clarkie752 Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 The first shell is a 2.5" shell I made using the brilliant red rubber stars formula from ned gorski. I used a thin layer of monocapa prime on the stars and got good ignition but not all the stars lit. I broke the shell with straight 4 fa bp I made with willow charcoal and granulated with water and dextrin.https://youtu.be/EWHBjI82j8AThe second is the first 4 inch shell I made it may have went to high but I am hoping to get feed back on it here. It was also broke with 4 fa bp same as first shell. The stars are tigertail to Shimizu blue #1 no delay just from TT straight to blue.https://youtu.be/NsN41E1xe_oI still consider myself a newbie since I have only been doing this for about a year and 3 months so please leave some suggestions on how I can improve. (other than the camera) both were taken with smart phones.
braddsn Posted April 6, 2015 Posted April 6, 2015 First off, very cool shells . The red color in the first shell is impressive! A note on the monocapa prime: prime color stars with .5mm of monocapa, then a final 1mm layer of bp is recommended on top. I have been discussing this with Jopetes (the guy that invented Monocapa). I am getting 100% star ignition by using this priming method, even on shells with hard breaks. Also, in your Monocapa prime, make sure you are using high quality charcoal, and the prime is even more effective if you use Dark Aluminum instead of Magnalium. I will post a video below of an example of good ignition with a hard break. I was at first confused, because I thought the Monocapa could be used by itself. It can in SOME cases, however, it is best to just always put a 1mm layer of bp over the top of it. On your 4 incher (my favorite size), I would cut 1 second off of your timefuse, and drop your lift charge some. Hard to tell from a video, but I watched it several times and it seems like it lifted a little hot, and timefuse was about a second too long. But regardless of all that, nice job! Here is a little 3 that was one of my very first shells using Monocapa. I broke it hard, and still got full ignition. Unfortunately, my camera doesn't pick up the color blue very well, but in person this was a pretty blue. I am a big believer in Monocapa. It is a winner. 2
clarkie752 Posted April 7, 2015 Author Posted April 7, 2015 Thanks brad. I was under the impression that it was a single layer prime so I didn't put any bp prime on top. I will put the layer of bp prime on top from now on. I think the extra second of timing was my fault. I was being lazy and instead of cross matching the time fuse I dipped it in nc/bp slurry and then added 4fa bp granules to it that's most likely where the extra time came into play. As for the lift your right it was way to hot. That was the first 4 inch shell I ever made and I used 12 or 15% of the shell weight to lift it. That was definitely too much lift. Thanks for the comments and this will help me to become a better shell builder.
braddsn Posted April 9, 2015 Posted April 9, 2015 Clarkie, I was a little confused as well about the monocapa. I was under the impression that it was a 'single layer' prime. I do believe it will work as single layer in some cases. But consensus is that a thin layer of bp over the top makes it even more effective. The good thing about monocapa, it lights ANYTHING.
Livingston Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 It's all about the prime with stsr ignition. On the 4" you mention in the video description that you used 51g of 2fa to lift 338g.. That's a lot. Why did you decide to use that amount?
clarkie752 Posted April 10, 2015 Author Posted April 10, 2015 livingston: i used that much because it was my first shell bigger than 2.5" and i wanted to make sure it went high enough but that was a bit overkill. i dialed it back after i shot that shell. As you could tell that shell went to the moon. I definitely used way too much lift.
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