Aerial Shells

[Mumbles]

Not burning green. The mix burns a bright orange firey coolor. I meant the mix itself looks green, as in solution color. Gas aroun here has a bit of a green tint to it, and the diesel is even more so.

 

The other thing I was thinking of is those turquoise colored packing peanuts dissolved in gas.

 

Biersach uses a mix of Gas, Diesel, and Methanol. If you watch the Welcome to Wisconsin show from PGI 2006, the fireballs from the ground were that mix. He also did a very large one for the Ohio Pyro Arts Guild this years PGI.

[psyco_1322]

So I take it that it comes out burning an orange color?

 

Nope not peanuts in gas either.

 

And smiley that boric acid sentance looks like a 2nd grader wrote it. Methanl works a lot better for trimethyl borate.

[''']

I decided to present my way of making 3" shells. There ere some pre-fire pictures:

 

http://shrani.si/?13/ky/1Cw3sIBn/img2123.jpg

http://shrani.si/?V/rL/wR7WbEj/img2126.jpg

http://shrani.si/?j/dH/18YGEwPI/img2127.jpg

http://shrani.si/?3b/is/1m4GrVUX/img2128.jpg

http://shrani.si/?34/Ui/LUVgyXv/img2129.jpg

http://shrani.si/?2S/In/3ZaqtoY2/img2130.jpg

http://shrani.si/?2m/O/1EySjxaC/img2131.jpg

http://shrani.si/?1C/KM/2rXhYLYj/img2134.jpg

 

Breaking powder is meal powder rolled on polistyren. FP is offcourse KNO3 based. If it would be KClO4 based it would be more like a bomb than a shell . The white bag that is placed in the middle of the shell is flash bag again with KNO3 based FP.

 

And there are the results in the air:

 

http://shrani.si/f/3S/WJ/J3gSVG/produce.avi (Winkour 11 stars (30x30mm))

 

http://shrani.si/f/2m/gk/3vgsArlj/chrysantemum8.avi (Chrysanthemum 6#stars (20x20mm))

 

http://shrani.si/f/3V/oI/2ltFfCSE/produce0.avi (Better Pearl stars (20x20mm))

 

http://shrani.si/f/3z/Fe/3GYVVdpE/produce.avi (D1 Glitter stars (20x20mm))

 

The shells weight about 260g and are all 3". Lift powder is about 25g of home made BP.

 

What do you think ?

 

Have a nice day.

[asilentbob]

BP on polystyrene? I think i have pondered on this before, but decided the fall out would be bad...

 

Regardless... looks to work for you!

 

I'm really loving those clear hemis!

 

 

 

Psycho, im going to email you today/night if i can remember... got a unique idea relating to go-getters that we could utilize for a shell in competition... it would be original... so might get some award for that... im going to have to experiment a bit though... ... heh... ... ill just email you...

[Mumbles]

The shells look pretty good.

 

Just a few coments and questions. Firstly, those are some pretty large stars for being in a 3" shell. Normally stars in a 3" shell are around 1/4" to 3/8". (6mm to 9mm). Having made most of those types of stars, I can only imagine you ball mill them pretty well before making stars from them. My better pearl stars from last weekend were burning at least twice as long as yours at half the size. The shells seem pretty heavy too, but that is probably from the large stars.

 

Do you use any static dispersing spray on the PS balls before coating them. From working with them before, I can only imagine they would be difficult to coat well. Are you using water to coat them? Poly styrene doesn't like water very much, so I could see this as being difficult unless you used an alcohol or acetone based binder. It looks like they arn't coated very well, so I can only imagine you're using water, and the flash is doing most of the work.

 

Are the hemispheres glued together at all, or does the paper provide the majority of the confinement?

[jacob]

On the subject of what Psyco is useing i didn't realize that some forms of fuel are dyed green, but i'm content to just use gas or something for any fireballs i make.

 

''', where do you get your plastic hemis and what are they made out of? if you can glue them together you probably don't need any paper, just some fiberglass strapping tape should do fine, but they do look great all the same.

[psyco_1322]

Oh and just to let you know the color is not from a dye.

 

I demand you tell us where to get clear hemis! I think that would be damn sweet to have some....wait.....I have some clear hemis I got form hobby lobby for making paper 3" hemis on. Is that what those are? If so they are kinda small for a three inch shell, you'd have to put on a lot of pasting.

[''']

Firstly the hemis are from hobby supplier and are meant to be some kind of decoration for xmas tree. They are made from plastic and 2r of them is 8cm. For coating PS a use just normal BP with dextrin for a blinder and water as a solvent. I know it is not the best way to do it maybe a bit of ethanole would help. I cant use aceton besause PS dissolve in it. I also dont have good experiences with it. Stars are maybe a bit large especialy Winkour 11 stars that were 30x30mm. 20x20mm work okay for me and yes they are a bit over milled. Maybe stars are looking a bit to big on the videos but in reality they look magnificant. Also the digital camera that videos are filmed by is not relly good. I will continue to post videos. Now me and my friend that I am working with are on the level of 3" shell and I hope we will be on 4" stage soon. Actually we began one and a half years ago with very small shells something like 1" (they were made from kinder eggs if you know them). Ask if you are interested in something else about my shells .

 

Have a nice day!

[Cherbanov]

what kind of glue are mostly used for pasting shells? cant find any

info on that

[daily1986]

Xylol, Methylene Chloride, or PVC glue. I might have missed one or more but i think these are the most common.

[crazyboy25]

no i think he means wheat paste.

[psyco_1322]

Did those plastics shells come with little plastic rings on top of them. The one I found did, They had to be cut off.

[''']

Yes they have to be cut off. You probably have the same balls as I have .

 

Have a nice day.

[Cherbanov]

ok so wheat paste is the one for my paper shells 3" right?

[flying fish]

This is my first can shell, a 1-3/4" weighing 65 grams, with an insert 1" ball shell:

 

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

 

The stars were made with milled tigertail composition using lampblack. The two biggest complaints I have about those stars are:

 

1. They were not bright enough; I could barely see them.

and

2. They burned way too fast. They were moderate size for the shell I was useing, but they still burned nearly instantaneously. I think perhaps I should not have milled the composition.

 

Other than that, a better defined, finer grained tail with a brighter head are other improvements I am looking for.

 

Next up is going to be this formula:

 

Golden rain #1

Source: "Mengen en Roeren"[6], page 224

Comments: Burns with a yellow color, and emits yellow sparks that are formed by the slowly burning lampblack.

Preparation:

 

Potassium nitrate.................................18

Sulfur............................................8

Lampblack.........................................5

I've tried it once before, and it is definetely much brighter...a yellowish color. I haven't used it in a shell yet though. The sparks drop quicker though since they aren't as light.

[lnstantkarma]

Okay, I launched my second shell and most of the stars failed to light. I primed them with the veline super prime. The possible reasons are the prime layer was too thin, I don't know how to check it when im rolling it on. The break was too powerful, it was meal coated corn cob with some meal sprinkled in the middle. Lastly I used tissue paper to put in the corn cob so that was in between the break and the stars.

Does anyone see my problem? I'm thinking on my next shell I'll take out the center meal and make a thicker layer of prime on my stars but I want to start making reliable shells so I can go into producing a large quantity of them and any advice anyone could give me would speed things along a lot.

[Mumbles]

Did you put any green meal over the top of the veline super prime? The veline super prime needs a prime of it's own. That is the one main problem I see.

[lnstantkarma]

thats a good idea didn't know that, what about just my normal ball milled meal I don't really want to make a separate batch of green mix

[Bonny]

I've used a prime very similar to the veline prime and then primed with whatever BP I had handy at the time (meal D, ball milled BP,bp+dextrin for blackmatch etc...) All worked well with no blind stars.

[Mumbles]

Yeah, ball milled stuff will work fine. I just mention green meal, as sometimes people don't like to use their good stuff for priming.

[optimus]

Green meal is also good for priming because it creates more molten globules that stick to the star and aid ignition, at least that's how I understand it...

 

The wood meal in Veline's prime also aids ignition by making the stars fuzzy and increasing surface area - I've gotten away without meal priming in the past.

[qwezxc12]

Diatomaceous Earth fulfills the same role as wood meal dust in creating a "fuzzy" surface filled with little points that take fire easier than a smooth surface.

 

My current fav prime is a variation on the "fence-post" or "dirt" primes: a mix of 70:30 meal/greenmix spiked with 8% DE and 7% Si. I also step prime.

[crazyboy25]

My current fav prime is a variation on the "fence-post" or "dirt" primes: a mix of 70:30 meal/greenmix spiked with 8% DE and 7% Si. I also step prime.

ok couple of questions

 

1. is this equal or better than veline super prime?

 

2. one coat on the outside will be suffecientt correct like standard prime (no step prming)

 

3. does this prime need a prime?

 

4 will this work? i ask because it says food grade

 

 

http://www.dirtworks.net/Images/permagard/Fossil-Shell-Flour.gif

[qwezxc12]

ok couple of questions

 

1. is this equal or better than veline super prime?

 

2. one coat on the outside will be suffecientt correct like standard prime (no step prming)

 

3. does this prime need a prime?

 

4 will this work? i ask because it says food grade

1) No idea - I don't use Veline's prime - I choose not to mess with Potassium Dichromate if I can avoid it.

 

2) For most stars, probably...YMMV, though. When rolling high percentage metal colors or streamers , I usually step prime. It's too easy too mix some prime into your last comp increment and it's cheap insurance. When priming already dried pumped stars in my roller, I add a small increment of plain comp after dampening the stars, then step prime as well.

 

3) No - it's 70% meal and lights very easy.

 

4) I don't see why not. I happened on a bag of pool filter media, so that's what I use.

 

Prior to this, I tried Passfire's "Dirt" or "Earth" prime. It uses MgAl and Cab-o-sil and worked fine, but adding 7% Cab-o-sil is an expensive proposition when you're making lots of stars. DE seems to do the same job at a much lower cost.

 

Prior to that, I was using meal + MgAl. I even made some shells with stars that were about 1/2 prime; the white bushy streamer of the MgAl looked pretty nice. I posted the videos a while back, they were Ruby Red and an Orange Ti, IIRC. Anyway, the prime worked ok on most comps, but I had ignition problems on some silver wave rolled primers, so I started looking for something a little more aggressive to prime with.

[crazyboy25]

well actually i mainly wanted them for your emerald green and ruby red but the comp you posted had some weird stuff if i remember so i will use veline super prime or if that MgAl/BP prme works i love to have a reason not to buy silicon and or dichromate.