I have an urgent request for help. There is something I can’t find in my notes and research, and can’t find it in searches on the internet. Ted Kaczynski, as the Unabomber, did, one or more times, use a ballpoint pen tube (also called a ballpoint pen liner) as an improvised detonator. He filled the ballpoint pen tube with explosive powder and used it as an improvised detonator to initiate the explosion in a pipe bomb. The same technique as the Vance bomber. A FBI bomb expert in the Vance case said that in 1989 after examining thousands of bombs he had never seen anyone else, besides the Vance bomber, use a ballpoint pen tube as a detonator. Yet I know Kaczynski did use a ballpoint pen tube (also called a liner) as a detonator, perhaps in the 1993 – 1995 time frame, perhaps earlier, and In fact I think he used a Faber Castell ballpoint pen.
Yet I cannot find where I got this information. I need a source, a reference, a cite.
Any help is much appreciated.
MODERATOR
Somewhere online I think there is a descriptive list of the parts of the Kaczynski bombs, which includes a description of a ballpoint pen tube, but I simply cannot find it.
MODERATOR
I did some digging but struck out. Hopefully my internet searches for "pen liner detonator" haven’t put me on some terrorist watch list. 
The closest thing I found was this Montana travelogue:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Ba … jzGwAACAAJ
The author talks about improvised explosives made by local farmers, including one that could fit in a ballpoint barrel. Then the next paragraph talks about Kaczynski.
Thanks for trying. I think it is probably in the Turchie affidavit, which gives a description of all the bomb parts, but despite rereading it several times I simply can’t find it. I think it may be in there but somehow I’m missing it, I don’t understand it. Maybe if you took a look at it Dave, or somebody else took a look, you could find it.
MODERATOR
Several copies of the affidavit I found online omitted the section detailing all the physical evidence. Here’s one that doesn’t:
http://www.unabombertrial.com:80/documents/turchie_affidavit.htm l”> https://web.archive.org/web/20030202051 … davit.html
Still didn’t find anything about a pen casing, liner or tube.
