cut or rolled

[Merlin]

This is my second year and I am thinking of attempting rolled stars. My question is do rolled stars perform any better than cut stars as far as making more symmetrical burst patterns? Of course I am aware of their advantage in color change effects. Last year I couldnt seem to get my shells to look as good as the chinese imports.

Thanks

[pyrokid]

If you have reasonable uniformity in your round stars, you can expect better breaks. The round stars conform better to the hemisphere and more or less maintain their shape through their burn duration, causing more uniform flight characteristics.

[Wiley]

If making cylinders, cut stars will give you the best performance beause they, when packed in a flammable filler such as pulverone, give the shell the rigidity it needs to survive the lift. This becomes especially important when making multibreaks.

 

But if you're making ball shells, rounder is better. Spherical shapes tend to fly farther and straigher than cut stars, which can burn less uniformly and deviate from a straight flight path. That doesn't mean you can't get good breaks with cut stars, but it definitely isn't as easy. It also depends on what you think a "good break" looks like

[schroedinger]

For peony type ball shells, rolled stars are the best you will get.

 

If you want effects like swimming then pumped or cut stars are better suited.

 

Just something i would recommend, make a couple spider type ball shells, they are easy for making good paterns and you can learn a lot from them.

[VikingPyrotechnics]

If you want good timing on your stars, then round stars is what you looking for. Even with stars that i made with a starblade, didn't give me such a precise timing, round stars will give you. ( But you have to roll precise round stars. tolerance +- 0.5mm )

 

Greets

VP