Aerial Shells

[Voryon]

Nice shells Voryon, could you share sze composition for silver crown and pure blue stars?

 

Those ware commercial strobe stars, a friend of mine gave them to me so I don't know the formula for them, sorry.

 

Thanks Zmuro, I do want to say that I really like watching your shell videos! There has been a Video from you that made me produce those “Slow gold” stars, they are really beautiful.

 

The silver crown is a composition I worked quite some time on because I was unsatisfied with the "common" silver streamer formulas (I found them to be really difficult to light and step priming takes away from the effect in this case) so this is what I´m now using:

 

Silver Crown #3

 

Potassium perchlorate 30,9

Al 250# 28

Al 100# 23

Sulphur 5

Barium nitrate 7

Dextrin 6

Boric acid 0,1

 

The video shows that they are really briiight but in reality they are even brighter, they completely enlightened the ground around us. The ignitability is quite good, nevertheless they need a good hot prime. This still has the advantage that you can just prime one end of a pumped star and the burning duration becomes much longer (this is what I`ve done in the "Crown" Shell). Be careful with this composition as I`ve no idea how sensitive it is but somehow it is an overfuelled sulphur containing flash mixture. When wetted with 70/30 H2O/Ethanol it is really easy to pump stars.

 

This is the best (non AP) blue I`ve seen so far, don’t remember where I`ve come across this composition but it said:

 

Pure Blue

 

Potassium perchlorate 55

Parlon 14

Hexamine 14

any copper salt 14

(Dextrin 5)

 

I`ve tried Copper carbonate and Copper(I)chloride, with the result that CuCl produces the best blue. The camera doesn’t match the colour and brightness (at least its so bright, that the camera misses most of the gold), it’s better than any commercial blue I`ve seen. The only downside of this composition is that it requires heavy step priming (you can see the prime burning quite some time before the blue appears). I wet the composition with 70/30 H2O/Ethanol and make cut stars. The burning time is quite long with these stars, the stars I used in that shell were app. 6 mm cubes before priming.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Voryon

[50AE]

 

Pure Blue

 

Potassium perchlorate 55

Parlon 14

Hexamine 14

any copper salt 14

(Dextrin 5)

 

I`ve tried Copper carbonate and Copper(I)chloride, with the result that CuCl produces the best blue. The camera doesn’t match the colour and brightness (at least its so bright, that the camera misses most of the gold), it’s better than any commercial blue I`ve seen. The only downside of this composition is that it requires heavy step priming (you can see the prime burning quite some time before the blue appears). I wet the composition with 70/30 H2O/Ethanol and make cut stars. The burning time is quite long with these stars, the stars I used in that shell were app. 6 mm cubes before priming.

 

This formula is very oxygen negative, I wonder how the color is so pure.

I'm going to try modifying it, replacing the perchlorate with chlorate and the parlon by PVC.

 

 

Very nice shells everyone! I partially envy you, to have filmed your stuff.

Edited January 5, 2011 by 50AE

[Voryon]

This formula is very oxygen negative, I wonder how the color is so pure.

I'm going to try modifying it, replacing the perchlorate with chlorate and the parlon by PVC.

 

 

Very nice shells everyone! I partially envy you, to have filmed your stuff.

 

I`m always in a quarrel with myself when firing my shells whether I should film them or not. On the one hand if I do film them I can`t completely enjoy them as I have to concentrate on the filming on the other hand you can learn so much from the video, watch it over and over again and share with people from all over the world. For me its so important to watch the fireworks without any disturbance but I learned that the video is even more satisfying in the long run (maybe I should get someone for the filming thing...)

 

I would be careful substituting the oxidizer with chlorate as there is always ammonia present as a decomposition product from hexamine, I personally would stay away from that.

 

Forgot to say that the Pure Blue can also be bound with acetone if you use parlon and that the composition leaves a little bit of slag behind, so theres some kind of fallout (but even less than my charcoal streamers).

[Zmuro]

@Voryon Which prime did you use to prime silver crown stars?

[Voryon]

@Voryon Which prime did you use to prime silver crown stars?

 

For all hard to light stars I use:

 

Bleser #22 igniter (+ 5% MgAl)

 

Potassium perchlorate 75

Red Gum 12

Charcoal airfloat 9

Dextrin 4

MgAl 250# 5

 

For the "fire from one side" priming I dissolve the Prime-Composition in NC-Laquer, put a blob on one end of the pumped star and spinkle the blob with corned BP to make sure it takes fire easily.

 

Edit: Attached a prefire pic of a shell half of the silver crown shell!

Edited January 5, 2011 by Voryon

[Adrenaline]

Nice shells Voryon.

 

Are you using hardwood or softwood charcoal in your prime?

[Voryon]

Nice shells Voryon.

 

Are you using hardwood or softwood charcoal in your prime?

 

I`m using pine charcoal for stars and prime.

[aerialshells]

Hi, I'm new to this forum.

 

Here is my NYE 6" Slow Gold shell:

 

[pyrojig]

Very nice shell !! I love how that slow gold performs... Where your pistil stars a high% Mag stars? They are very bright. My yellow mag stars seem to have a blinding effect because they are so bright at first. I see that the slow gold pretty much makes it back to the ground before burnout....

[aerialshells]

Thanks,

 

I love slow gold effect, especially in large shells - real world impression has nothing common with video - I have to buy HD recorder

Pistil star where made of modiffied Falls composition - atomized aluminium 63um insted of bright (very hard to light).

[pyrojig]

Thanks,

 

I love slow gold effect, especially in large shells - real world impression has nothing common with video - I have to buy HD recorder

Pistil star where made of modiffied Falls composition - atomized aluminium 63um insted of bright (very hard to light).

 

 

Yes atomized AL is a real pain to ignite, even worst in perchlorate mix's. Bp mixes make a reeper silver effect, or glitter for the most part.

 

 

[Arte valdo]

Few shells, well I can't proud of them.. one flowerpot, second smashed stars..the last one best.. but to small flower.. So looking foward I have do better

 

 

 

[Arte valdo]

Few shells tests

 

 

 

 

Also I have reached limit of media. What does it mean?

Edited February 10, 2011 by Arte valdo

[djevans]

very cool - but how come I can't start a new topic?

[Mumbles]

To combat a spam problem, the software doesn't allow people to start a new thread on their very first post. You're set to go now though.

[50AE]

Here's a 4" ball shell I shot yesterday night.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpZcX4GNEaY

[cplmac]

Nice, I like the charcoal tail.

[dan999ification]

i too love charcoal streamers/ tails

not charcoal but my first 3 inch can

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt0QO3k3Lek

[dan999ification]

failed 3 inch tiger tail ball shell with tail, too much pasting! [hemi's were small]

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ip_qQye5Dg

[Guest no6]

Awesome, Dan.

 

This stuff is addictive. Thanks for posting the vids.

[Pechovski]

Newbie report #1.

 

This is not a guide, there is a bunch of no-no´s.

 

My idea with this post is to give a little insight to others who are thinking about making their first aerial shells. Im around the mid 20´s and had no experience what so ever with making proper fireworks.

I started playing around with flashpowder about 3 months ago and before that i had a lot of time spent with black powder as a kid, you could call me an ex-kewl.

Well the flash got dull pretty quick and with about 1½ month left before easter i decided to start a more andvanced project. Making aerial shells...

 

I started calculating the cost and decided on what to do. I ordered a cheap ballmill and bought some chemicals right away to get started, it took me about 2-3 weeks before i had everything i needed.

Mostly my information came from the web and also some downloaded books, and having all the information needed for my project i decided to start a little bigger. My first aerial shells would be 3" canister shaped shells.

 

I felt that the 3" size was kind of nice to work with, it was not to small or big. But at the same time, i can´t really recommend a newbie to start with 3" shells, it is really time consuming and the amounts of stars and other mixtures... jebus...

also do not forget that bigger amounts equals worse consequences in case of accident. Anyway, my canister shells was kinda drawn up by the inspiration from the user "nighthawkinlight", i had a coke can as form and i ended up with more reinforcement on the bottom to be able to bottom-fuse the shells.

 

The ballmill was a 6lb cheap relabeled get at your local pyroshop stone tumbler, with some few modifications it´s "ok" but i am not going to buy a new one when it burns out. Batch of 300g decent black powder divided into 2 jars takes about 15-24H of milling, i think that in the end i ended up with about 1kg of meal. Big part of it went to ricing/granulating through a 8mesh screen, the rest to coating hulls and priming stars/comets. As i told before i aimed pretty high, my list of star/comet mix became pretty big and the total amount was about 2kg.

 

Here is the list:

 

Tiger tail

Tiger tail +Ti %30

Tiger tail +Ti %6

Willow

Willow +Ti %30

Chrysanthemum 8

Chrysanthemum 8 +Ti %30

Chrysanthemum 6

Chrysanthemum 6 +Ti %30

Chrysanthemum 6 +Ti %13

 

All stars was cut, comets pumped. BP prime

I also made a few 3g flash report inserts with Ti.

 

 

The break/burst charges and time fuse was my biggest issue, with less then 2 weeks left and no testing other than timing the fuse and shooting a canister of flour to see if my lift worked. I ended up with having the break charge shaped like a sock so it could run along the center of the shell, it was made out of thin paper almost like rice paper, the amounts was about: 20g BP, 1g boost, 5g hulls. As time fuse had to use 3mm visco taped to ignite burst after about 3.5sec, the visco was then stringed together with "fast visco" and primed with NC and BP. Also if anyone is interested in the booster, it was standard 7/3 flash slowed down with a bit of charcoal:

 

0,67 KClO4

0,25 Al

0,08 C

 

With every composition dry and done, i had 11 canisters with burst and fuse ready to be filled with goodies. 1 canister i saved for an "120g Flash Ti Salute". Spiking and pasting everything took almost 1 day and was the most booring thing ive done on the whole project. I still had to mask tape everything after it was dry, cause the OD was to small. And when i added my lift cup and fuse the OD suddenly got to big... Newbie mistake? lol. But with everything done i still had a good load of stars left to use some other time, all to do now was gluing the comets to their specific shell. So then i actually noticed i had forgotten to mark my shells with what load they had, only thing i had was if it contained reports and i also marked the flash salute. Add them randomly and hope it fits the theme.... When i was all done and the last comet was attached and primed, i had about 5mins left before i was to start driving out to the field and meet some friends.

 

Conclusion: Making fireworks is time consuming, dirty and actually kinda expensive at start. Some parts of the production actually was more booring then doing the dishes.... But everything was worth it after firing them off. My advice to someone like me, do not aim so high and do not expect it to be fun all the way.

 

Note to self:

 

1. 11 bottom fused 3" shells, 0 flowerpots.

 

2. Handling, spiking, abusing, closing a 120g flash salute makes you shit bricks.

 

3. My lift as 12% was no good, some comets did not light etc etc. Benzolift next time

 

4. Maybe i should do some shells at a time, not 11 right away...

 

5. Need better time fuse. All fused lighted but burn time kinda went between 2-4sec.

 

6. Few weeks of work = Few minutes of fun.

 

7. Getting questions about what effect will be in the next shell, and if it will work is kinda hard to answer when you dont know yourself.

 

8. Willow stars need to be smaller

 

Im actually a cautious person, im well aware of risks and i am kinda used to handle dangerous chemicals. Im well aware that in my text i seem like a idiot and as a beginner im handling pretty big amounts.

 

Anyway, my friend filmed 4 shells. The only Ti stars he got on video is the last clip, it is really zoomed in and he looses track of the shell (its crap). One of the shells also had a Willow 30% Ti tail. 3rd Clip is the salute

 

Enjoy my first shells. Sorry for my silly swedish friends talking

 

oh and Happy Easter 2011!!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPRUqJeTQu0

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=hPRUqJeTQu0

 

Comments?

 

//Puti

Edited April 24, 2011 by Kaputchi

[50AE]

When building fireworks, there are problems that can be avoided by reading books, but there are things that can be learned only with practice. And it's individually for everyone.

 

I remember my first 3" ball shell. Well timed, well sized stars, it was great.

Then I decided to experiment and then troubles began:

-pasting 3" with 70lbs paper - bad breaks

-overpasting with 70lbs paper - hard breaks

-sealing the time fuse with PVA glue instead of hot melt glue - a flowerpot

-not priming chlorate stars - stars blown blind

-using big stars - ugly breaks

 

And still learning...Now I have almost mastered my peony shells, what I have left is to learn to star roll.

 

Another thing at which some of you may laugh. I needed to test much blue comps, to realise that I just dislike the "deep" blue and I prefer the brighter, greenish tint blue.

[NONU]

I am form Malta and I'am a firework enthusiast and pyrotechnician. I would ask someone who could know about a smokless and flashless flash compositions used in small maroons. I explain myself better. When the maroon explodes in the open air one cannot see either the flash or the smoke that normal potassium chlorate / alluminium maroons do. If some one could help me! Thanks.

[50AE]

Got rid of some stuff I had to fire. Here's a video, but I didn't capure everything

 

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

[Kauyon]

This is my 4 inch ball shell with my first rolled stars.

They are 10 mm C8 to Pihko blue and as always the camera doesn't seem to be able to pick up the blue.

The lift of the 4 inch ignited an 3 inch can with reports.

It seems the report did lit but failed to go off.

Someone has any ideas how this could have happenend?

 

Enjoy!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uXMzFyscRQ

Edited August 3, 2011 by Kauyon