I've just finished watching an episode of Mythbusters where they tested another MacGyverism. This time from the Wish-child episode when MacGyver uses the gunpowder from bullets to blow the lock of the ships door open.

Unfortunately I had no idea they where testing it in this episode so wasn't set up to record it and there aren't any clips of it on youtube, there however some clips and excerpts on Discovory's video site here

Interestingly they found that the MacGyverism is mostly plausible with the exception that the amount of gun powder from the 6 bullets he used in the episode isn't enough to blow the lock (it gives a nice little explosive display but that's it) and also they found that you can't actually pull bullets apart with your hands like he did in the episode.

So everything in the MacGyverism actually works as we see it happen, but the end result is exaggerated.

Was also good to hear them talking up MacGyver as the second greatest show on Television (the first of coarse being their own show - in their opinion anyway )


Watch some clips of this MacGyverism being tested

Don't worry. They'll repeat it again and again:) You know though, After watching enough of those episodes, I've come to the conclusion that the guys on Mythbusters are not the last word on if things work or not. Just because they say it won't work doesn't mean it can't. Especially MacGyverisms. We know TPTB always left a step out when showing how to make bombs and the like so that explains a lot. However, I have to remind myself that there is only one MacGyver and these guys, no matter how many angles they try to do it, are never going to come close to being him:)

Saw an ad for next week's Mythbusters - it's all about duct tape!

Will see if Mac get's mentioned.

banlu

Yeah I saw that banlu and I couldn't catch it that night, it looked like it was going to be good. I can't imagine that it wouldn't rip lifting that car- a strip of duct tape only has like ~8lbs of strength (IIRC from a comparison in a men's/science magazine that glorified Gorilla tape for having a greater strength). So I would expect even with a hundred strips or so it's not closing in on holding up a 4,000lb Crown Vic.

Then how did the boat repair thing go? It looked like they were trying to patch a hole after water started flowing in- I don't know of any tape that would stick through water haha.

they first patched the hole before the boart got wet. They patched it on both sides. It held for 30 minutes than developed a slow leak. They than pulled off the tape and let the hole leak fully. While the hole was leaking and the boat was wet they tried to patch the hole on both sides like they did earlier, Because the tape got wet it didn't stick the best and ended up leaking pretty quickly. They said it was plausible because it is better than having nothing but they don't reccomend using it for boat repair. Then they made a sail boat out of duct tape. It worked pretty well and didn't leak