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roger's pyrotechnic offerings and experiments


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Posted

...I also have a feeling that you might be the first guy to ever make a blue strobe...

The first?

Doesn’t the results from Jennings-White and Juknelevičius count?

 

By the way I have heard that someone actually produces blue strobe shells for Disneyland in Hong Kong (or was it Disney Resort in Shanghai?). Apparently the stars are not completely stable since rumour has it that the shells cannot be stored but must be used within a week or so. I don’t have the formulation unfortunately.

Posted (edited)

First? No. Of course in all the reading, research and speculation, I've never seen one. Nor met anyone who has seen or made them. What I'm hoping to do is put it within reach of people like us.

 

it is the journal paper of Dominykas Juknelevicius that i am following and, so far, the comps as listed do not produce a satisfactory strobe. i will admit, however, that i do not have a press and that may, in part, be affecting my results.

Edited by rogeryermaw
  • 2 months later...
Posted (edited)

Got some tweaking to slow the burn rate but this is a nice, pure blue imo

Edited by rogeryermaw
  • Like 1
Posted

What blue are you using?

Posted
I started with the Hardt blue #1 then gutted it to use with phenolic resin. No stearic acid or dextrin.
Posted

I recently tried the Veline colors with resin as a fuel and binder and was unimpressed with the blue. I may try the Hardt modified as you've done to see if it will work better. Thanks!

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
Man Roger thank you for all the hard work you put into this. I like that chlorate green too.
Posted

Yeah, that blue with the glitter looks really really nice.

 

Why is it that blue is so hard to create, but also looks the best? (imo)

Posted (edited)

 

 

I have done a bit of research into blues and found that the main problem (among a few others) is temperature. You need a large flame front in your composition to produce the CuCl blue emitting species in the volume necessary for decent color. Not to mention the light itself is produced by the heat of the flame. Unfortunately, the CuCl species is destroyed if the temperature gets too high, which generally happens when you have a large aggressive burn. So you have to find a happy middle-ground to produce a decent blue. One thought I would like to investigate in the future is the use of bromine instead of chlorine for producing blue. From what I have read so far copper bromate might be a nice choice in that it would be both colorant and oxidizer in a formula.

Edited by MadMat
Posted

I've had similar thoughts MadMat. The CuBr emission spectra is supposed to be a little bit more of a pure blue. My focus was mostly on bromine donors. There are some industrial chemicals that are pretty similar to what we currently use as chlorine donors. Most are sealants and flame retardants.

Posted

I haven't looked into the actual make-up of them yet, but there are bromine sanitizers for hot-tubs (I believe bromine is more stable at the higher temperatures present in hot tubs than chlorine). I've just been too busy lately and my pyro work is suffering :(

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted (edited)

mumbles if you see this, i have recently come across woelen's excellent write up on sci mad of the electrolytic synthesis of potassium bromate in a cell that runs similarly to the chlorate cells with some variation to the voltage and current. what i wonder is could a similar process be run on copper bromide (specifically copper(II)bromide as the copper(I) variety has very low solubility)?

 

also shoot me a pm if you get time. how is life in the mountains treating you?

Edited by rogeryermaw
Posted

Just have read this thread, and want to thanks Roger for his intensive work and sharing!

I also tried the blue strobes lately, but the AP and metallic copper formulas were to unstable for me... I'm thinking of using something with copper benzoate, bismuth trioxide, MgAl, baryum nitrate... Nothing good yet.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

 

A pink comp that is actually pink!??!!? Not hot pink. Not magenta. PINK!!!Thanks so much for letting me try it out.

Posted

Love that comp!

  • 8 months later...
Posted

been spending some time at Caleb's machine shop making tools:

 

 

tools which i have been enjoying immensely:

 

 

Posted

 

 

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Posted (edited)

 

 

Edited by rogeryermaw
Posted

Keep 'em coming! Nice stuff, good to see Cal's machines getting a workout.

Posted (edited)

 

this one...this fuel...me like! that sound is mean!

Edited by rogeryermaw
Posted

Better wipe after that one! :P

Posted

Damn, those sali rockets were wicked.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
Glad to see you and Cal have been having fun.
  • 6 months later...
Posted

so thi first time i made this formula, it was pretty but i asked Mumbles if he had any criticisms and he stated that i should maybe make the stars a bit smaller. finally got around to trying it again and have been working on my pasting technique since then as well. as usual, Mumbles was right. the effect was far superior:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHs4c3G_25M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_OL_hvYCdU

 

apparently, i don't remember how to embed here....

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