PM on April 18, 2015 [14 favorites]

This is one of the best things that I never knew that I wanted to see.
posted by SpacemanStix at 2:14 PM on April 18, 2015 [6 favorites]

The Velveeta held up much better than I would have expected. It also looks much like I'd imagine a 1970s yellow vinyl interior would if you were trapped upside down and burning to death on the highway.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 2:18 PM on April 18, 2015 [5 favorites]

I imagine this is basically what happens in your stomach if you eat one, complete with the jet of steam coming out of your ass.
posted by billiebee at 2:20 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

Weirdly, I feel like the huge novelty jawbreaker might have won that round.

Ha, ha. Now you're all sticky Mr. Nickel Ball.
posted by SpacemanStix at 2:21 PM on April 18, 2015 [10 favorites]

This is as much a story of stainless steel bowls as it is of jawbreakers or red hot nickel balls.
posted by ethansr at 2:22 PM on April 18, 2015 [12 favorites]

The giant gummy bear one is pretty... graphic.
posted by torisaur at 2:22 PM on April 18, 2015 [10 favorites]

Apparently this is this person's major hobby? Heating up a ball of nickel and putting it on stuff?

He has what seems like a million views per video, and some cursory searching makes it seem like that would net you around two thousand dollars per video. So perhaps it's even his major stream of revenue!
posted by codacorolla at 2:26 PM on April 18, 2015 [12 favorites]

cursory searching makes it seem like that would net you around two thousand dollars per video

So uhh, where does one buy a ball of nickle? And what kind of shit would you like to see me burn with it?
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:30 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

I love how at a couple points the jawbreaker is simultaneously boiling and on fire.
posted by zsazsa at 2:33 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

I, for one, love Red Hot Nickel Ball and I want to see it attempt to destroy one of every kind of object on earth.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:34 PM on April 18, 2015 [17 favorites]

The imaginary screams are harrowing
posted by Auden at 2:35 PM on April 18, 2015

Huh, so I guess I'm not the only one who makes popcorn the wrong way.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:35 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

I still prefer the classics, like front load washers destroying themselves or starting a charcoal grill with liquid oxygen.
posted by mr vino at 2:35 PM on April 18, 2015 [13 favorites]

I kinda want to see this in reverse, but it looks like that involves video-editing a download.
posted by achrise at 2:37 PM on April 18, 2015

The bear took much longer than I thought it would. Gummi is denser than I would have believed.
posted by emjaybee at 2:38 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Just remember, kids, BB-8 is a physical effect, not CGI....
posted by chavenet at 2:39 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

that charcoal grill thing, I saw in 1999, I think.

A bit of history about this video:
This video was featured in a Dave Barry article in the mid '90s, and was arguably one of the first wide-spread URLs. Due to this sudden influx of interest, Purdue's networks experienced one of the first "Slashdot Effects" ever, driving it's only T1 line at max capacity for AN ENTIRE WEEK!
posted by thelonius at 2:39 PM on April 18, 2015

It's strange that it didn't catch on fire. (Sugar burns very well.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:51 PM on April 18, 2015

So far as YouTube channel schticks go, "I put a red hot nickle ball on things" has to be one of my favorites.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:57 PM on April 18, 2015 [16 favorites]

Mom is really going to be pissed when she sees that mess.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 2:59 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Chocolate Pickle, at 1:15 you can see the jawbreaker vapor catching fire. The fourth ball of nickel causes the vapor to burn for a bit as well.
posted by infinitewindow at 3:00 PM on April 18, 2015

Jupiter's moon Europa is covered by 30-40 miles of ice and is believed to have a liquid ocean underneath that. An idea has been kicked around to have a "melt probe" that would melt its way down through the ice, look around down there, and report back what it found.

Imagine this going 40 miles instead of a few inches.
posted by Hatashran at 3:09 PM on April 18, 2015

Recently done on a brand new Guster record.
posted by brina at 3:12 PM on April 18, 2015

Alright so here's a pedantic question. Why a ball of nickel? Is there any particular reason for nickel instead of, say, stainless steel? Or some other material with a high melting point? Or does the fact that it is a ball of nickel give its overall honey-badger zeal for melting things some kind of elemental cachet that can only be conferred upon denizens of the periodic table?

I mean, I think these videos are undeniably fun, but I can't help but ask why nickel... Seriously, this bugs me.
posted by the painkiller at 3:31 PM on April 18, 2015 [8 favorites]

This must stink to high heaven.
posted by duffell at 3:33 PM on April 18, 2015

I suppose all those acrid vinyl fumes would help keep the ants away.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:34 PM on April 18, 2015

My favorites include the gallium, the engine coolant and the ballistic gel.
posted by ursus_comiter at 3:34 PM on April 18, 2015

Given the number of times the video person has done this with a RHNB, you'd think they would have already mastered putting the target in a clamp. I mean, what I really want to see is it boring through to the other side, not filling up a bowl with liquid sugar!
posted by tavella at 3:35 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

I wish we could see what happened in between the edits. The first time the ball drops off and rolls along the table, there's a quick pause then BAM cut to next scene...with a new, huge scorchmark on the table. I want to hear that profanity first-hand, damnit.
posted by ZaphodB at 3:38 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

Clearly the next step is a red hot nickel ball versus Blendtec blender fight to the death.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 3:50 PM on April 18, 2015 [18 favorites]

ZaphodB, let me direct you to the RHNB vs. Honey video.
posted by ursus_comiter at 3:55 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

> Is it just me or does everyone love the sound when the blowtorch turns off?
That noise is HEAVENLY. I'm trying to convince my wife to make that noise as we are having SEX!!!
posted by XMLicious at 4:09 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

I mean, I think these videos are undeniably fun, but I can't help but ask why nickel... Seriously, this bugs me.

I could be totally wrong about this, but I think nickel is pretty resistant to oxidizing. Even something like stainless, I think, will oxidize and possibly react in some way with random burning stuff if you heat it repeatedly like that.

So, using nickel is the purist's method of applying a big load of heat and nothing else but also for not burning through a sack of stainless ball bearings (not cheap) for every video.
posted by cmoj at 4:11 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

This person has unwittingly discovered the ugliest color imaginable.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:14 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

The Painkiller: Nickel has a relatively high specific heat among metals, at 0.1 BTU/LBM*F. This, coupled with its higher melting point and density, means it can hold a lot of energy at a high temperature, which is exactly what you want in a ball that blasts through things with heat. Iron has a slightly higher specific heat, but is far more susceptible to corrosion, and while there's plenty of other metals with higher specific heats they are either much less dense, much more unstable, or much more expensive than Nickel.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:18 PM on April 18, 2015 [16 favorites]

It also looks much like I'd imagine a 1970s yellow vinyl interior would if you were trapped upside down and burning to death on the highway.

Now I have "Warm Leatherette" stuck in my head.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:20 PM on April 18, 2015 [5 favorites]

This person has unwittingly discovered the ugliest color imaginable.~shakespeherian

I agree! It's weirdly putrid and organic looking, like festering alien guts. Mmmmm.....
posted by but no cigar at 4:23 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

I LOVE red hot nickel balls! I think I am going to give them out next Halloween. I wonder where you can order five or six dozen.
posted by rankfreudlite at 4:26 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

I, for one, love Red Hot Nickel Ball and I want to see it attempt to destroy one of every kind of object on earth.

Do not taunt Red Hot Nickel Ball.
posted by SpacemanStix at 4:27 PM on April 18, 2015 [5 favorites]

1. How do you clean up any of this type of aftermath? Or do you just toss out those metal bowls when you're done? So. much. melted. sugar!

2. I be you anything this guy is single.

3. Whoa whoa whoa now, does that camera have on safety goggles? *backs away from lava-sugar-spitting heatwaves*
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 4:28 PM on April 18, 2015

Red Hot Nickel Ball...Will it blend?
posted by sexyrobot at 4:32 PM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

3. Whoa whoa whoa now, does that camera have on safety goggles?

Did we learn nothing from Carol?!
posted by phunniemee at 4:32 PM on April 18, 2015

What would happen if you put a red-hot nickel ball on Donald Trump?

What if it was a larger red-hot nickel ball? Like, say, one meter in diameter?

And what if you made it red hot by dropping it through the atmosphere at about Mach 9, and put it on Mr. Trump at the bottom of that descent?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:39 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

...And then say,

"YOU'RE FIRED!"

Ha! I kill me.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:42 PM on April 18, 2015 [6 favorites]

I probably should have guessed that the crayons would become a giant flaming candle, but wow.
posted by fancyoats at 4:50 PM on April 18, 2015

Well, what else are you supposed to do with a jawbreaker that big?
posted by OverlappingElvis at 4:50 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Heh, I needed this. This is great.
posted by limeonaire at 4:54 PM on April 18, 2015

John Carpenter's first wet dream.

NTTAWWT.
posted by IAmBroom at 4:55 PM on April 18, 2015

"Novelty jawbreakers get all the action" - Ordinary jawbreaker.
posted by srboisvert at 4:58 PM on April 18, 2015

WHY ARE THESE VIDEOS SO SATISFYING?
posted by littlesq at 5:06 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

The giant gummy bear one is pretty... graphic.

Jesus, that was like a David Cronenberg student film.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:09 PM on April 18, 2015 [8 favorites]

...yeah? That's how there can be professional YouTubers, you pull in a million strong audience and you get a cut of the ad revenue
posted by The Whelk at 5:21 PM on April 18, 2015

I love how the Gak one shows Gak is totally indestructible.
posted by Wretch729 at 5:29 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Anybody getting a serial killer vibe from this?
posted by jonp72 at 5:37 PM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

...all the way to China!
posted by clavdivs at 5:54 PM on April 18, 2015

Are eggshells made of magic???
posted by prefpara at 5:54 PM on April 18, 2015 [5 favorites]

WHAT SMELLS DID THIS MAKE

I MUST KNOW
posted by NoraReed at 5:54 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

I never really liked Red Hot Nickel Balls until they put out Californication.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:56 PM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

Before you watch Nickel Ball vs. the bottom of a can of pop, consider what you expect to see. Then see it.

The poor environment oh I tipped my hand
posted by sylvanshine at 5:59 PM on April 18, 2015

DAYUM, that looked like some manner of fucked-up ritual tryna summon some manner of candy-demon. I kept expecting tentacles to whip out of the boiling sugar and hear a scream before a quick cut to black.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 6:23 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

So, that was a chunk of my afternoon.

The "red hot nickel ball vs. gasoline" one, though...should've went down the ground around his steel bowl first. Guess I should be glad he took the safety precaution of rolling the ball down a chunk of gutter, rather than just using the pliers like usual. (But seriously? No fire extinguisher?)

The glass one is kind of fun.
posted by leahwrenn at 6:41 PM on April 18, 2015

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a red hot ball of nickel?
posted by blue_beetle at 7:01 PM on April 18, 2015

He also has ones where the nickel ball is chilled in liquid nitrogen.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 7:09 PM on April 18, 2015

many, many products are made of petrol. the roaring flames in many of these videos are probably the most fun way to illustrate that.
posted by eustatic at 7:36 PM on April 18, 2015

T.D. Strange: So uhh, where does one buy a ball of nickle? And what kind of shit would you like to see me burn with it?

Why, the London Metal Exchange, of course, where it's going for the bargoon price of $12,275 US per tonne - the spot price as of Friday's close!

Now, you'll have to be set up to take delivery via freighter ship or train or what have you, but those are details.

Now, as for the ball-making process, I have no idea.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:40 PM on April 18, 2015

torisaur: "The giant gummy bear yt one is pretty... graphic."

Okay, around 48 seconds in gave me major flashbacks to Mr. Shadow's phone call. That explains a lot.
posted by Riki tiki at 7:49 PM on April 18, 2015

Make sure you haven't eaten recently if you watch RHNB in Elmer's Glue.
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 9:19 PM on April 18, 2015

Make sure you haven't eaten recently if you watch RHNB in Elmer's Glue .

It...looks like a Cronenbergian creature that's simultaneously being born and cooked.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:48 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

The more of these I watch the better it gets. It's the perfect hilarious combination of total lack of preparation, fumbling with the pliers, and dead silent reaction.

I'm kind of loving that there's no speaking. Its even better that it's not a couple of douchebros yelling "AWRIGHT! Today, okay, we're gonna see what happens when we..."

After a while, you just get into the rhythm of the blowtorch kicking off the next one, and *plop* *sizzle*.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:57 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

Clearly the next step is a red hot nickel ball versus Blendtec blender fight to the death.

I want to see this more than I want to see Abraham Lincoln riding a T-rex fight Robocop tagteamed with Liam Neeson.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:00 PM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

Around 1:40 onwards some forgotten neural cluster pulled up a visual parallel with a really badly infected wound I saw once on the job. No need for breakfast now, anyway!
posted by The Zeroth Law at 11:13 PM on April 18, 2015

A bit of history about this video:
This video was featured in a Dave Barry article in the mid '90s, and was arguably one of the first wide-spread URLs. Due to this sudden influx of interest, Purdue's networks experienced one of the first "Slashdot Effects" ever, driving it's only T1 line at max capacity for AN ENTIRE WEEK!

Man ,I never got that kind of mileage out of my Dave Barry article ,and it involved fire too!
posted by boilermonster at 11:30 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Aren't humans interesting? Humans are so interesting.
posted by you're a kitty! at 11:44 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

RHNB vs pop rocks makes the cheeriest crackling fire! Made me nostalgic for some reason, which is a weird feeling to have triggered by a red hot chunk of nickel and some sucrose. Yay!
posted by zinful at 12:24 AM on April 19, 2015

On a whim, YouTuber carsandwater places a red hot nickel ball on an object in his workshop. He watches it appreciatively for several minutes, utterly silent.

"You know what? I think this thing's got legs."
posted by brundlefly at 12:59 AM on April 19, 2015

Also, "Red Hot Nickel Ball" should be a terrible band that does covers of Nickelback in the style of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
posted by brundlefly at 1:01 AM on April 19, 2015 [8 favorites]

The Peanut Butter was so great I could almost smell it.
posted by BurnChao at 1:35 AM on April 19, 2015

I would buy whatever brand of safety goggles this guy endorses.
posted by thelonius at 3:00 AM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I await RHNB vs. Stretch Armstrong.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:14 AM on April 19, 2015

I would buy whatever brand of safety goggles this guy endorses.

My favorite part of the Elmer's Glue one is how you can see he's got a safety screen set up because it starts to fog up...so he moves the camera (and presumably himself) to one side of it so we can still see RHNB.
posted by kalimac at 5:15 AM on April 19, 2015

Watermelon can handle it.
posted by thelonius at 6:26 AM on April 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

Wow, watermelon pretty much completely doesn't give a shit about your vaguely warm ball of metal.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:38 AM on April 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'm sorry but the only covering of Nickelback I will allow is with dirt. Shoveled into their shallow graves containing them. Because they must be made to die. Because their music was bad.

This is how you remind me? This is how we rewind "t"
posted by aydeejones at 8:44 AM on April 19, 2015

Bluegrass covers are a thing, maybe it could be Nickel Creek covering the Red Hot Chili Peppers?
posted by jacquilynne at 8:46 AM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure this is going to be the next big modernist cuisine technique.
posted by destrius at 8:50 AM on April 19, 2015

2. I be you anything this guy is single.

With red hot nickle balls like those?!
posted by chavenet at 8:53 AM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

RHNB vs Gorilla Glue for maximum "no, no, you are going to bien your house down, no, don't touch it! don't put your face in it! why are you not wearing gloves?!"
posted by maryr at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2015

...I take that back, I had not watched the soda can or the fireworks videos yet. You idiot, you are lucky to be in one piece. Good God.
posted by maryr at 9:06 AM on April 19, 2015

He made a safety screen out of glass?!?!?!?!?!
posted by maryr at 9:15 AM on April 19, 2015

He made a safety screen out of glass?!?!?!?!?!

Also, I don't hear no fume hood roaring away.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:23 AM on April 19, 2015

TIL that in a pinch, Gorilla Glue will work if you don't have charcoal for the hibachi.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:04 AM on April 19, 2015

Its even better that it's not a couple of douchebros yelling "AWRIGHT! Today, okay, we're gonna see what happens when we..."

Dude, that's what scary about it. He's going to start referring to everybody as "it" and lower things to people in a basket! Horrifying!
posted by jonp72 at 10:22 AM on April 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

This is the most obscure fetish subculture I've come across in at least a month.
posted by dephlogisticated at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

The gorilla glue flames are so ... laminar.
posted by kiltedtaco at 10:56 AM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a red hot ball of nickel ball my face?
posted by SpacemanStix at 1:27 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

I kinda want to see this in reverse, but it looks like that involves video-editing a download.

posted by achrise at 17:37 on April 18 [+] [!]

I was curious too, and I uploaded the result to Youtube: Cold ball of nickel turns red hot, and makes a jaw breaker in the process.
posted by fragmede at 2:51 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]

cursory searching makes it seem like that would net you around two thousand dollars per video

What, really? My back yard is a gravel parking lot, and after five or six bottles of wine, dinner parties at my house often turn into "let's set random things on fire to see what happens" parties. The homebuilt backpack flamethrower stored conveniently on the porch doesn't hurt, either. Now I'm thinking I should be recording these shenanigans and using that sweet, sweet youtube ad money to pay for all the bottles of wine. (And kerosene.)
posted by Mars Saxman at 5:15 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Kshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh B^WIK
posted by Rhomboid at 7:12 PM on April 19, 2015

"And one day they will construct a RHNB so large they will destroy the world!"
posted by boilermonster at 11:07 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I really want to see RHNB vs LOX , that will fog your little safety shield, and then after rebuilding the shop starting with a new RHNB vs 90% hydrogen peroxide, then after the fire dpt has left RHNB vs Mecury fulminate.

Ok tha'ts enough for now.
posted by boilermonster at 12:19 AM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I really want to see RHNB vs LOX , that will fog your little safety shield, and then after rebuilding the shop starting with a new RHNB vs 90% hydrogen peroxide, then after the fire dpt has left RHNB vs Mecury fulminate.

Ok tha'ts enough for now.

Stop encouraging him!
posted by jonp72 at 6:44 AM on April 23, 2015