Rolling - Issues

[max]

I'm pretty sure that if he had it and could publish it, it means you published it somewhere. Reposting it in a thread like this is then fair use. If he remembers who posted it where he got it from, it would be customary to credit the creator, or simply point out that he wasn't the creator, and doesn't know it's origin. The very most you could demand is to get credited, but with the hostility you show i for sure wouldn't have removed it.

The rules & laws are slightly different when the picture is considered "art" but this wasn't. Which pretty much means you can get of your high horse, and play nice with us other kids. Acting like a spoiled kid isn't the most befriending way, and will only end up in you getting treated worse. But then again, that might be what you want, what do i know.

B!

This photo wasn't published, he comes from my private message therefore I am very surprised at this situation.

 

I am not malicious but I am disliking how somebody is doing something behind my back.

[ddewees]

This is Tom Miller's old star roller.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8w6xv5r0affc06w/20140412_161631.jpg?dl=0

[Bobosan]

This is Tom Miller's old star roller.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8w6xv5r0affc06w/20140412_161631.jpg?dl=0

 

That is exactly what I am planning to do with the walmart SS bowls. They have enough lip on them to mate together with either weld or screws. A length of aluminum (or SS) tape over the inside seam should work to seal it.

[ddewees]

His appears to be filled in with an epoxy of sorts, and sanded smooth. I'll take a closer look next time.

 

Going through all the stuff he accumulated over the years is a lot of fun. His ball mill has quite the set up too. You can sort of see it in the background, with the olive green paint. It turns three large containers stacked vertically.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dcyllubjz9agg2m/20140412_152225.jpg?dl=0

[Bobosan]

His appears to be filled in with an epoxy of sorts, and sanded smooth. I'll take a closer look next time.

 

Going through all the stuff he accumulated over the years is a lot of fun. His ball mill has quite the set up too. You can sort of see it in the background, with the olive green paint. It turns three large containers stacked vertically.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dcyllubjz9agg2m/20140412_152225.jpg?dl=0

 

Noted. The presses look very servicable.

[Mumbles]

I have one Tom's old 5" case formers. Simple, but rugged. Great for keeping the neighborhood kids in line too.

 

I've seen several star rollers of this design. Either from mated metal bowls, or modified cement mixers generally. The few I'm familiar with use a product called JB Weld to seal the seam. I'm sure there is a more cost effective similar product. After curing it can be sanded smooth, and coated with the rest of the drum if you like. I've heard about several people trying tapes and silicones and the like, but they don't last like epoxy.

[MWJ]

I tried to sand or scape the inside of my buckets but I found to work even better is to use duct tape. I make a ridge in it by letting the tape make a crease in itself then I lay it into the bucket vertically. The ridge should only be 1/8" to 1/4" high. The edge of the tape might be all you need as far as causing the stars to roll or tumble to get it nice and round. I do this when ever I roll my stars and it works great for me. If you need pics. I'll take some and post it here.

I get my spray bottles from the eye dept. at Walmart. They have nice small sprayers for $3.00 each. They work fine for this.

Edited November 13, 2014 by MWJ

[enanthate]

 

I'm thinking of getting two, have someone take of the inside edge, weld them together, and cut a small hole on the end. (8-10")

The ideal shape for a star rolling machine seams hard to find, and when you find it, it's to freaking expensive.

The "best" so far really is a car tire, set on a roller, and tilted somewhat to the side. But the uneven inside makes it none perfect.

 

Also, the smoother the surface of the bowl, the better the stars seem to come out, but they are a LOT harder to get started. I don't have the issue where composition actually sticks to the walls of the roller, but i tend to intentionally spray the roller rather then the stars, leave it spinning for a bit, and come back dusting the "front" of the stars, and then again leave it to spin for a bit, and so over until the stars no longer look wet when i come back. My main issues is that the stars refuse to maintain a round shape, instead they turn elliptical, or eggshaped, and the sizes are all over the place. I blame the shape of the rollers mostly. I mean, it cant be ME, i'm perfect...

B!

You could just grind down the inside edge. I discovered that bowl over here last night as well, thinking about doing the same. Hopefully my motor can hold the thing, the bowls are 1,4kg each.

 

I will explore your method and see if I can make that work. Haven't really tried any of that.

It sounds like you wait quite a while between spraying and dusting. I got a rather noisy roller so I tend to do this as quickly as I can, as there are neighbours upstair (don't wanna bother them too much). How long would you normally wait in between?

 

Getting my own place during the next couple of months, I might just put this on a hold until then.

A garage.... Ohh.....

[Maserface]

what kind of motor? Please dont tell me you are using a sparky motor to roll stars in an apartment building..

[MrB]

I've seen several star rollers of this design. Either from mated metal bowls, or modified cement mixers generally.

I want a small fiberglass "barrel" cement mixer, for coating my rice hulls. But so far i've only found ones with brushed motors. And that ain't happening. I guess it could double as star roller when that time comes. But it's probably a tad to large to be really useful for me.

 

It sounds like you wait quite a while between spraying and dusting. I got a rather noisy roller so I tend to do this as quickly as I can, as there are neighbours upstair (don't wanna bother them too much). How long would you normally wait in between?

I never timed it. But it's like meditation, and it takes hours to make a batch of stars. Where i work noise isn't an issue, but i have to admit, i'm using a brushless 24v DC motor so the setup is pretty much noiseless. The stars on the other hand, make one hell of a racket, so the larger they get, the more noise it makes.

B!

[dynomike1]

I use 2-3 teaspoons of 9 shot small spray bottle 2 gal. plastic bucket with a windshield wiper motor, when they get larger i use a bigger spray bottle, then as they get up to 3/8" i dry them and screen them. Then i take the undersized ones and roll them to size. Might take 3 or 4 times to get all stars the right size. (DEPENDS ON WHAT SIZE STARS YOU WANT)

[tumbler]

I've been thinking of joining up two metal bowls and cutting out a section as well. I remember seeing a Japanese machine that used drums very similar to the one in the photo. For now, I'm just rolling them by hand in plastic bowls.

 

To the point about material sticking to the drum, I'm just starting out myself, but I seem to have overcome this problem by wetting the stars and rolling them for some time until the bowl is more or less dry. Then adding a small amount of dust to the stars seems to get them to pick the material up quickly as well as cleaning up anything that sticks to the sides in just a few shakes. If I do end up with material that persists on the bowl, I spray it well with solvent and make it into a sort of toro, add the stars back and roll it up onto them. Early on, I was getting a good deal of material stuck. I simply scraped it off and used it to make toro in a separate container. Shimizu writes that the bowl should "glisten" under ideal conditions. I don't know if mine glistens, but by by rolling for quite a while after wetting them, and then adding small amounts of comp directly to the stars, I seem to have been able to more or less control the mess. As many have said, slowing way down and patience seems to be the key. Of course, I'll probably change comps and then have to learn it all over again. Good luck, and let us know how it goes... I would be interested to follow your progress.

[braddsn]

I have a suggestion. When i started out.. i tried the toro method with 3 batches and it was a mess.. i was discouraged. After some reading and advice..i found what works for me. Your experience may vary but.. i have a 5 gallon bucket roller. I pour 65 grams of whole peppercorns in. That is about all the cores you can use with a 5 gal roller because when the stars hit about 12mm you will have all you can handle. The peppercorns are great because they are perfect size..plus they have a rough texture and absorb moisture. Start your roller.. and spritz and sprinkle. I leave a little comp buildup on my bucket at all times because it prevents cores from sliding. Some of your comp is gonna stick to the sides during the process.. but DO NOT SCRAPE IT OFF while the cores are smaller than about 9mm... otherwise you will have a mess. Once the stars hit about 9 or 10mm.... then you can scrape comp off of bucket while they are rolling because the stars will now be big enough to pulverize the scraped comp and it will start adding to the star size. Hope this helps ya. You will need somewhere in the neighborhood of 1600 grams of comp for 65 grams of peppercorns to hit 12 or so mm. I am sure toro is superior in certain circumstances but with my equipment.. spritzing is the ticket. Best of luck!

[enanthate]

Been watching Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs (from Discovery Channel) today, the episode where he visits Albert and gets to make a shell.

It really makes you think it's all about the equipment. Mike Rowe is actually making very(!) uniform stars with very basic "training" from Albert.

There should be a thing or two we could learn from this episode, like the shape of rollers and their functions, where to sprinkle the powder, etc. A great episode, and perhaps educational for the "hobby-pyro".

If you haven't seen it, I discovered it in a files-section on some other pyro-website. Google it, and if you can't find it I will try and dig it up later tonight.

[enanthate]

Stayed up all night yesterday, reading up on the subject on Passfire and other sites.
Kept rolling on the last batch (see original picture, first post) without sizing them, hoping to get the stars more uniform. They turned out a bit better, and didnt have problems with comp sticking this time. Thanks for advices guys!

http://s28.postimg.org/jz3rvu2vh/IMG_20141116_000921.jpg

The rough texture was made on purpose, as this helps ignition according to Passfire.

Will be starting with round cores next time, hopefully making my first uniform batch

Edited November 15, 2014 by enanthate

[schroedinger]

Now you got raspeberrys, that can be caused by forcing the rolling speed up too much or/and adding to big increments.

 

How long did you tumble between increments?

Also did you take out a smale sample between increments to see how wet your stars are (just grab into the pile like if you stir it up, look at them, if they are still wet add more comp)? This should be done specially as your are just starting out and it is much easier to tell how wet the stars then in tge moving roller.

 

If the increment size is ok, try to add it in smaller parts, over about 20 seconds spread all over the back of the pile

Edited November 16, 2014 by schroedinger

[enanthate]

Schroedinger, like I said the "raspberry" was made on purpose, Passfire recommended this for better ignition.

 

I normally tumble 1-2 minutes between spray and comp, while I also leave the roller sometimes and let the stars roll for 5 minutes when needed.

I started rolling with the stars in the original post, as you can see they had very different sizes. After rolling further on them, they actually ended up more uniform (I expected the opposite). I discovered an interesting technique to achieve this.

I spray (on the roller, not the stars) until I can feel they are pretty damp with my hand. I wait for the roller to dry, then add comp, little by little. The big stars pretty much stay in the middle, while small stars are at the highest point in the roller, which is where I allways added the comp. I keep adding until they don't pick up comp, then let them tumble for 5 minutes with some dry comp. The comp will also stay at the highest point, together with the smaller stars. This, in time, will make uniform stars.

 

Next time I will start with round cores, and use this same technique. As soon as some stars become smaller than the rest, they will move to the highest point and pick up the most comp, keeping all the stars about the same size. This sounds very good at the moment, but I'm sure there will be more problems to solve...

 

 

Please excuse my poor english and explanations this weekend, I have barely slept the last 48 hours.

Edited November 16, 2014 by enanthate

[schroedinger]

Raspberrys for ignition? Ok, if it works but i would imagine that they make quite hard to fill shells with them, without leaving big gaps between stars.

 

I just add some wood meal to the prime

[pyrojig]

Actually they stack quite well in a shell. It seems there is come validity to the raspberry effect improving ignition . Although they are not very pretty , they still work quite well. Not gonna fly as far as the other stars ...., but will ignite better ( more surface area.) /

[braddsn]

I am certainly no expert, but in my experience, finding the prime that works for you is the key to ignition.. not so much rough texture. Step priming, monocopa, pinball, fencepost, and I am sure there are others..... that's the key, at least for my stars. I roll mine perfectly round, let them dry, then step prime them (hot prime). A rough texture of course will always increase surface area.. but I have found that it's not needed when you dial in your prime. ymmv. cheers!

[schroedinger]

Ok, if they stack well, couldn't imagine that, allways imagined a lot of free spots with them.

[enanthate]

Depends on how rough the surface is, there is only a mm difference so it doesnt really matter regarding stacking them.

 

Braddsn, remember that you might have 90% ignition, maybe even 80%. Rough texture might increase this percentage.

Whether its necessary or not is up to each and everyone to decide.

[enanthate]

I'm starting to question the ignition-thing. Tested a star on the ground today, and they certainly aren't easy to ignite with the lighter (bp prime w/ woodmeal).

 

Passfire said to slightly overwet the stars when done, giving the rough surface ("raspberry") to improve ignition. But then, overweting gives a smooth, kind of shiny finish to the star, it doesn't even color a white tissuepaper when rubbed against it. This has been up on discussion before, and I'm quite sure they concluded that this aggravates the ignition-abilities of the star. I'm thinking I should rewet them slightly and dust with BP.

Personal experiences on this?

[calebkessinger]

It will help, but not milled bp just screened. The coarsness aids ignition. It doesn't have to be fast charcoal either.

[Shadowcat1969]

For ignition a rough surface, not really a raspberry surface, is helpful. Raspberries don't do any good if the surface is still smooth, you should strive for a surface more like an 80 or 100 grit sand paper, rather than a 200 grit with bulbous protrusions.