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Aerial Shells


Chris

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thats f**king nice shell!

 

i got to ask...

 

Is it a cylinderical shell? And how thick are the walls?

It's almost hard to belive thats just black powder...

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Nah I don"t spike with duck tape anymore.

 

I am not going to spike these 2" anymore.

I am just going for a really thick wall, glueing tons of kraft on it ^_^

 

The real problem is that I only have 1 kind of shell casing and 1 kind of mortar.. Al improvised. Maybe I should lift my lazy ass out of this chair and get me some thinner rope -_-

 

But for now I am just going for a really goed paste job.

 

BTW I spiked a 2" Ball shell once with ductape. That worked fine, not great though. But I was using Chlorate blue stars so I uses H3 as break with whistle, that was some break.

 

Anyway all these shell are for new years eve. I hope they preform well.

 

Ow jeah nice shell btw, only it's a shame it was not to dark when you shot it.. TT, C6 etc are the most beautifull at night.

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Here's a pic of my 1 7/8" cannister shells. I used a heavy duty spiral tube from a paper towel roll. The tube had a good 1/8" wall. Its loaded with three rows of cut TT stars and short pieces of different effects fuse. I pasted the shell by rolling it with star patterned kraft paper and spiked it with very tight wraps of sisal twine. The shell is very tight. I cross matched the time fuse with homemade blackmatch.

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m314/di...07/S3011393.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m314/di...07/S3011392.jpg

The only video I have is one I shot out of my pneumatic spud cannon. The leader fuse I put on it was too long so the shell went up about 300 ft. then dropped to about 90 ft. when it finally went off. Its really pretty funny. Also it wasn"t quite totally dark so the star tails are a bit dull.

http://s107.photobucket.com/albums/m314/di...rent=mortar.flv

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Ummmmm, leader length wouldn't make your time fuse burn too long. It would be an issue with your time fuse, but perhaps that what you meant.
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If you are set on spiking with tape which I don't recommend, you should use packing tape, the kind with string embedded in it.
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No the leader wasn't quickmatch. I just tied a short piece of black match to the cross match fuse on the shell so it took 6 to 7 seconds for the shell to go off. The time fuse was a 3 sec fuse. I now have a sturdy fiberglass tube to fire these out of so I hope to get some better vids on a darker night. This was an experiment to see if I could succesfully fire a display shell out of my spud gun. I was paranoid about the shell going off in the barrel so I made the fuse too long.
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The lift would have lit the crossmatch nearly right next to the time fuse no matter what. It sounds like you have some other problem.
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Mumbles,

 

He lit the shell, put it in the barrel of an air cannon, and then fired it into the air pneumatically...no lift charge and very dangerous.

 

Moonshot: Looking at your pictures, I can see the top disc where your timefuse enters the shell; that's not a good thing. Pasting the shell involves covering the entire thing with a few layers of pasted paper which seals it from the lift gasses. It's usually done after stringing as well.

 

I think you'll find your shells blowing in the mortar because of an improper seal around the edges. Be careful.

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Yeah. Thats why I only did it once and made the fuse so long. I just didn't have a tube at the time to launch it in the traditional way. I still have 12 of these and they are getting old, so now that I have a good fiberglass tube I'll try it the old fashioned way.
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The picture is decieving. The shell is made very well. The time fuse is insertd through a disk made from two round pieces of heavy costruction board laminated together and hot glued into place. Its pretty much built in the traditional way.

I confess I like small scale projects. They don't take as much time and money but I do a lot of research before I build anything and try to put as much quality into it as I can. Thats what makes pyro more than just taping an Estes rocket motor onto a stick and saying "I built a rocket".

I'll post a tutorial on making these small shells. Its a great way for beginners to get an idea of what it takes to make a good quality small shell. thanks.

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I found me some rope in my mommies kitchen ^_^

 

It is string used in cooking to hold meat with stuffing in place. Very thin & very strong.

 

This won't make my shell to think so I will be spiking them :)

 

And I don't spike with duct tape anymore, it is crappy. Under a shock duct tape breaks so quick. It is to expensive and doensn't even help much.

 

I am now going to spike it with that rope and them glue another layer of kraft over it.

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I got another question..

 

My shells whey about 85 gram (just spiked them, they where too thick to put another layer of kraft over so I just glued the rope against the shell after binding it.

 

Now for lift, I am now capable of making a decent BP ( ^_^ Willow ^_^ ), but it still sucks in compaired to you guy's BP.

 

So how much lift do I need?

 

I always have Issues with lift <_<

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That is very nice Mumbles ^_^

 

I pulled the string very hard, and it did bite into the shell. The picture doens't show it tough.

 

Even distribution was a problem.. I spend 2 hours on spiking these 3 shells .. beginning amature pyro .. -_-

 

Will put even more efford in it next time ;)

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I suggest taking some more time on the spiking and get a nice even distribution. I mean pull the string hard and make it bite into the shell. Here is one of the last shells I made. It's a 3".

*****SNIP*****

Good spiking job, Mumbles!

 

Did you use the twine you got at PGI? And will we see that at the next WPAG shoot?

 

 

On a related note, I won't have anything for the meeting. I'm on the road in Idaho at the moment. Looks like I won't get home in time to do anything. But the season ender is usually a good one, most builders know it will be a long time until the next season opener and tend to build more shells than usual for a meet. And the party at Larry's the following weekend might be interesting. I'll camp there for the weekend, and with luck we can all have some entertainment on his "shootin' range". :D

 

M

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Nope that is old twine. I actually didn't get any at the PGI. There chem tent closed down before it should have on friday and I didn't get it. And no, that was a 4th of july shell. I'm planning a double petal 6" though and some 3, 4, and 5" as needed to use up the rest of my stars I am making this weekend.
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Yeah the chem tent did close a little early on the last day. Luckily I got there in time to pick up the last of my order.
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Ball shells are almost never spiked...I think I heard once the Maltese do, but thats the only people I know of. We just paste them well. For a ball shell that works just fine.
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