insutama Posted July 11, 2015 Posted July 11, 2015 I was playing around with a fusee at work and once you strike them they have a super bright red flame for 10 minutes im guessing there is strontium nitrate and a oxidizer and sulphur in them. I broke one open and it seems like there is a igniter that goes about 3 inches down into the composition it must have to get super hot before the composition will ignite because I tried lighting the composition with a lighter and I couldn't get it to light does anyone know why this is ? I would like to try to make sa colored flame firework with this comp but I don't know how I can get it to light with a fuse does anyone have any idea how I could get normal visco to light the composition or would I have to extract the strontium nitrate from the sulphur and other ingrediants to make this work?
Richtee Posted July 11, 2015 Posted July 11, 2015 Crack em open and soak the stuff in water, strain well and evap the water. Poof..S nitrate.
insutama Posted July 11, 2015 Author Posted July 11, 2015 Intresting how long do I soak for ? Would boiling water work better ?
pyrokid Posted July 11, 2015 Posted July 11, 2015 I have seen information that many flares may be based on ammonium perchlorate, which is well suited to this application due to the slow burn rate of many AP compositions.
insutama Posted July 11, 2015 Author Posted July 11, 2015 I found the msds and it looks like it's kclo4 based
Richtee Posted July 11, 2015 Posted July 11, 2015 I never used boiling. And also..I was speaking of standard road flares. Dunno about these "railroad" ones I guess.
insutama Posted July 11, 2015 Author Posted July 11, 2015 how long did you soak for before straining ?
insutama Posted July 12, 2015 Author Posted July 12, 2015 okay i extracted some off white powder from the fusee's how can i tell if this is strontium nitrate ?
Sparx88 Posted July 12, 2015 Posted July 12, 2015 mix up a small couple gram red star comp with it. Maybe like this; 3.0 gram s.nitrate1.0 gram dark flake aluminum0.2 gram sulfur Just dry mix it and light a small pile. Tape a 3" peice of fuse to whatever your going to burn it on and leave only .5 inch on one side. Put the pile on that side.
insutama Posted July 13, 2015 Author Posted July 13, 2015 okay i tried this and yes it was kinda red but it burnt so bright it was kinda hard to tell and it burnt quite fast
Sparx88 Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 Cool, so now you know it is in fact S. nitrate. You can back off the aluminum to .5 gram to slow it down. The recipe above was mostly for finding out if you have the nitrate. If you have parlon or pvc etc chlorine donor add .5 gram to bring out more red. There are a LOT of red star comps out there to try. I like this red due to it's simplicity and few chems needed. My favorite is Ruby Red but that one has a lot of ingrediants. On this one however I substitute 100-200 mesh magnalium for the magnesium, and 15 parlon and no pvc. This is one you bind with acetone or mek and cut stars. Bleser red magnesium 55 Strontium nitrate 28 Magnesium (100-200 mesh) 10 Parlon 7 PVC
taiwanluthiers Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 I have seen a flare a long time ago, basically the striker composition extends about 1" into the flare, while the rest is basically sawdust soaked or mixed with strontium nitrate...
insutama Posted July 13, 2015 Author Posted July 13, 2015 perfect now i need to get a chlorine donor. what would be a good slow burning red flare comp i was thinking of making a red fountain for now seem as i dont have much other chemicals for stars im still waiting on some chemicals. is it possible to make a slow burning red flare type comp ? the fusess almost burns good for a fountain but its impossible to light with visco like taiwanluthiers said there is striker composition that extends 1" into the fusee and without this you can not light the composition.
Sparx88 Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 Thats an area I don't know much about fountains or flares. I am interested in it and will help wherever I can though. I thought of maybe using one of my 5/8 rocket tubes and just build it with a slower comp with added firefly aluminum and/or 8-20 mesh ferro Ti. I think I read once that coarse red iron oxide can be used for the sparkles. I would imagine that an over fueled comp would be better for slowing it down rather than over oxidized. Really a rocket is a fountain with turbos, just flip em around. But yah, I'm just thinking so don't take everything I said too seriously. I'm going to see if I can get one built a fountain for tomorrow night using a rocket tube with a nozzle. Should be a blast! well hope not anyway.
insutama Posted July 13, 2015 Author Posted July 13, 2015 i have made lots of fountains with my 1/2 end burner rocket tooling and i just mixed some black powder together with some iron shavings didnt ball mill just screened and mixed them then i rammed a clay nozzle and continuted with the mixture of iron charcoal sulphur and kno3 i belever i used 60 30 10 ratio for it and they worked great lots of sparks. Id like to try this but using strontium nitrate and a fuel but i dont know how sensitive it would be when im ramming it into tubes.
Arthur Posted July 14, 2015 Posted July 14, 2015 One design feature of railroad flares is that they burn for a long time, usually this is controlled by the fuel and it's mixing and particle size. I suspect that the casing is intended to burn down so that the flame is always visible.
insutama Posted July 14, 2015 Author Posted July 14, 2015 ya it seems like the casing does burn away i want to make a red flame that burns faster than the railway fusee like maybe a 4 second red flame how can i achieve this without having to ram the composition or is it safe to ram a composition with strontium nitrate ? also i just wanna use a 3" tube to do make this. i have seen videos on youtube were guys make a nice red flare for about 4 seconds then it explodes i want the flare part not the salute at the end.
Arthur Posted July 14, 2015 Posted July 14, 2015 Four seconds is only a large star! Good flare compounds are stable and burn without a bang, but they can bang if they have been broken or partly crushed
insutama Posted July 14, 2015 Author Posted July 14, 2015 so whats a good red flare composition that doesnt require a whole lot of stuff i have all the basic stuff but no chlorine donar as of now
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