roger's pyrotechnic offerings and experiments

[rogeryermaw]

It's never done. There is always a new formula or method to be tested and hundreds of tweaks and mods within each of those. With the admin's blessing, I'll place such dalliances here.

 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2014 by rogeryermaw

[rogeryermaw]

[ddewees]

Nice green

[mkn]

great greens !! Dang, I don't want to work with chlorates.......Barium nitrate is what

I have done, and about the same, not quite like the chlorates. nice set of video tests !

Matt

[braddsn]

Those are super bright greens.... good deep color! I am having to step-prime my greens, for some reason they seem as hard to light as blue stars.

[rogeryermaw]

Thanks! Having a hard time with my crackle stars though...

 

Both the chlorate and nitrate stars were surprisingly easy to light. The nitrate ones even worked in a stargun unprimed. The chlorates were just rolled in a hot prime and then nc to protect the chlorate from the sulphur in the final bp layer.

[dave321]

barium chlorate / shellac ??

 

lift charge weight for the 1.25" mine ??

Edited October 26, 2014 by dave321

[rogeryermaw]

Chlorate/phenolic/hexamine and I didn't weigh the lift but typically use 4-5 grams for a 1.25".

[Bobosan]

The chlorate greens do look very nice, indeed.

[Jakenbake]

So you can use chlorate and hex together?

[rogeryermaw]

I don't know how it stores yet. I am going to be doing quite a bit of experimentation with the phenolic/hex syrup in the coming weeks but I suspect that the phenolic binding will minimize instability sort of like coating metal particles with parlon. Just a guess. I will have a 20 gram batch cut and primed this weekend that I'll store in the harshest conditions I can muster to see how it holds up but short term indications are positive.

[rogeryermaw]

 

this is a finicky and difficult to light formula but i like the color. i intend to keep working with it to see if i can get it to perform better.

Edited October 30, 2014 by rogeryermaw

[ddewees]

Why do people take video in portrait mode?

[wildcherryxoxo]

maybe sodium benzoate?

[rogeryermaw]

Those are super bright greens.... good deep color! I am having to step-prime my greens, for some reason they seem as hard to light as blue stars.

if you have the chems, this formula has worked for me as a cut star with only a single layer of 75:15:10 kp with 5% mgal. this is the nitrate green in the second vid at the top.

 

Barium nitrate 42

Potassium Perchlorate 20

Magnalium 12

Parlon (or Saran*) 18

Red Gum 8

SGRS 3

 

wetted with 70:30 alcohol:water

 

i didn't use binder in the prime. just dusted the patty before cutting.

 

there is no requirement to watch what i post for those who cluck their disapproval. a note on this subject, i do have a new camera i will be using going forward.

Edited October 31, 2014 by rogeryermaw

[ddewees]

My question wasn't clucking disapproval, I was just asking why people choose not to rotate their phone when recording video. Do they like watching videos on YouTube with black side bars, or are they unaware that if they rotate their screen, they'll get full frame videos?? I can't think of any other reason other than just lazy...

[rogeryermaw]

apologies dd. sorry i snapped. it is annoying to have a third of my work cut off by the phone but i have a decent nikon digital cam now that i will be working with. now i just need someone to take the video from further away.

[rogeryermaw]

Ba(ClO3)2 atomized magnesium

 

Ba(ClO3)2 spherical mgal

Edited October 31, 2014 by rogeryermaw

[rogeryermaw]

some info about these formulae so far:

 

the comp i already posted is from Charlie Wilson.

 

the first set of chlorate stars were 80:20 chlorate:fuels. the fuel was 3:1 phenolic resin:hexamine.

 

the stars acting difficult were:AP 60,

barium nitrate 15,

hexamine 20,

red gum 5 (Niladmirari)

these are pretty in color and they are much easier to light reliably when rolled. they don't take fire as readily when cut. they may benefit from a small percentage of d.e. or wood meal to give some porosity...speculation.

 

the more recent tests were:68 barium chlorate,

12 atomized magnesium,

12 parlon,

8 red gum (potassium chlorate from this forum)

 

and: 68 barium chlorate,

12 80-200 magnalium,

12 parlon,

8 red gum.

 

i am currently testing different ratios of these last two mixed to offer a range of burn speeds and brightness. they light very easily. those shot from the star gun in the videos were only dusted with sulfurless kp with about 8% mgal before cutting. no further priming was done. for use with standard bp break, seal with nc and roll in meal powder.

Edited October 31, 2014 by rogeryermaw

[enanthate]

Dude. Those greens look supernice! Good job.

Got a couple of green formulaes myself, but can't say they give such a nice color.

Is there any difference when binding with acetone/parlon? I never make mine with water, maybe this affects the results. I get a decent green, but if I remember correctly it's a tiny bit pale compared to yours.

I've only used pot perc and barium nitrate/carbonate, as I don't have hex, AP or ba chlorate.

Your first posted formula is quite similar to mine if I'm not wrong, easy to ignite indeed.

[enanthate]

Sorry doubleposting.

Have you ever tried to granulate say a green composition into 1mm granules, and adding this to a mix and pumping tigertail or whatever with it?

Haven't seen this effect before, so I've been wanting to try it just for fun. Might be cool, might be useless as well. Let me know what you think.

A better combination should be made perhaps, for example tigertail with granules of blue comp I imagine.

[Sparx88]

I'm actually working on something like. What I have found is you have to make the micro stars parlon/acetone bound. And add them in a water-alcohol dextrin based comet. That way the micro stars will not crumble or melt into the comets composition. I pump them, stab a little comet comp in, compress. Pull out the plunger then drop a couple micro stars in and then add some more comet comp press and repeat until they are as big as you want. Just make sure that the first and last thing you use is the comet comp. Works pretty darn good so far. Someday I'll remember to film one of those shells to share here. I have been working out a silver/white comet with purple or blue micro stars this way.

Edited November 2, 2014 by Sparx88

[enanthate]

Cool that youve tried it Sparx!

Isn't it easier to just "bake" the microstars into the mix? Depending on granular size, I imagine this should work.

Please make a video as I would love to see the effect. Might be a cool comet this one

[Sparx88]

I don't know what bake means. I'm still a novice so I'm finding and reading new things daily. But yah, I'll put a shell of these on the urgent list because I have'nt put them into a shell yet just star mines to test and tweak so far.

[enanthate]

Starmines are good enough for me, though. Might make some myself, just dont have the time for it this week.

By bake I mean simply poor the granules into the comp, knead it around and pump like normal.