Aerial Shells

[Mumbles]

It's been a long time since I fused anything with visco. I always used a water slurry of BP, and dipped it in granular BP.

[KruseMissile]

I did cut the viscos at an angle.

And BP shouldn't take fire?

I suspect that the prime could have fallen.

 

 

On passfire, we were having the same issue, but with Chinese time fuse. To fix it, we used 6 strand BM to take fire, and to give fire better we primed with NC and BP.

 

For your issue, try splitting the fuse down the middle to explose the powder core and for extra precautions, tape the fuse. If you want accurate timing, stick with time fuse instead of visco. GL

[iostream]

Hello everyone,

 

I feel a bit ridiculous to post my failure here with all your killer shell but that's my first so maybe in few month when i'll read this thread i will laugh at it and making me so great remembers.

 

Today is a big day in my fireworks making quest. I've launched my first ever bunch of home made shell. Total failure indeed but so fun with. As i expected my so crappy bp was near unable to lift them high enough causing a too long fuse issue. Anyway i m happy they actually leave the ground for few feets maybe something like 20-30ft ridiculous but i expected worst.

 

The shells was basic can 1.5"filled with tiger tail cut stars. The core burst was only hand grinding granulate Bp in wax paper ignited by green visco. I have spike them. Lift charge was for the first 15gr same weak Bp as for core, the second one 15gr too but we dump a 10gr old gunpowder under the shell as we've seen in the first don't go high enough. The laste and filmed one use 15gr of crappy bp + 15gr of old gunpowder and maybe 15-20gr of more crappy Bp so in total 40-50gr of crappy lift for a 58.7gr shell omg i let you imagine the quality of my hand grinded bp.

 

Anyway that was a good experience. The lesson to learn from that is to buy urgently a ball mill.

 

 

Al

 

 

Failure 1.5" can shell movie

 

I constructed my first two three-inch shells over the winter -- both with silver streamer stars. Unfortunately my first one flowerpotted. That was a little disappointing, but I guess it made a nice starmine anyways. I only had the opportunity to make one more three-inch shell, and it worked beautifully. More recently I've been building quite a few 2-inch, plastic, canister shells. I find these to be pretty easy and fun to build, and they look pretty good, albeit I can never quite get them to break properly.

 

In any event, I built a few of these shells for the fourth. I decided to slightly under-lift them, since they fit tight in the mortar and generally end up going too high, which diminishes the effect somewhat. I guess I reduced the lift a little too much, however, and on the first shell I fired, the stars all projected downward instead of breaking in a proper pattern. Since I also under-lifted the shell, the altitude wasn't sufficient and the stars ended up burning to the ground. I guess the lesson here is that one should alter only one variable at a time, and gradually at that.

 

I definitely have a lot of respect for some of the builders on this forum. You guys build some incredible shells!

[Peret]

the stars all projected downward instead of breaking in a proper pattern.

Something like this? (picture) It didn't look bad, actually, and drew an adequate number of ohhs and ahhs, but it didn't break right. This was a 1.75 inch plastic hemisphere. What happened was it split at the equator and only the stars in the bottom hemi took fire. The top half blew off into the sky without lighting, and the top hemi, when I recovered it, wasn't even scorched. I had a few like this on 4th July. I had made them only a couple of hours previously and presumably the glue didn't have time to set hard. It was taped with fiberglass strapping tape but as I mentioned in another thread, I believe taping with adhesives that remain sticky is completely ineffective, because the gas gets under it and lifts it off cleanly instead of having to break it.

[jwitt]

A video from this past weekend- shot the shells I've been working on the last couple weeks.

 

(beware the cursing sailors if your kids or coworkers are in the room)

 

http://www.pyrotube.com/videos/437/3

Edited August 3, 2010 by jwitt

[Pretty green flame]

Really nice shells jwitt, good job.

[Cookieman]

Very nice colour and burst on those shells.Great job!! How do find using the spolette's vs time fuse?

[50AE]

Hey jwitt, awesome shells! Especially the stars with blue comp as outer layer!

 

Gonna share these two shells I fired this week. I did share them in the strobe/glitter topic, but not sure if they will get much attention there.

 

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

[jwitt]

Cookie- I really like the spolette. It's homemade (purchased the tubes of course) and easy to work with in my experience. Getting the ramming dowel properly constructed is a pain in the ass- if you don't make it a certain way, it binds in the tube. I've been warned that my simple spolettes will blow through on larger shells, and they need to be overfilled and drilled to the proper powder grain length. I primed mine with 4 strands of thin blackmatch harvested from the paper-covered fuse I used as leaders on the shells. I folded it over the spolette end, hot glued it, and came back with a twine clove hitch secured by another spot of glue. That BM wasn't going anywhere! (Had a misfire in which the BM blew off on lift)

 

 

 

Thanks for the comments! I have lots of room for improvement - mainly star size for burn time, sorting for symmetry, and proper shell assembly technique with lots of banging and grunting for a nice tight fit. Some of these shells were like moraccas.

 

I really wish I could have shared my Zn Pearl, C6+Ti, and TT shells with you guys. The charcoal streamers weren't milled, so they need work too, but the effects were nice. The Zn Pearl? Man, they were beauties. Broke 'em really hard too- the uniform spread of tiny little stars was incredible.

 

A new addition to my pyro budget is a video camera.

 

 

 

Other notes-

 

• Veline blue + 7% Ti wasn't super-duper blue, but it was electric blue. I called it "exploding transformer blue."
• Lancaster Ruby Red was friggin' awesome, like a hundred little road flares up in the sky. They burned a little too long- cut the same size (a hair over 3/8") as Veline. The "sloppy" effect of the longer burn was neat though, and they filled the sky while illuminating the whole field like a parachute flare. I guess Strontium Nitrate isn't quite as strong an oxidizer as Pot Perc, or maybe the formula's balanced differently?
• The white star was one from Skylighter's rubber star system. I needed a white, and after making those other two, I already had the chemicals out. A bit expensive for a white star, I'd say, but I couldn't have dried a KNO3 white in time anyway. 10% Ti made an awesome effect!!!
• I had to use 50g of my BP to lift these ~160g shells. Gotta improve that, and now I have time to.
• The Star Mine On Crack was 90g BP (extrapolated that from info I got in a thread I started) and I went out on a limb and threw 300g stars in there, since it was 0300 and I was only making one before I finally went to bed after doing pyro work since 1800. I stuck it into the show to give people a bit of a scare, and it worked.

So what are my future plans?

 

• More 3" racks.
• 50 shells for next year.
• Do the BP experiments I've wanted to do.
• Make more colors of the Veline Rainbow.
• Experiment with other KClO4 color star possibilities.
• Mill my charcoal streamers.
• Properly construct tight shells.
• Look into KNO3 Whites.
• Get on that D1 glitter I wanted to make but never got around to.
• Play with "flitter" aluminum.
• Check out some flash inserts.
• Make BM.

Once again, thanks to all you guys here at APC! I went from knowing nothing to these shells in about 175 days!

[jwitt]

Gonna share these two shells I fired this week. I did share them in the strobe/glitter topic, but not sure if they will get much attention there.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=SxOcvWhbQoQ

 

Glitter! Man that stuff is cool!

 

I'm curious about the strobe too, so I'll head to that thread and see if it's something I will be capable of making.

[50AE]

Both contain cheap and avaible chemicals. I will be kind to share the formulas,

 

Winokur 20

 

Potassium Nitrate 48

 

Sulfur 17

 

Magnalium, granular, -200 mesh 12

 

Charcoal Airfloat 10

 

Sodium Bicarbonate 5

 

Iron(III) Oxide, red 4

 

Dextrin 4

 

Own changes:

1. I use coarser MgAl than in the formula. I put 1/3 +170 mesh and 2/3 +60 mesh

2. I add a little coarse charcoal, 2/10.

 

 

Blesser white strobe:

 

Barium Nitrate 51

 

Sulfur 19

 

Magnalium, granular, -100 mesh 18

 

Potassium Nitrate 7

 

Dextrin 5

 

Own changes:

1. I added coarse MgAl, mostly +30 mesh to -80 mesh.

[jwitt]

Thanks! The only thing I'd need is Barium Nitrate, plus something to protect the MgAl?

[50AE]

No, you don't need to coat the MgAl.

[erid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Pk_U9wfnk&feature=related does anyone know the star comp used for the shell at 0:13? I just love the tail of it

[50AE]

I made some stuff this week

 

http://store.picbg.net/thumb/EA/8C/1c99ad263520ea8c.jpg

 

-Seven 2" mines

-Eight 2" cylinder shells

-Eight 3" balls shells, from which two are already fired

-Three 3" bottom shots.

-Two 3" cylinder shells

 

And the other stuff is old

-Two 3" mines

-One 3" cylinder with inserts.

[50AE]

Some shells fired last night:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUc5k1MtsyA

[Cookieman]

Some shells fired last night:

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=kUc5k1MtsyA

 

 

Nice shells 50AE. Which red stars did you use?

[50AE]

Thanks. The red stars are Hardt #2 organic:

 

Hardt Red Star #2

Potassium chlorate 63

Strontium carbonate 18

Red gum 14

Dextrin 5

[portfire]

Just thought I'd share a couple of pics of the last 6" I made. For those who didn't see the vid, here it is. Shells in the pipeline are a 6" silver-pink, 5" charcaol-blue and a 3" Farfella-BS.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw6VOsO03G8

Edited August 26, 2010 by portfire

[Cookieman]

Just thought I'd share a couple of pics of the last 6" I made. For those who didn't see the vid, here it is. Shells in the pipeline are a 6" silver-pink, 5" charcaol-blue and a 3" Farfella-BS.

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Pw6VOsO03G8

 

 

That was a nice C6 shell. I use the D1 and Ralphs glitter for tails and comets.

[portfire]

Could have been better. The problem I had was trying to get the 19mm pumped star "ordered" around the equator, so ended up using smaller stars to lock things in place. Which is why the burst looks sparse in places.

 

I'm using rolled stars in the next 6" and I'm boosting it, so should look alot better. Also I'll be using Lancasters yellow glitter for the tail.

Edited August 26, 2010 by portfire

[Kauyon]

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related does anyone know the star comp used for the shell at 0:13? I just love the tail of it

 

Yes I'm told it's the Golden Kamuro:

 

30.3 Potassium Nitraat

30.3 Pinus C

6.1 Sulphur

27.25 FeTi, 40-100 mesh

6.1 dextrine

 

Making my own right now.

Will let you know if it's the right one.

[Mumbles]

This post is going to have some terminology problems. Nishiki kamuro is both the name of a formula from Hardt, and the description of a japanese effect. It means something like glittering willow. That shell looks a little like the nishiki kamuro videos on youtube made by the company Yung Feng. It doesn't look so much like the Hardt formula. I'd guess they're similar in composition, but the Metal1on and Yung Feng shells use some titanium or flake aluminum in the mix. From my experience, the Hardt formula, which is very similar to the formula you posted, is almost entirely orange, not the white/silver effect you see in the videos. I guess it depends a lot of what alloy of FeTi you use.

[FREAKYDUTCHMEN]

The Titanium used for this is a mix between fine titanium and coarse ferrotitanium, this is why the front of the tail is white and the the rest is more orange. The color difference on the left and right is a bit weird though.

[Kauyon]

O ok, didn't know that.

Well learned another thing and that's why you join a forum.

 

Made some stars, out of the compo I posted, which are drying now.

So in the coming days I'll do a little star test.