Aerial Shells

[xxxjanusxxx]

We've shot a 6'' double farfalle a few weeks ago for a Dutch competition... Guess what... We won!

 

There were metallic green stars between the break, I can't remember the compo, but it was a sort of Emerald green.

6'' double farfalle+ metallic green stars. 450 grams of meal coated rice hulls(4:1) as break and 25 grams of 7:1 flash dusted on the hulls.

 

38 inserts of 60-30-10 + 25% Ti -80#, 12,5 grams for each insert.

The comet is Buell Red. 16 mm diameter and about 3cm long.

[qwezxc12]

We've shot a 6'' double farfalle a few weeks ago for a Dutch competition... Guess what... We won!

 

That deserved a win. Very nice!

Anyone else break cans with burst on media and booster as opposed to BP?

[psyco_1322]

What size Black Powder rocket tooling should I get to lift a 2-3in areal shell?

 

(Sorry for going off topic, but I'm making my Christmas list )

 

Im sure you know there is a lot of difference between a 2" and 3" ball shell, usually about twice the weight in my experience. I have a set of 4oz core burner tooling that lifts 2" shells just fine. As for a 3" shell at about 130-140g, it starts getting pretty sluggish. If you have some really tuned in, high output, pressed coreburners they might lift 3's fine. Personally thats too much work for a small rocket. I would recommend getting some 5/8" tooling. Personally I stray away from that odd size but it does fit this need quite well. A good 4oz whistle rocket will lift 3" ball fine though, if you have the equipment to make them. 1lb rockets are a bit overkill for a 3" ball shell, might be ok for 3" cans though. That size of rocket, especially hybrid ones, would put a 3" shell into orbit. They are best fitted with 4" balls.

 

Note:

4oz=1/2"

8oz=5/8"

1lb=3/4"

 

 

Qwe, I used to make cannister shells with bp on rice hulls with a bit of booster, usually about 5g of whistle in the center where I piped the fire to. Got good results for breaks. I am now working on trying to convert to a traditional Itallian method of bp core with polverone filler. I have components for shell drying now and will be playing with the traditional way soon. I was always leary about just breaking a shell with some bp in the center, I guess theres not much difference when compared to bp on ricehulls really. Plus its what I had laying around.

 

Good luck on that replication Mumbles, theres a bunch of shells in that thing. Make sure to get some videos from different angles also. You'll have that done come about August next year right?

Edited December 11, 2008 by psyco_1322

[Mumbles]

With the few rockets I've made, we noticed that you need a stronger fuel in the 3/4" core burner tooling to get the rockets with 4" ball headers to an acceptable height. BP was putting them at an unsafe altitude. We were using the colored rocket formulas, which are essentially a pressed slow flash.

 

Yes, that was a very nice shell. You even got it to break in a good orientation, which I think is key for a good presentation. The effect isn't quite as impressive from the side. Not very controllable, but impressive when it works out. Nice job.

 

I used to break my canisters with burst on a carrier. Usually KP, 7:1 on rice hulls. It works just fine. I stopped doing it because I thought it would be too compressible, and possibly cause the stars to shift and cato in big shells. Also, my BP was not preforming very well at the time. I actually got extremely round breaks from canister shells doing this. I used a slightly larger canule to get good performance. 1" on a 3", 1 3/8" on a 4", 1 5/8" on a 5", and I never made a 6" this way.

 

I still burst comet and component shells this way. There is just too much space in the center to fill with granulated BP. The stacking of the comets or components provides more than enough structural integrity as well.

[psyco_1322]

Colored rocket comps? I can tell you that press flash doesnt burn very fast. Its more like a flare comp. I tryed making some flash powered rockets on my whistle spindle the other day. It never took off. Might work with a nozzle and a longer core though.

[Mumbles]

These were pressed on standard BP core burner tooling, and used a nozzle. I can assure you that they were significantly faster and more powerful than the BP counterparts.

[Mumbles]

If you have problems with this double post, bug off.

 

So, this thought just occured to me. In the coming month or so, I'm going to be building a couple large-ish multibreak canister shells. 5 and 6". Is that something you guys might want to see documented? I don't know about writing a full tutorial, but I could try to take plenty of pictures and explainations as needed. I mean, I can't give away all my secrets Well, I might be making single break testers to fire in February/March, and then the full shells for May.

[tentacles]

Hell yeah we would!

 

And what's with the double post!! WTF!! ;P

[psyco_1322]

Sounds great Mumbles, about the only picture tut I've seen thats any good on multi-breaks in on Passfire. We could all use another from a different persons perspectives.

 

Oh and you know our admins are going to ban you from posting for a week because you double posted, that is totally unacceptable around here and you should know better!

 

About them rockets, thats cool you got some more power out of them. When I first read your post, I swore I read you were making them on stinger tooling, must have been my eyes skimming again. What color rocket formulas you talking about? Like Danny's chuffer rockets? No need to post formulas, not really interested, but just curious of which you're talking about.

Edited December 13, 2008 by psyco_1322

[Mumbles]

I'll try to take some pictures along the way of my efforts. If they turn out half as good as they look in my head I'll be satisfied. Hell, if they make it out of the gun and don't kill anyone I'll be happy.

 

Good thing you don't want formulas, because I don't have them. Pretty similar in concept to the chuffer rockets, but no vaseline/mineral oil. If I remember right there was only one chlorine donor, and a few more chemicals. Short of containing Sr(NO3)2 and Ba(NO3)2, and unknown metal, and an unknown chlorine donor, I don't remember much of them. I'd probably replace parlon with PVC or saran to boost te power a bit of the formulas below.

 

Probably more like these: (off of skylighter)

 

Polock Sky Rocket Green Pyrotechnic Formula

Barium Nitrate 50

Potassium Perchlorate 8

Parlon 18

Magnalium, 275 mesh 12

Sulfur 4

Charcoal Airfloat 4

Red Gum 2

Barium Carbonate 6

All parts by weight

 

Ruby Red Sky Rocket Pyrotechnic Formula

Strontium Nitrate 50

Potassium Perchlorate 8

Parlon 18

Magnalium, 275 mesh 12

Charcoal Airfloat 5

Sulfur 5

Red Gum 2

Dextrin +5

All parts by weight.

[jerronimo]

D1 glitter 4 inch low break

 

A shell with cut D1 glitter I shot tonight, also threw in some magnalium red stars together with the burst charge but they don't show very well.

As you can see it broke to late and to low, the spolette delay was at least 1 second to long and I didn't use enough lift.

The break was pretty decent though.

[Mumbles]

I don't know if the delay was too long. Sure, it was too long for the amount of lift you used, but given a proper amount of lift, it should be fine. I time my 4" shells to about 3.5 seconds (1.25" of my time fuse). It's all personal preference of course. Some like lower breaks than others. You had a very nice break though. It should be straight forward from here to dial it in.

[psyco_1322]

Nice shell, a little under lifted, but nice. The glitter looks great also.

 

FYI, that is about what to expect out of bp made from royal oak charcoal. < Relates to my post in the sulfurless bp thread.

[jerronimo]

Thanks,

 

This was my first attempt at cutting D1 glitter, and as u can see the high amount of water used to wet the loaf of composition didn't destroy the glitter effect.

I don't know where the myth comes from that you don't want to get glitter formulas to wet.

[psyco_1322]

Surprisingly you will get a good glitter with D1 using several different Al's. I have used anything from german dark to the specified 325 atomized with good results.

 

Its not a myth, water CAN destroy your glitter. It is better said that the water will destroy your Al though. In the presence of the oxidizers and water, the Al tends to corrode quite well. A glitter made with Al2O3 does not glitter too good. As long as you make the stars and get them dry in a timely manner, not letting them set wet for a week, they will perform fine. Just as has been done for years.

[Mumbles]

As I mentioned before I'm in the process of making some bigger multibreak canisters over the next few months. Large multibreak canisters just aren't the same without bottom shots. As anyone who has access to the HE section will know, flash kind of intimidates me.

 

I will be making 5 and 6" bottom shots. I'll likely be using a smaller "shell" of flash with saw dust, sand, clay, etc filling in around it. This would be 3" and 4" shells filled with flash inside of a 5 or 6" canister repectively. I was hoping someone could give me some sort of idea how much flash it takes to fill shells of this size (3 or 4"). I only like to make as much as I can use in one sitting. I'd prefer not to have to make extra, and I sure don't want to store any.

[Richtee]

As I mentioned before I'm in the process of making some bigger multibreak canisters over the next few months. Large multibreak canisters just aren't the same without bottom shots. As anyone who has access to the HE section will know, flash kind of intimidates me.

 

I will be making 5 and 6" bottom shots. I'll likely be using a smaller "shell" of flash with saw dust, sand, clay, etc filling in around it. This would be 3" and 4" shells filled with flash inside of a 5 or 6" canister repectively. I was hoping someone could give me some sort of idea how much flash it takes to fill shells of this size (3 or 4"). I only like to make as much as I can use in one sitting. I'd prefer not to have to make extra, and I sure don't want to store any.

 

The one I made for last Fourth was a 3" can. 100g filled it 3/4 of the way. And I don't think you want much more than that. It's scary-loud-thumping.

[Mumbles]

Was that with perc and a normal flash grade of aluminum? Indian Blackhead/German/etc. That fits with about what I was expecting. On passfire I found one of the maltese shells using 300g of flash mixed with rice hulls, and it filled about the same amount. They used 4" canisters inside of a 6" shell.

[Richtee]

Was that with perc and a normal flash grade of aluminum? Indian Blackhead/German/etc. That fits with about what I was expecting. On passfire I found one of the maltese shells using 300g of flash mixed with rice hulls, and it filled about the same amount. They used 4" canisters inside of a 6" shell.

 

70/30 KPerc/Eckart 5413 Super straight up.

[Miech]

A commercial 3" salute contains about 80 grams of flash powder. A 4" contains something like 120 grams by head. Fulcanelli decribes using a mixture of 4 parts flash powder and 1 part sawdust for bottom shots, to prevent caking and to save materials. Also, I don't believe those commercial salutes are all made with black or dark aluminiums. I'd rather expect some kind of bright aluminium will be used, in order to cut on costs even more.

 

The following composition is what I would use for anything big:

62 Potassium Perchlorate

23 Bright Aluminum (-325#)

11 German Dark

04 Sulfur

 

This is a somewhat slower flash powder, but it cerainly does the job. I usually first mix the composition without the bright aluminium, and then mix in the bright. That saves you a lot to clean up.

 

PS: Those maltese salute builders are just crazy. 300 grams of chlorate flash isn't exactly what I would like to make.

[psyco_1322]

I can second the 100g of 70/30 perc:Al flash filling a 3"can about 3/4. I usually would just put in 100g, fill the rest of the space up with some random smokeless powder as filler, close, and rotate. Smokeless mixed 50/50 with flash turns the flash into slow flare comp when burnt openly, though only have tryed this in small piles. But when confined it gives the same thump. I would not dilute it as far as 50/50, but 70-75 fp : 25-30 DBSP would be good. I come across a lot of junk smokeless, so this is about the only good use for it

 

BTW, got my 3" 3-break done, going to shoot it sometime soon. Cant wait to see all the epic fail at once It looks like a log.

[jerronimo]

Good Job!

 

There have been many reports of much over 8% causing the comp to not perform, although others have said that if dried properly, the glitter would be OK.

 

Could you give us a run-down of how you prepared the D1? Especially the size and type of Al, was it coated, how you dried the stars, whether you used water/alcohol and if yes what percentage, and any other pertinent info.

 

I realize this is asking a lot and understand if you're hesitant to give it all away, but I for one would appreciate it very much...

 

Oke I'll give it a shot:

 

The Al was standard alec tiranty(uk)aluminium filler powder 250 mesh to dust.

Charcoal was lump hardwood bbq charcoal which burns very slowly in bp like compositions.

Sodium bicarbonate is food grade, KNO3 is greenhouse grade, sulpher is 99% pure technical grade powder.

 

Everything exept the charcoal and aluminium are ballmilled together for 20 minutes, and the aluminium and charcoal are screened in.

This is then wetted with a 4% gum arabic solution in water at about 25% by weight of the mixed composition.

The wetted composition is formed into a loaf, cut and diced and primed with standard bp green mix.

The finished stars are placed on drying screens and put in the drying chamber for 72 hours, first 24 hours without heat, next 24 with heat, final 24 without heat, the stars come out rock hard and bone dry.

That's al the information I can give you right now.

[Gunzway]

Oke I'll give it a shot:

 

The Al was standard alec tiranty(uk)aluminium filler powder 250 mesh to dust.

Charcoal was lump hardwood bbq charcoal which burns very slowly in bp like compositions.

Sodium bicarbonate is food grade, KNO3 is greenhouse grade, sulpher is 99% pure technical grade powder.

 

Everything exept the charcoal and aluminium are ballmilled together for 20 minutes, and the aluminium and charcoal are screened in.

This is then wetted with a 4% gum arabic solution in water at about 25% by weight of the mixed composition.

The wetted composition is formed into a loaf, cut and diced and primed with standard bp green mix.

The finished stars are placed on drying screens and put in the drying chamber for 72 hours, first 24 hours without heat, next 24 with heat, final 24 without heat, the stars come out rock hard and bone dry.

That's al the information I can give you right now.

Interesting procedure. I normally mill the charcoal with everything (As I assume most people do) then just screen the aluminum in later. I can vouch that to much water can destroy the glitter. When I first began making stars I used way to much water and then when I fired the D1 it did have the glitter but had no delays. I've also managed back then to make D1 Glitter look silverish, but I will never know how that happened.

[tentacles]

Where's the boric acid?

[Gunzway]

You don't need the boric acid. I believe the sodium bi-carbonate already counters the reaction. I have never used boric acid and I make this composition ALOT and I've never experienced a reaction.

Just to add, some people do experience the reaction such as Mumbles as he posted in another thread and has to use a boric acid solution. I am not sure why some have never experienced a reaction and are not using boric acid and some just get it every time and have to use it.

Edited December 18, 2008 by Gunzway