taiwanluthiers Posted November 15, 2014 Posted November 15, 2014 Anyone seen firecrackers made with only dragon eggs? I found a brand of firecrackers, and it basically consists of a length of visco followed by the quick burning paper fuse, and along the fuse is basically countless dragon eggs (probably 20 of them). When lit it's surprisingly loud. Anyone ever thought of making a compact firecracker with spare DE's?
schroedinger Posted November 15, 2014 Posted November 15, 2014 The ones i know, are made by using two platic hemis of about 2.2 mm. One half is layed out with paper similar to copy paper or sometimes a thinner one and filled with about 15 to twenty DE's. Then the paper is folded shut and the second hemis is closed. They are quite funy and loud like good DE.I just use sparse DE for cracling comets, as the commercial available are about 10 cents each
taiwanluthiers Posted November 15, 2014 Author Posted November 15, 2014 wow, that's a lot of work... the one I talk about is basically just a piece of visco followed by a length of fast paper fuse, with sparse DE's around it, and the whole thing is just wrapped in loose tissue paper.
Bobosan Posted November 15, 2014 Posted November 15, 2014 This fuse is very similar to what you are talking about. It has DE stuck to paper with gray fuse alongside. http://pyrocreations.com/inc/sdetail/523/535
taiwanluthiers Posted November 15, 2014 Author Posted November 15, 2014 Yea, it's exactly that, except shorter and with a piece of visco stuck out of it. Really loud for its size...
pyroMIKE Posted November 15, 2014 Posted November 15, 2014 (edited) The ones i know, are made by using two platic hemis of about 2.2 mm. One half is layed out with paper similar to copy paper or sometimes a thinner one and filled with about 15 to twenty DE's. Then the paper is folded shut and the second hemis is closed.They are quite funy and loud like good DE.I just use sparse DE for cracling comets, as the commercial available are about 10 cents eachSo if I made a batch of C6 comets to put on shells as a tail, how much of the DE do you add to the comp? +10%? Edited November 15, 2014 by pyroMIKE
schroedinger Posted November 15, 2014 Posted November 15, 2014 Just doing it by eye, but 10% by weight should work.But i prime them using a solvent to protect them from the nitrate.
schroedinger Posted November 15, 2014 Posted November 15, 2014 For DE normal nc, the prime is either bound with nc or red gum ethanol. Depending on how they are getting prepared. Red gum for granulated DE's that are getting primed in the roller, NC for cut ones that are going to be primed by shaking i a tub.
Maserface Posted November 15, 2014 Posted November 15, 2014 What happens if you do not prime them? im dying to hear the answer to this
pyroMIKE Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 im dying to hear the answer to thisYea me too....It should be good.Side note, I do not know a thing about crackling balls comp..It was a serious question. . . ...
schroedinger Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 Can't help you with that. Nitrate got sometimes reported to destroy the crackling effect when leaching into the core. As i didn't want to waste any de comp (it is really expensiv compared to the prime) i just never tried.
pyroMIKE Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 (edited) Hmmm.Like I said I dont know anything about DE. I just wanted to make sure when I mixed the DE with the C6 comp it would not react in a BOOM kinda way! I use very little water when I pump stars.It looks like a dry slightly damp comp when I pump.I cant imagine it being wet enough to leak the nitrate into the cores of the DE's.I just dampen it enough to activate the dextrin to bind everything together. I guess I will give it a go and try it and see what happens. Im gonna make a small batch and will have a video of the results in a day or so. Edited November 16, 2014 by pyroMIKE
ddewees Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 Mike, the Dragon eggs are already primed... you can add them right into your dampened and granulated comp.
pyrojig Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 NItrate can indeed leech into the egg and ruin the effect,. I have lost a few batched to this annoying prob. It really all comes down to the binder and the changing of binding systems ( a.e. alcohol and water based.) I prefer NC as the best binding material ./ Shimizu shows a comp ( matrix) bound with a charcoal comp........but the stars are primed ( with shimizu prime) and then embedded in a charcoal comp. So to answer the Q> Eggs can be embedded into a comp as long as teh binding sys is switched up or cant leach into the other layers.
FlaMtnBkr Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 (edited) I want to know what the Chinese are using for DE. They aren't supposed to use lead and they are used way too much in Chinese fireworks to use expensive bismuth. Plus there are a few Chinese websites selling pyro chemicals that carry just about everything, but no lead or bismuth. There has to be something we don't know. Edited November 16, 2014 by FlaMtnBkr
taiwanluthiers Posted November 16, 2014 Author Posted November 16, 2014 I broke apart one of the eggs from those DE crackers and it looks like it used red lead, from the color (dull red) of the core composition. Bismuth is way too expensive.
Mumbles Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 They do mine bismuth and lead in China, which makes it much cheaper than the prices we're used to. It wouldn't surprise me if they use an ore source for their DE's, instead of a refined purified product.
FlaMtnBkr Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 (edited) I cut open a few DE from a Magic Whip that was purchased fairly recently and the core appears to be mostly a gray/silver color and appears to contain a shiny metal, presumably mg/al. The first one appeared to have a very small red grain at the center. At first I thought maybe a grain of their red clay used as a core. Looking at it more I think it is too red-orange to be clay. I cut up a couple more and it wasn't as obvious but I will cut more to check as there were smaller eggs. I was able to separate a small piece and thinking about getting a lead test kit to see if I can get a positive result. I also could detect a yellowish deposit asset the transition from core to prime. Sulfur or bismuth trioxide or? Going to look up if there is a solvent for bismuth trioxide. I also put a dozen or so in water and the prime came off. The core seems quite a bit more dense than the prime as at a slight angle they roll away while chunks of the prime stay put. It is amazing how small the cores are and yet still give a decent pop. I have misplaced my digital calipers but probably 1-2 mm spheres. Much smaller than my 3 mm cubes but also not nearly as loud. I had some green spheres filled with DE and from probably ten years ago and it did seem like those had a noticeable red tint to the core. I will see if I have any left to play with. I'm just surprised that the Chinese websites don't sell either chemical when it is such a widely used effect. They do seem to carry all the necessary oxidizers, metal salts, metals, chloride donors, etc to make most any effect. Just seems like a strange omission. Can anyone verify that lead is no longer allowed in consumer fireworks like I seem to remember reading? If that is the case I would imagine it is periodically tested for and as wide spread of an effect it would quickly be singled out as a no go. Maybe I'm giving our government too much credit. But if I can buy a lead test kit at Wal-Mart I -think- they could pull it off. Or maybe the no lead rule only applies to domestic manufacture which also wouldn't surprise me. Anyways, I find these little DE quite interesting to give such noise from so little and without confinement or extreme sensitivity. I don't know if anyone else is interested but I will keep playing with them. It also seems like there were a couple formulas floating around that were supposedly for DE yet contained neither chemical. I will look around for them to try again as I think I have them written down in a notebook. I wish I had all the time and resources to test all the things I have in my notes. Edit: wow, that sure did turn into a wall of text Edited November 16, 2014 by FlaMtnBkr
Maserface Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 It's not realistic to compare our tiny retail market to the buying power of 500-1000 fireworks factories in china- I'm guessing they use bismuth. Though it wouldn't be a surprise if some factories used lead.
schroedinger Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 Also there is the possibilty that they are using other oxides then lead or bishmuth which are cheap too.
taiwanluthiers Posted November 16, 2014 Author Posted November 16, 2014 Maybe someone can chemically analyze some and see what they are... you know spectrophotometry or even more advanced ones... given enough money and resources.
Jakenbake Posted November 16, 2014 Posted November 16, 2014 (edited) I got to get me some of that bishmuth! lol Edited November 16, 2014 by Jakenbake
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