Aerial Shells

[oskarchem]

Right, So here is a pic of my next 2" can... Just uploading these pics, so you could tell me, guys, if the spiking is ok.

 

BTW: The masking tape that is at some points of the shell is not the end, it's just to hold the string nice and tight.

 

 

 

 

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/2097/pict0003ku3.jpg

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8359/pict0004ik8.jpg

[Mumbles]

Well, besides being ugly(which doesn't matter), the strings don't look tight enough to me. You want the string to bite into the casing, and compress it. It looks fairly obvious that your strings are sliding around fairly easily. I can speak from experience when I say this DRASTICALLY improves breaks. If you look at the two pictures of mine below you can see what I am talking about. On the top you will notice that it is indented into the top end disk, and on the sides, you can sort of tell that it looks almost like an hour glass. I quite literally put all my weight and strength into spiking shells. I tie the string off to a door knob, and lean back into the spikings.

 

It will also help to mark off approximatly equally spaced verticals, in your case 8. Doing so make it so much easier to make them neat and even. Uneven spiking might be more prone to hose breaks. I am also unsure why you decided to double up the vertical spikings. Also how you managed double vertical spikings, but only single horizontal spikings.

 

The large spolette will likely make any real sort of pattern rather difficult. You may want to consider a new spiking pattern more suited toward these types of shells. I use off center on 3" and larger, but with 2" and smaller the fuse actually takes up too much room to do so. I will try to explain this the best I can.

 

Tie the string off to the spollette, and the other end around a doorknob, beer tap, something solidly in place. I tie it off around the shell body itself, but it's too hard to explain without pictures. Now, the spolette will be your turning point, remember this. Mark off 8 equally spaced hashes around your shells. Place the string over one hash mark and lean back on it to really make it bite in. Loop it around to the hash mark directly opposite to the first, and repeat. Now you should be back to the spolette, which is the turning point remember. Pick a side to place the string on. If you place the string to the right of the spolette, you will be turning left, and if the string goes to the left you are turning right. It's just a matter of leverage. So, I will assume you went to the right, because that is the way I go and I can visualize the best. Turn the shell 45 degrees to the next hash mark to the left of the initial string position. Repeat biting the string into both sides again. Turn another 45 degrees to the left to the next hash, repeat, and do the same for the last set of hash marks.

 

Something I should mention. If you find that your strings are still sliding around too much, you might want to make the first turn 90 degrees, so the spiking is perpendicular to the first. You will then have to do a 45 degree turn, but you get another 90 degree turn at the end. I find this is sometimes neccesary if my casings are hardened with dried glue. This makes them kinda slick and my strings slides everywhere.

 

Now, spiral the string down, and start the horizontal spikings from the bottom of the shell, and go to the top. Your spacing looks pretty good on the shell you posted above. Tie the string off, or glue it in place or tape it or whatever. You are now done spiking. Some people smear glue or paste over the strings because they think they will dry tighter. I have only noticed this if I spike the shells with paste soaked string. They turn out like steel cables that way, so tight into the shell. Now all you have to do is paste in the shell, and it's ready for firing.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v137/Mumbles/P1010043.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v137/Mumbles/P1010039.jpg

[mormanman]

Wow, mumbles maybe you should put that in a tutorail. That answered so much.

 

Thank you.

[oskarchem]

Hey, Thats great.

 

I know it is ugly but I am working on that... And just to note: The strings are not at all loose, I put all my strenght into it and insured myself that they could not move .The string cannot bite into the shell because it is plastic.

 

But Thanks alot, this really helps.

[Pretty green flame]

Could you get a more clear shot of the spollette, something doesn't seem right to me. It looks to me that you glued the spollette on top of the shell so it doesn't penetrate the casing

[oskarchem]

Hey, PGF, don't worry the spolette is attached to the shell, and no it does not penetrate the shell, but inside there is a peice of BM glued on. This is how I make the shells... Because I can always get the same timing for a spolette but this is not always the case for home made blackmatch.

 

Ah, and it could be a little hard to get the spolette inside since this is a plastic shell.. ans I would have to drill a hole.So I prefer my method.

[oskarchem]

Ok, so here it is after I jusrt lit it... The thing is that my parents want me to stop waking such loud things and only letting the go off like twice a year wich is not bad really... So anyway, the thing is that H3 is unpredictable, so when I made my first 2" can there was way more lift, and this time it was louder anyway..Oh, and the burst was good.

 

So now I will be pumping/rolling/cuting stars for my next shells...Just need to get a bit more experiance with thise small ones (like 5 more 2") and then go a bit heigher (not any more than 3 1/2").

 

2nd 2" Can

[Mumbles]

It being plastic explains a lot. All the masking tape looked to me like you rolled the casing out of white computer paper, thus why I went through the motions of using paper canisters. With this being said, it's going to be near impossible to properly spike plastic canister shells with string. I'd suggest finding some fiberglass reinforced strapping tape. It's quicker and easier to use with plastic shells. You may also want to only spike vertically, as this is the weak point of canister shells.

 

I would highly suggest drilling a hole and inserting the spolette into the canister shell. It makes it more reliable, and stable. Don't follow my above advice about tying the string off to the spolette, unless you put it into the shell. It sounds like you think by placing the spolette into the shell it will be less reliable? The spolette will burn at the same rate no matter what. It will still burn and provide a delay even if the actual flame front is within the confines of the shell itself. The fire wont jump through the side of the tube.

[oskarchem]

No, I don't mean to say that it will be less reliablie, just that for the next 2 weeks, I will not have a drill so I cant really drill .

I was just saying that the use of bare fuse is more unreilable, to day I hotglued some visco to a salute shell and it didn't light.. But since it was during the day I found the shell and all that (this was a 1 3/4 sperical shell).

[al93535]

I had a flowerpot! It was a large 6" Can shell that weighed like 2100 grams... I think i had it fit too snugly in the mortar

 

Here is the video:

 

http://www.apcforum.net/files/6inchflowerpotfarfalle.wmv

 

Also, I did lit up a shell that was rather VERY VERY loose fitting and it still went up just fine, so I guess the moral: Loose is better then tight

[TheSidewinder]

Ouch.

 

Just saw the video, Al. Ya know, if you hadn't told us it was a shell, we'd all have been very impressed with your gorgeous mine.

 

I sure was, anyway!

 

Get video of the other shell?

[Mumbles]

Was that the shell you built with me while I was in the vicinity? Still made a very nice mine. The one I made looked reasonably well. As to be expected some of the inserts exploded, specifically the ones you warned me about as I wrinkled them and cocked them as I was pressing.

[Frozentech]

Hey AL ! Nice shot there, I have to agree, you should just call that a surprise Mine.

Were you starting to wonder about the BS though ? The Farfalle inserts sure looked sweet !

 

How've you been ?

[crazyboy25]

I had a flowerpot! It was a large 6" Can shell that weighed like 2100 grams... I think i had it fit too snugly in the mortar

 

Here is the video:

 

http://www.apcforum.net/files/6inchflowerpotfarfalle.wmv

 

Also, I did lit up a shell that was rather VERY VERY loose fitting and it still went up just fine, so I guess the moral: Loose is better then tight

Very nice AL good to see you around can I get the dimensions for those fallfares?

 

length, width, comp, fusing, holes etc.

[bmarley5780]

I'm building a 3" canister shell based on Passfires instruction on their 4" shell.

 

I was making the tissue paper pipette and that was quickly throw out the door. I instead used 2 wraps of light kraft taped shut. Anyone think this could be a problem?

[crazyboy25]

It shouldn't be but I personally use a straw cut to length then hot glued in place and sealed with tape/tissue paper.

[Mumbles]

Yes, but you see, a straw is nowhere near big enough to break a 3" shell.

 

The kraft paper canule is probably fine. I used loose leaf paper for a long time, still do sometimes. I will admit, getting tissue paper to work involves a few tricks, and a little finesse. The biggest key is to leave the solid former(pipe of some sort) inside the tissue paper while filling. Fill around it with stars. I generally pack in all my stars with polverone to make everything rock hard. This again takes practice and a little patience to get it to go right. It's easier to have someone show you in person first so you can see how hard it really is supposed to be. After it is fully loaded, fill the pipe with the burst, and twist and pull at the same time to get the burst to settle, without the stars caving in. I usually put another layer of polverone over the top to level everything and close as normal. It should be noted I build shells "upside down" with the fused end at the bottom.

 

Another trick I use is to fold the tissue paper over the bottom a bit. When the lift falls on it, it will help to anchor the tissue paper down so it doesn't get pulled out. You can also hold the top of the tissue paper to keep it in place.

[psyco_1322]

Dang wouldnt been a nice shell. Sad:(

 

Yah just use some craft to make your fire pipe. I dont see that a tube full of bp would work to well. It would just burst open on the botton once it got fire and never really direct the fire to the center of the shell. I always use a tube with black match strands in it so it aacts like a piece of quick match and shoots fire to the direct center.

[Mumbles]

Oh yes, so do I. A piece of high quality 5 strand quickmatch all the way through the canule. The kind that burns so fast it ruptures the tube. It seems that we were talking about two different things here though.

 

He said pipette, possibly giving the impression of the quickmatch type of thing coming off the time fuse. When he was talking about the tissue paper I infered that he really meant the paper barrier used on the outside of the burst charge of a canister shell to keep it separated from the stars.

[psyco_1322]

Hmm maybe. Never hearad of that being done but im sure it could be. Ill have a look at the passfire tut and see what he's talking about.

 

EDIT: Looked and yep you had it right, he was talking about a canule cover. They saay tissue paper but it may not be Kleenex tissue paper but rather the gift wrap tissue paper and in that case it would work ok. I use that type of tissue paper for lots of things, and I find it in my shoe boxes.

[oskarchem]

Hey, Al, long time no see... heh

 

Well the shell was butiful, and it would of been exelent if it went up into the sky...

 

but I liked it

[bmarley5780]

He said pipette, possibly giving the impression of the quickmatch type of thing coming off the time fuse. When he was talking about the tissue paper I infered that he really meant the paper barrier used on the outside of the burst charge of a canister shell to keep it separated from the stars.

Yes, I was talking about the tube that keeps the break charge for lingering.

[bmarley5780]

I don't think I got a answer last time.

 

But for the 2 5/8" plastic shells.

 

What size mortar do you guys use?

 

If 3" ID motar dosen't the shell feel a lil loose ?

[oskarchem]

put some newspaper around the shell to make it fit, and but just put a peice of masking tape to hold it, dont glue it so the paper will fall off as it comes out of the mortar

[Mumbles]

Some people will actually paste in their ball shells, and report good success. It is of course something to look into.