Aerial Shells

[jadesource]

If you need help with your blackpowder or dont have a ballmill go to skylighter and look in there articles section Ned Gorski has an article on how to make good BP with hardwood airfloat using red gum and alcohol for the binder . It definatly takes more powder then my good ballmilled stuff but will do the job for lifting shells quite well.

Bill

[jadesource]

My first 4" round shell with KP break and no booster, KP really rocks: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jY9MGMB1SEs

 

Zmuro great shell Im a great fan of win 20 it looks really cool up close I made a bunch of 3/4 inch comets I would burn one on the ground and every one who saw it wanted me to light more. after 10 or so i had to save the rest for cakes. But Im going to make some fountains and see if it works the same way. It looks like little glowing orbs coming of the comet and hovering around the comet as they burn.

[jadesource]

Last night I made a 4in Double Pedal with the inner 2in. The inner is Red and the outer is TT. I pasted the inner and the outer was plastic. The outer shell's bursts in around the inners shell. Its just a test but I hope it works.

 

mormanman for a little quick containment on my plastic shells I use 3/8ths packing tape and make 2 x's to get good support on the shell then use some aluminum tape, then another layer of packing tape crisscrossed then more aluminum tape again. It gets pretty solid confinment for a non flash broke plastic shell . i would also recomend adding some slow flash or whistle mix to get a little better break.

This is my lazy mans method when I need a quick fix

[PyroMan LTU]

I dont use BP couse I dont have any milled sulpur. I am not full prepared to work properly, I still need to finish my new ballmill to finish an order etc... But in few months I will be. dont mind the lift it was a mistake... (It wasn't H3 alone)... PS zmuro that was a very nice shell! cheers!

[mormanman]

mormanman for a little quick containment on my plastic shells I use 3/8ths packing tape and make 2 x's to get good support on the shell then use some aluminum tape, then another layer of packing tape crisscrossed then more aluminum tape again. It gets pretty solid confinment for a non flash broke plastic shell . i would also recomend adding some slow flash or whistle mix to get a little better break.

This is my lazy mans method when I need a quick fix

I coated my meal coated rice hulls with some Dark Al and I did use a Slow flash booster.

[Yankie]

Can you get a really big break using just bp rather than flash? would this require some rediculous amount of pasting/spiking? I dont want to make flash for obvious reasons.

 

I tested my flash cores and they work terrifically http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duV42UxNV7U

I will try using them as cores for TT stars soon.

[Richtee]

Can you get a really big break using just bp rather than flash? would this require some rediculous amount of pasting/spiking? I dont want to make flash for obvious reasons.

 

I tested my flash cores and they work terrifically http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duV42UxNV7U

I will try using them as cores for TT stars soon.

 

Sweet! Very cool Fredbert. What size were those? And you could use a whistle mix for a harder/bigger break, or perhaps th "KP" perc powder.

[FREAKYDUTCHMEN]

Fredbert, Ned gorski wrote an skylighter newsletter article about making a 4" shell.

I believe he used 15 grams of slowflash (2:1:1) and pulverone in his 4 inch ball shells.

And yeah in my oppinion its necessary to use a breakcharge that is more powerfull than BP only, from 8" shells and bigger you could use only BP.

 

I'd advise to use this formula for the amount of layers: N = 5.6 D(cm)/J(kg/cm)

Edited September 4, 2008 by FREAKYDUTCHMEN

[Zmuro]

I agree, flash does increase burst, but I don't use flash bag but flash powder mixed with BP on puffed rice and then add this mix in to the shell. But I can tell you, KP rocks, I had the nicest and biggest break when I used KP on puffed rice. I recommend you try it.

[Mumbles]

What ratio of KP to puffed rice were you using? I seem to get the best performance out of KP on rice hulls 7:1. I was having trouble getting enough KP to stick to get to the published ratio of 4:1. I'd be suprized if I even got 1:1.

[Zmuro]

I would't know about the ratio because I stopped adding KP on puffed rice when it looked enough on it. By the eye I would say about 2:1 or maybe 3:1.

[Pyrohawk]

I sometimes use just BP as my break in shells but it won't break nearly as hard without some sort of booster...well unless its a big shell as dutchmen said. What I use is very fine pressed BP. Its the leftovers when I press lift and then screen out the different size pieces... I am always left with a bunch of really fine pieces that won't work for lift in most things. This stuff works really well as a break charge.

Not flash or whistle of course...but still works pretty well.

 

Oh and here are a few shells I did the other day... Sorry no video but I'm at home right now and all we have here is dial up internet (I live in the hills hehe). On dial up it just takes WAY to long to upload a video.

The second one was TT and green even though the camera didn't show the green very well. Never does...

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v389/pyrohawk_15/D1shell.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v389/pyrohawk_15/TTangreenshell.jpg

[FREAKYDUTCHMEN]

What ratio of KP to puffed rice were you using? I seem to get the best performance out of KP on rice hulls 7:1. I was having trouble getting enough KP to stick to get to the published ratio of 4:1. I'd be suprized if I even got 1:1.

I make my KP on ricehulls simply with my starroller, did you use 5% dextrin? It seems like everything is covered with about 6:1. Even with 4:1 you will have nice breaks.

[Mumbles]

I've tried both dextrin and SGRS and have gotten good results with rice hulls both times. The 4:1 I spoke of was in reference to the puffed rice cereal. I do get excellent breaks out of the rice hulls, but I just don't like working with them. They compress too much for my own preferences. I generally soak them in water and then add the KP in increments. I add 6:1 of KP with binder, and add the last 1 part without a binder. This prevents them from clumping and sticking together. The underlayers have enough binding power to keep the KP on.

[psyco_1322]

I think after making up 700g of KP and coating it onto the 100g of hulls it seems that you dont really get all the much from the massive amount of perc you just wasted. For that I could just make up a few 100g of whistle to boost shells broke with bp. That seems a lot more economical.

[qwezxc12]

I think after making up 700g of KP and coating it onto the 100g of hulls it seems that you dont really get all the much from the massive amount of perc you just wasted. For that I could just make up a few 100g of whistle to boost shells broke with bp. That seems a lot more economical.

 

 

Similar to my thoughts...I used to use 75:25 whistle/BP (basically Benzolift) coated crispies for break...it took a lot of perc and Kbenzoate (and effort to mill and make). Now I use ~500g of 4:1 BP on rice crispies for a 6in shell, boosted with 20g of 7:3 slow flash (only 14g of perc)...I'd much rather conserve the harder to acquire perc.

 

Of course, YMMV, and this is only my way, not necessarily the 'right' way...

[flying fish]

^^^That is about what I do for 2" ball shells; I use BP pulverone and boost them with about a gram of 7/3 made with bright aluminum - plenty of punch, but not overkill like fast flash. It doesn't seem to shatter stars or blow them blind.

[Miech]

Same here, although I would prefer to use somewhat more flash. Usually I sprinkle approximately 2 grams of 70/30 flash over the pulverone, but if I make a shell with a pistil it could be as much as 5 grams.

 

The shell seen

was made this way, with 2 grams of flash booster. The stars didn't have a similar shape and size, which sort of ruined the symmetry of the break.

[flying fish]

I am mostly throwing some lightweight willow and glitter stars around...so perhaps that is why I can get away with so little flash. Still, I do get a reasonable boom (similar to consumer shells) out of even 1 gram of the bright aluminum flash and using plastic shell casings.

[Mumbles]

It's a matter of economy for me as well. My mill simply cannot keep up with my shell building. I have enough trouble getting enough fast BP to break my canister shells. Every 5" color break canister uses up about 100 to 125g of burst. I'd have to run it practically non-stop all 4 weekend before a shoot in order to make enough burst if I made it for canister shells too. I really need to get a bigger mill. 200g at a time just isn't cutting it. It's in the plans for the winter though.

[50AE]

My first cylindrical shells.

 

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

 

I was angry, because they bursted very quickly. I didn't have visco, so I used blackmatch. When I was doing 1.5" kinder egg shells, the blackmatch was fine. Sadly, I hadn't batteries to film the egg shells, they were good. The next time, I will make spolettes or try to get visco fuse, it seems that I can't trust the blackmatch.

[oskarchem]

Unfortunatly for shells BM cannot be used for the simple reason that it will start burning at the very entry to the shell, thus making a fast break. Visco/Time Fuse/Spoletts will only start to burn at the beginning, thus giving you the timing you chose.

[psyco_1322]

^Huh?

 

You might be able to use bm in a pinch if you wrap it nice and tight with a good length of masking tape, depending on its burn rate of coarse. Really there should be no reason it would work on one type of shell and not the other, either it was an accident it worked to start with or maybe there was something left out, ie - tape.

[mormanman]

^ It will pull a QM if you do that or it won't light. I tried something like that for QM and it either worked or didn't at all. I hate masking tape QM if you use BM. But something like Sticky match will work fine.

[Yankie]

I used to use BM wrapped in electrical tape and I made an entire show using just this fusing method. See for yourself if you don't beleive me.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3LOW2eQ6lc