Aerial Shells

[Pretty green flame]

Very happy with this 3" shell. Was actually a bit too big for the camera

[Adrenaline]

Nice shell Perfect break!

 

Would you mind sharing the blue star comp?

[Pretty green flame]

Nice shell Perfect break!

 

Would you mind sharing the blue star comp?

 

Sure, the blue comp is called Pihko Blue.

 

63 KP

14 Parlon

13 Coppex (I) Oxide

10 Red Gum

5 Dextrin

[jimbo]

yeah nice one mate, I sent this one up the other week http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c40_hCmbL8 and this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUq9IOSeeoQ

[Adrenaline]

7 days ago i made a 100g test batch of Phiko Blue. I used exactly the formula you posted, though the color of my stars is not good at all. The color saturation is bad, the color looks "washed out". Did you use any katalysts or something else to improve the color?

[Pretty green flame]

7 days ago i made a 100g test batch of Phiko Blue. I used exactly the formula you posted, though the color of my stars is not good at all. The color saturation is bad, the color looks "washed out". Did you use any katalysts or something else to improve the color?

 

I used the exact same formula as posted, no modifications. Sodium contamination could destroy the colour. It's most likely the purity of your chems, I've made the same formula with perchlorate of questionable quality and the result was less than impressive.

 

Did you test your stars in the air? If I burn one of my stars on the ground they also seem quite pale and not that blue, but when in the air, it's a different story.

[ExplosiveCoek]

I second what PGF just said, you really need to put it up high in the air for it to look good .

[pyrogeorge]

7 days ago i made a 100g test batch of Phiko Blue. I used exactly the formula you posted, though the color of my stars is not good at all. The color saturation is bad, the color looks "washed out". Did you use any katalysts or something else to improve the color?

Did you mix the chemicals enough or not?

[Scorp]

Hey there, I'm new to this forum and would like to introduce myself with a 3 inch slowgold shell. It is my first attempt at slow gold, and my best shell so far.

 

3 Inch slow gold

 

See you!

[dagabu]

SAWEET!!

 

That might be the nicest 3" ball shell I have seem this year.

[ausgoty]

Hey there, I'm new to this forum and would like to introduce myself with a 3 inch slowgold shell. It is my first attempt at slow gold, and my best shell so far.

 

3 Inch slow gold

 

See you!

 

 

Awsome shell Scorp!

 

If all mine looked like that I would be a happy man.

 

I think the bar is set

[Scorp]

Haha thank you guys, I think slow gold is just a wonderfull composition.

 

I will be making more of these for NYE.

[jimbo]

yeah that was awesome,perfect in every way.

[Epyro]

My first 3 inch shell.

Specs are in the description.

Enjoy> http://www.youtube.c...h?v=0wQZAnkwEm4

[dagabu]

Haha thank you guys, I think slow gold is just a wonderfull composition.

 

I will be making more of these for NYE.

 

Can you share your comp with us? What percentages of what chem and the like.

[Scorp]

Oh sure, the compo is 'slow gold':

 

- Potassium Nitrate: 36

 

- Charcoal Airfloat: 29

 

- Charcoal, 80 mesh: 14

 

- Sulfur: 9

 

- Titanium, sponge, 40-80 mesh: 7

 

- Dextrin/SGRS: 5

 

 

 

I used pine charcoal, and the stars were rolled (about 11 mm diameter). Composition was milled for like 2 hours, after milling I added Titanium and the 80 mesh charcoal.

[Voryon]

Hello,

 

here is a 4" shell that I fired some time ago. I`ve also added a few construction pics.

 

Shell data:

 

Total weight: ~ 405 g

Lift powder: 30g BP

Burst: BP and Rice + 6g Slowflash (5/3/2 KNO3/Al/S)

Stars: Winokur #9 (+2% Lampblack) + Dragon Eggs w/Ti-sponge

In the picture with the shell halves open you`ll see round stars which are the Winokur #9 stars and the cut ones which are the DE`s.

 

Rising effect: 3 x Orange Wave Glitter 5/8” Crossettes (Break: app. 0,15g 50/50 325# MgAl/KClO4)

 

Sorry for the shaking in the video, I had no tripod at hand.

[Karlos]

Woryon: untapped potential of the caliber. Small stars in large number, uneven size. Crackling nice. Grains or small cut stars?

[Voryon]

Woryon: untapped potential of the caliber. Small stars in large number, uneven size. Crackling nice. Grains or small cut stars?

 

The DE´s are small cut stars, they came out more flat than real cubes, such a pain to work with the +10% NC in acetone sticky dough.

 

The Break looked bigger in person, I also shoot professional 4" shells so I know that it didnt reach its full potential, but have seen some cheap 4 inchers that didnt even break nearly that big.

 

So you say bigger stars help greatly with the break?

[Mumbles]

You can't compare your own shells to most commercial shells. Many of them are over broken in my opinion, but some like that cheap chinese look. I don't necessarily know about bigger stars, but at least longer burning stars. I am also a little confused about your shell. Winokur 9 is supposed to be a white glitter. I've never made it personally, but I have made 10, which should be vaguely similar. Yours looked very orange, but it may have been an artifact of the camera.

 

On the upside, I've never seen crossettes used like that. I don't know if it was intentional to have them go off at slightly different times, but it looked really cool. It reminded me of splitting comets.

 

I would rethink using that burst. I would be wary of using a completely inert filler. My personal preferences would lie toward something lighter, but to each their own. I would at minimum coat the rice with green meal or maybe use a mixture of polverone and BP for the burst. It would appear you're using commercial powder (or take great pride in homemade BP). How are you pasting your shells? I wouldn't use just masking tape if that is what you did.

[Karlos]

Break not, but visible sparkling trace, weight and far flying range, longer duration, larger diameter in flower. For 4 " chrysanthemum type shell cca 10 - 11 mm balls are required.

Spherical(atomized) aluminum in winokur type compositions give longer burning duration than flake type.

[Voryon]

You can't compare your own shells to most commercial shells. Many of them are over broken in my opinion, but some like that cheap chinese look. I don't necessarily know about bigger stars, but at least longer burning stars. I am also a little confused about your shell. Winokur 9 is supposed to be a white glitter. I've never made it personally, but I have made 10, which should be vaguely similar. Yours looked very orange, but it may have been an artifact of the camera.

 

On the upside, I've never seen crossettes used like that. I don't know if it was intentional to have them go off at slightly different times, but it looked really cool. It reminded me of splitting comets.

 

I would rethink using that burst. I would be wary of using a completely inert filler. My personal preferences would lie toward something lighter, but to each their own. I would at minimum coat the rice with green meal or maybe use a mixture of polverone and BP for the burst. It would appear you're using commercial powder (or take great pride in homemade BP). How are you pasting your shells? I wouldn't use just masking tape if that is what you did.

 

I am not so pleased with how the Winokur 9 turned out to be, I`ve tried them alone in a shell and yeah its some kind of interesting effect, but not that intense. It looks like they would burn more or less in an on and off manner, just like a white strobe with a little bit of fire dust tail, just the strobe has a really weak light output. The orangeyish look comes from the camera, compare the flash of the crossettes breaking, its purely white in reality.

 

These were the first crossettes I`ve made! They were just a try and I was a little bit nervous about them not breaking properly (read some discussions here about crossettes being difficult to break, especially the small ones), now I would say next time I`ll use something less energetic, what would you say? So I made just 5 of them and didnt want to fill a shell with so less crossettes (at that point I have to say I hate 3" commercial round crossette shells just because of that, looks like there would be missing something) and as I really like rising tails (makes it so much easier to follow with the camera and gives such a nice effect for nearly no effort) I decided that attaching them to a shell would be the right thing to do. I would blame the different timing of the crossettes on the one hand to me pressing crossettes for the first time (arrrgh what a pain to separate them from the pump cavity) and on the other hand to the relatively slow burning speed of the formula (so that even little amount differences makes long burn time difference). Does anybody have a practical idea on how to make the separation of the wet fragile freshly pressed crossette from the cavity easier?

 

Yes I use commercial BP. I started using rice as filler just because I had it at hand when I tried to cut down the amount of powder to fill "bigger" shells. Moreover there was a video on the net, I think it was a PGI meeting, where I saw the break charge of a shell being cut down with something like "kellogs rings" uncoated, so I thought why not. I`m using a booster and I think its going everywhere inside the shell while pasting (not using a flash bag), so I dont fear that something wouldn`t be "touched" by the fire during burst. Maybe you are right about using something lighter would be better, I`m just a person that does live by the rule "never touch a running system", so until I dont face a necessity I will stick to it.

 

Yes caught again, I am using masking tape. In summer I am using paper pasting, in winter I use masking tape. The reason for that is just that my working area out there is too cold to have the wet glue stick to my hands while pasting my shells and I refuse to heat my glue

 

Now enough of those many words, I have another video:

 

Shell Data:

 

2,5" Electric green strobe (already posted in the composition section)

Total weight: 136 g

Lift powder: 23 g (+ a little more delay, I was expecting the stars to burn quite a while so I had to get it high up there)

Rising Effect: 5/8" orange wave glitter comet

 

Just threw the stars in the shell adding a bit of BP and a weak layer of pasting so that it just pops open and leaves a cascade of elegant green flashers. Don`t have any construction pics because it was made to test the stars.

 

=> Stars burned even longer than already expected with some of them reaching the ground (more delay next time and I have to work on a tighter fit in the mortar without too much of pasting hmm....). The stars are not strobing like I had known it from the commercial ones, but they are so much more green than all other strobes I`ve ever seen. They burn more in a flickering-flashy way and produce quite some noise (its not the wind that hisses on the camera). For that small caliber I was quite impressed and I like the stars, they are somehow "spooky".

Edited November 3, 2010 by Voryon

[Epyro]

A shell i shot tonight.

Specs are in the descriptions.

Enjoy > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu76G_qH7ac

[Mumbles]

That looked pretty nice. Was the green better in person? It looked quite white on the video.

[Epyro]

Yeah it got washed out by the video.

In person it was bright green as it should be.