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My first ever SUCCESSFUL 3" Shells (3 shells, 3 videos)


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Posted

Hey guys, just wanted to share my excitement , joy and gratitude with you guys because I successfully made 3 Italo-American 3" Shells and I believe without you guys this wouldn't have been possible

 

 

 

They are 3" Shells, they all contain Tigertail Stars AND Firefly Stars. I like to call them Tiger Fire although I'm sure there's another term for it along with some added modifications described below.

 

 

 

The first one is a simple 50%:50% mix of TT and Firefly (Tiger Fire)

 

Second video, I added coarse 10-20 mesh sponge titanium just by itself sprinkled in with the stars while I was filling it all through out the shell to see what would happen. I call it Tiger Fire with Titanium Rain.

 

Third shell is the same as the second but I added a 1/4" ring of bright flake -325 mesh Alcoa 120 and 100-200 mesh Magnalium in the middle between the tiger tail stars and firefly stars as well as the titanium. I like to call it Tiger Fire + Magnalium Core & Titanium Rain

 

Tigerfire -

 

 

Tiger Fire + Titanium Rain -

 

 

Tiger Fire + Titanium Rain & Magnalium Core -

 

 

 

 

Let me know what you think, any feed back appreciated!!

Posted

I can only hope my eventual first shells look this good.

Posted

I actually hate it when color shells are made cylindrical. The breaks aren't even at most times and don't allow rolled stars to be placed in the casing(one layer of stars, not placing in a tube to separate the stars and burst).

Posted

These aren't color shells. I'm not a fan of cylindrical shells too, mine are all round.
But nice job, these are some really nice first shells !
You could maybe break them a little harder, they would become more symmetrical too.

Posted

Its all about orientation. Thats why these seem off. To get a perfect view of a cylinder shell you have to get pretty lucky with how the shell breaks in regards to the location of the viewer. This is why cylindrical pattern shells are usually done in flights so you have a good chance to see a couple of em.

 

Wizard. You can put rolled stars in a cylinder shell.. I do it all the time just fine. Its a myth saying you cant.

Posted

I thought he meant that you can't just line the casing with round stars like you can with ball shells. I would just like to point out that the equivalent with cylinder shells uses pumped stars stacked around the edge like brick work.

 

The advice against round stars in cylinder shells came from the fear that you couldn't pack the shell solidly enough. The analogy between a bag of marbles and a bag of bricks came up pretty regularly. This fear has been realized to be unfounded. I know I'm guilty of saying this myself.

 

Anyway, those shells looked really good. I didn't get much out of the MgAl break, but that might just be me.

Posted (edited)

These are nitrate based stars , they are not color shells. They burn orange because it's basically black powder mixed to different ratios and charcoal burns orange/red. While I was filling these with stars I added different metals just by themselves into the little spaces and gaps between stars mixed with 5FA black powder to make sure the shell body is rock hard solid and ready for spiking.

 

The metals give the shell different breaks and effects. Like the titanium gives bright white sparks and the magnalium gives a snowball flash in the middle of the break. The fireflies give the white glitter trails etc etc

Edited by Nickmaslo
Posted

Anyway, those shells looked really good. I didn't get much out of the MgAl break, but that might just be me.

Thank you mumbles that means a lot coming from you. I know that a lot of the methods I employed here I learned from reading your posts and advice.

Posted

I thought they were great. You got a lot of height with the lift which works great for the rain. How much and what grade did you use for lift?

Posted
2FA Hot BP. No dextrin and granulated with just denatured alcohol , no water or dextrin at all. I used 10% of the weight of the shell so about 1.25oz.
Posted (edited)
Deleted Edited by Nickmaslo
Posted
Lol is that you saying yeah baby holding the cigarette ?
Posted
Lol yeah it was my first successful shell and I was excited. My roommate could tell so he put the lens on me
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