braddsn Posted March 8, 2015 Posted March 8, 2015 This is an improved version of the shell I posted a week ago. Thanks to all who critiqued it before, I used the criticism and used larger stars and slow flash booster. Here is the result. I am happy with it! Nice, snappy and bright! Sorry that the lift got cut out of the video.. not sure how that happened.
psyco_1322 Posted March 8, 2015 Posted March 8, 2015 (edited) Think it looks much better! That's with less Ti in it also? Edited March 8, 2015 by psyco_1322 1
nt8 Posted March 8, 2015 Posted March 8, 2015 Good break, congrat! How many grams slow flash did you used? And which slow flash was? 5/3/2?
ExplosiveCoek Posted March 8, 2015 Posted March 8, 2015 Maybe even less lift next time? The break can still be a bit bigger if you ask me .
db5086 Posted March 8, 2015 Posted March 8, 2015 Very nice Brad. Just a touch less lift and that one's perfect. What do your little colored 3's weigh in in at if you don't mind. I'm still trying to match weight, tf, lift myself since switching to paper hemis but I'm getting closer.
enanthate Posted March 8, 2015 Posted March 8, 2015 (edited) Nice! Got one ready to be fired myself, will post vid It looks kinda whiteish tho, no?Edit: Just groundtested mine, also very bright. Nevermind.Whats next? May I suggest melilac from nt8 if you havent already tried them? Its such a nice color when fired in front of your eyes! Edited March 8, 2015 by enanthate
braddsn Posted March 9, 2015 Author Posted March 9, 2015 Psyco, yep... dropped down to 5% on the Ti just like we talked about. And I also have some stars drying with this comp with NO titanium. I think the turquoise looks best without any Ti, but since I am going to have so many 3 inch shells in my display, I may as well throw some Ti in some of em for variety. Nt8, thanks for the compliment. I used slow flash (50-Kno3, 25-Sulfur, 25-10890 AL). I dusted my burst with 2% of burst weight. A couple of you mentioned "less lift". What did you mean by that? It may be hard to tell by video but altitude was perfect.. about 350 ft. I think I have the timing/altitude down right. The break on this particular shell is relatively small compared to others, and that is by design. The comp is very fast burning and the stars in this shell are 9-10mm. Any larger and I couldn't fit enough burst in. I will post more vids soon of other colors, the breaks will be bigger for sure. This is my smallest diameter color break for my 3" shells.
braddsn Posted March 9, 2015 Author Posted March 9, 2015 Enanthate, it is somewhat washed out, but part of the reason that mine is a little washed out is because of the Ti that I added. I like the Ti effect in some stars.. the little tails look kinda cool. But I will be firing some next week with no Ti.. the color I am sure will be more pure.
Mumbles Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 If you screen out the finer Ti, you can limit the washing out somewhat. I like to keep everything +100 mesh. It's still not perfect, but looks better to me.
ExplosiveCoek Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 The break looked a bit small to me, but sounded decent. So that is why I figured that if you shoot it a little lower, the break might appear bigger. Of course it is always difficult for us to tell this based on the video you gave us solely. It is always best to tune according to one's personal taste and preferences.
enanthate Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 Paused the video just after the break. Could watch that all day, its a special color, very nice. Did you fix your camera? Looks much better on this one
braddsn Posted March 10, 2015 Author Posted March 10, 2015 Enanthate, yes I am using a different camera. The camera I used to use was older and 6 megapixel. I used my Galaxy S4 to video this shell. Much better! I will be using my phone camera from now on.
Livingston Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 lol..phone camera is I film all mine!! lol..haaaaaaaaa...whats burst weight for shell 3"?
psyco_1322 Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 lol..phone camera is I film all mine!! lol..haaaaaaaaa...whats burst weight for shell 3"? It's not much, your talking a good pinch of ricehulls per hemi. Total shell weight is only probably 100-140g.
braddsn Posted March 11, 2015 Author Posted March 11, 2015 YEah I am not sure what burst weight is, but it's not very much. I like making 3 inchers because it seems like it takes almost nothing to build them, but they are still relatively hard hitters. Cheap fun!! All of my burst from now on will contain 2% slow flash, then I will add a small amount of fast flash to tweak if I need to. I think the last time I weighed a 3" shell, it was like 128g. I don't weigh them though, I use 30g of lift no matter what. I only weigh shells from 4" and up.
ExplosiveCoek Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 That probably explains why they are going so high, roughly 10-15 grams of quality lift should be sufficient for a 3''. 8% of the totall shell weight.
Wiley Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 I use 8g of 2Fg to shoot my break and report shells. Those weigh around 125g depending on what the effect is. If you're using 2FA, I'd be curious to see what 15g would do.
ExplosiveCoek Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 I use homemade lift . Size is between -10# +80#. 8 g is possible indeed, I use 7% on shell's bigger then 3'' most of the time. Sometimes on 3'' too. However, the essence here was to compare the huge difference in lift powder. It is almost double/triple the required amount.
nt8 Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 I use 8% homemade lift BP for 3" shell, as ExplosiveCoek also. Sometimes this is too much, the shell gone too high. The 6-7% at 4"-6" was enough, and sometimes was too much also. All of my mortar tubes are 40-50 cm in 3", 50-70 cm in 4".My lift BP made from alder buckthorn charcoal, what ball milled 2 hours.
braddsn Posted March 12, 2015 Author Posted March 12, 2015 A note on lift: I have 2 sizes of 3" hemi's. For those of you who have ordered hemi's from different sources, you will find that this happens sometimes. The shells I am firing right now came from skylighter, and they are quite small. Even with 6-8 layers pasted, they are much too small for my mortars. However, I have a new case of shells from Little China Fireworks, and they are quite a bit bigger and are going to fit nicely in the guns. I have no doubt that with the larger hemis, I will drop the lift charge down quite a bit, possibly by half. I am a believer that a shell fitting nicely in a mortar makes the lift MUCH more efficient. With my 4" shells, they fit nicely in the mortars, and I use 10% of shell weight and it gets them up to altitude nicely. Hopefully that makes sense. There is an article somewhere where Ned Gorski recommends to use 30g of lift for all 3" plastic shells. I read that article, and that is what gave me the idea to use 30 for these smaller shells. Hopefully all of that makes sense. There is a method to my madness..
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