Aerial Shells

[mudmanc5]

Quick question I will be firing my first 6" shells tonight what would be the proper amount of lift or the rule of thumb on larger shells . Mumbles had a couple posts about this but I cant find them . The shells come in at about 1200g for my 400g 4" shells I use about 25g pressed 10-12 bp thanks HAPPY 4TH

[Richtee]

Quick question I will be firing my first 6" shells tonight what would be the proper amount of lift or the rule of thumb on larger shells .

Kind of reminds me of some posts on another forum I frequent:

 

I have 40 people coming over for dinner tonight... how do I cook ribs?!?

 

You din't fire any dummies? Build a dummy and launch it. Especially if it's home made BP lift.

[Pretty green flame]

Quick question I will be firing my first 6" shells tonight what would be the proper amount of lift or the rule of thumb on larger shells . Mumbles had a couple posts about this but I cant find them . The shells come in at about 1200g for my 400g 4" shells I use about 25g pressed 10-12 bp thanks HAPPY 4TH

The rule of thumb goes like this:

 

1oz per pound of shell up to 10lbs, and aditional 0.5oz. for every pound over 10lbs.

I think with your lift (25g for a 400g shell which is damn good) you should be fine with 100g of lift for a 1200g shell.

 

Even with quality lift I wouldn't use less, but that's just me, I like to overlift my shells.

 

Hope this helps

[mudmanc5]

Thanks PGF thats what I was looking for . I would have built a test shell but I ran out of time and burst low and slow on the ribs dry rub no BBQ sauce till the end

[Mumbles]

The best name would be color to report, or something like that for the inserts you describe. A pillbox star is different, and it is definately not a farfalle.

 

For the lift, I tend to use around 80-100g of lift for most 6" shells. I agree with PGF though, I'd go no less than 100 if you're not positive how it will perform. Better to be safe than sorry. It's going to break big anyway, an extra 100 feet will hardly make a difference.

[Richtee]

low and slow on the ribs dry rub no BBQ sauce till the end

'Twas rhetorical...but good advice. Hope all went well for you.

And like ribs and how to get to Carnagie Hall... practice, practice, practice.

[FREAKYDUTCHMEN]

I'm waiting for al those 4th of July shells ....

 

Here is my first dubbelpetal attempt. 4 inch.

http://www.pyrobin.com/files/4inch%20dubbelpetal.mov

[nath0r]

That was really nice Dutch, i've read many a time that double petals are not possible with anything less than 6" but i think you have just proven that wrong!

 

Any construction pics?

[FREAKYDUTCHMEN]

Jep...

 

But I wouldn't use a hemi as inner petal anymore. Stars from one side of the outer petal didn't lit very well.

[nath0r]

Very nice! I did notice there was a slight lack of stars to the left hand side, but nonetheless, still a very good first attempt. In fact, i might even beging construction of a 4" double petal later, as soon as my batch of TT is finished in the mill.

[ULTRABUF]

Very nice double petal dutch. I'm hoping my 4" double petal functions alright tonight. Couple questios, did you drill holes in the inner hemi to help pass fire into the outside? And are those flash coated crispies you're using as burst there, its awfully shiny.

[FREAKYDUTCHMEN]

Thanks, Slowflash dusted on the KP coated ricehuls. I drilled holes in the inner hemi's. But I think I'd rather use only tissue between the petals.

And show us the result

[psyco_1322]

Well all my 4" shells I made broke way too hard onthe 4th. I used plain 1:4 bp rice hulls, then boosted it with 5g of 70:30 german dark flash. I think that may be where I went wrong. I was looking at some pics of my previous 4s and I was using 10g of slow flash boosting KP on rice hulls. They broke nice. These through the stars all out of wack. Half the purples didnt light, and it spread my chrysanthemum of mystery all over the place.

 

Plus I dont think this Oak charcoal makes for good lift. I cut my time fuse back form 4 seconds to 3.5 and lift with 1/10th shell weight. They still looked like they didnt get up there, even after adding a bit of gap filler to make them fit nice and snug. The lift was milled for 5 hours, bound with 2% red gum. Think the granules could be too big? I does shoot cannys fine though, but them are canisters.

 

Plus it seems to such for spark production, the charcoal streamers I make with it are just so light in color and weak in over all performance. Guess its back to cooking pine for right now. Use this oak for ricehulls or the like.

[aa92td]

Hello.

Here is a video of 4" shell with red stars.

the lift was pretty lame that because the shell was 4.2" with the pasting and the mortar was 5.5" thats explain the weak lift , but the burst was great.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/MVI_5130.avi

 

and the sounds there was of my friend, sound like he is going to come.

=]

[qwezxc12]

The shoot / bonfire last night was excellent; we had ~ $300 worth of cakes and festival shells in addition the stuff I made, plus other people showed up with a few trunk-loads in their cars. We had a nice crowd that went nuts, good tunes, lots of grilled dead animal parts and most of a slab of Magner's Irish cider for me.

 

I made

6": Pine TT, Red to D1, Win20, Yellow Al flitter, Orange

4" : BlueTi, Blue/Violet, Green/D1, Lampblack Willow, Green to Red, C8/flashcore, Red/White/Blue, and Ti streamer

and three 3" mines, plus a pile of 2" and 3" salutes, both 70:30Ti and 50:50 MgAl

 

Let me tell you a 70g 3" MgAl salute is BLINDING.

 

The ugly part is my fault. I got a new Cannon HG10 HD video camera (awesome btw) and this was the first time I filmed with it and I screwed up most of the shots. I edited the videos down to 720 from 1080. I didn't get ANY of the 6in shells That sucks because the TT and the Red to D1 were awesome. I was so happy with how they looked.

 

I did get a few that came out good. I was way too close because I was doling out the shells to friends who were running and lighting. I need to film from farther away.

 

http://www.apcforum.net/files/Racks.jpg

 

 

Videos

I missed the top of this mine:

3in Orange Mine

 

This one timed perfectly with a simultaneous salute:

3in Yellow Mine plus 2in Salute

 

This one wasn't as round as I wanted, no idea why:

4in Green-Red

 

This shell broke great. Most of the other 4's looked like this:

4in Blue Ti

 

 

 

I nuked a 3" mortar by using some new BP bound with redgum and riced with alcohol. It's seems much more powerful then the CMC bound stuff I usually use. My normal lift is pretty good, 4" shells use 1/14 weight as lift, 6" shells use 1/16". It's made the same, using alder charcoal and milled 6hrs in my mill. I lifted ~280g of 1/2" primer-core streamer stars with ~70g of lift and it split an HDPE mortar and dusted my rack...sounded like a freakin' bomb went off. I'm glad I used it only on that one mine.

[ULTRABUF]

Well all my stuff worked to varying degrees, but my camera skills seemed to be lacking tonight so not everything shows up well. Some you cant even see at all, but you can hear it functioning. Anyway, read the descriptions and if you have any other questions about anything just shoot. I think my greatest dissapointment was the inner petal of my 4" double petal not lighting. No one cared though, as you can tell from the vid.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR-_ADY0RY4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPeu2TpLgBk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nsX1mAxSD4

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I04zpQ88-C8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnFfGgiY39g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdkxw51GC44

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWmpjEfmY-4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ir25Vv-rrQ

 

I have a picture of the multishot rack after it fired, the front row of mine mortars got ripped off the base.

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee243/u...trackdamage.jpg

 

And I have a bunch of construction pics and whatnot in this album:

http://s231.photobucket.com/albums/ee243/u...th%20of%20July/

 

Enjoy! Comments and criticizm welcomed.

[Zmuro]

Hello.

Here is a video of 4" shell with red stars.

the lift was pretty lame that because the shell was 4.2" with the pasting and the mortar was 5.5" thats explain the weak lift , but the burst was great.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/MVI_5130.avi

 

and the sounds there was of my friend, sound like he is going to come.

=]

What is the formula for red stars you used in this shell? Really nice color and break BTW.

 

@qwezxc12

Really nice shells and the quality of video is excellent, sorry for your mortar

[qwezxc12]

Here's the mortally wounded rack from this post.

Couldn't find the split mortar...some enterprising soul must have wanted to see what HDPE looks like melting on a bonfire...

http://www.apcforum.net/files/Dead3inRack.jpg

[mudmanc5]

All 11 of my shells went well. The only 1 that did not work perfect was a 6" polka shell with 11 m 80 style reports all reports went off with the burst charge I fused them with NC Bp prime visco what caused them to go off with the break is there a better method to fuse them to ensure a delay I assume they all just took fire to the core at break. I ended up using 90g of lift which was about 10g to much

[aa92td]

Hello.

Here is a video of 4" shell with red stars.

the lift was pretty lame that because the shell was 4.2" with the pasting and the mortar was 5.5" thats explain the weak lift , but the burst was great.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/MVI_5130.avi

 

and the sounds there was of my friend, sound like he is going to come.

=]

What is the formula for red stars you used in this shell? Really nice color and break BTW.

 

@qwezxc12

Really nice shells and the quality of video is excellent, sorry for your mortar

The Formula was.

 

Sr(NO3)2 - 55

Sugar - 10

Mg - 18

PVC - 17

Dexterin - 5

 

BP prime is needed.

[Richtee]

all reports went off with the burst charge

What was the burst you used? As you know, the report shells you mentioned are a BIT shock sensitive. I have only had luck using a VERY soft BP break. Otherwise...SALUTE!

[mudmanc5]

BP on crispies 4:1 kinda figured the mass of the salutes would brek it softer.If it was from shock Im surprised it didnt go off at ignition cuz these 6" shells came out of the mortor with some pretty serious velocity I could easily back out at least 10g of lift

[Richtee]

BP on crispies 4:1 kinda figured the mass of the salutes would brek it softer.If it was from shock Im surprised it didnt go off at ignition cuz these 6" shells came out of the mortor with some pretty serious velocity I could easily back out at least 10g of lift

OK well...just a suggestion. Like I said...my experience was breaking them too hard.

[mudmanc5]

Thanks for the suggestion I just think I need a more reliable way to fuse them that's why the post for someone that has this knowledge and is willing to share or tell me what I did wrong .By the way ritcheee do you have a smoker( I smell smoke)

[Mumbles]

It's poka shell by the way.

 

The most reliable method would probably be time fuse. I've only had 1 timefuse ever fail to light, and it might have just been a failure to passfire.

 

Another possibility is to ram a length of BP into one of the ends sort of as an endplug. BP burns at approximately 1" every 3 seconds. It can be slowed with additional charcoal and other additives though. It also depends a lot on what star formula is around the inserts. This obviously blends in well with tailed stars. Pretty noticeable with organic colored stars though if you are trying to hide them. You will probably also want to drill the core back to leave an endplug type of deal there.

 

There is also the BP slurry though the hole like is used with beraq inserts. Not much info on those though. Bound with a lot of red gum, thats about all I can tell you.

 

It could also have been a manufacturing problem. I've fused inserts with visco before and had them work. Not enough hot glue around the visco, poor seal on the end caps. End caps blowing through from the burst, etc. I find cutting the end of the visco to be primed at an angle works wonders. Might have been the burst crushing the visco as well. Hard to really tell without looking at them.