Fairy Fountain

[Ubehage]

I noticed that this very nice formula is not listed in this forum.

This is NOT my creation! All credits go to Lloyd Sponenburgh.

 

Name of composition: Fairy Fountain

Composition Type: Slow fountain/Waterfall

Creator: Lloyd Sponenburgh

Color/Effect: Waterfall of golden sparks with occational bright blue-ish sparks.

Procedure/Preparation: Screen-mix the ingredients except the Titanium. Add Titanium as the last thing and shake the composition. Do NOT put Titanium through your screens!

Wet with water.

 

 

KNO3 - 44%

Charcoal - 40%

Sulfur - 6%

Dextrin - 6%

Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) - 3%

Titanium (Spherical Sponge) - 1%

 

These fountains don't do well if you make them too wide, or if you make the nozzle too narrow.

If the nozzle is too narrow, the sparks will tend to burn themself out before leaving the tube.

And if the tube is too wide, it seems like the effect is dissapating: The same amount of sparks now over a larger area. Obviously, this is not what is actually happening. But that is my visual description of why it's not working well.

1"-tubes is what I consider to be the largest functional for this fountain. But you can make several of them side-by-side.

 

You can add more Ti to spike it up with extra blue-ish sparks.

I found that 10% is the limit for what I think looks nice.

 

Here is a video of the procedure and final product. Once again, not my work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtckrUTXHGY

Edited December 23, 2015 by Ubehage

[lloyd]

Glad you like it! It continues to be a 'favorite effect' with my wife and other women -- and I kind-of like it, too. <G>

 

We did a half-dozen pyro effects for that movie. The video only depicts (*apparently*) the one fairy fountain, but doesn't show the setup for launching the comets to complete the Roman Candle effects for the camera, or the LP-gas flame-bar apparatus to make the fire in the tree.

 

It was typical 'movie set' stuff... set yourself up, then wait five hours to do a two minute take... then wait, again for an hour or two, until they've seen 'proofs' to ensure they got the shot! <G>

 

I'll say that the more-sparse the titanium sparks are, the more "magical" it appears. When they become too dense, the effect looks more-or-less like any other titanium fountain. But when they're sparse, they make the "fairies" from whence came the name.

 

Lloyd

Edited December 23, 2015 by lloyd

[pyrokid]

Hey Lloyd,

 

What is the mechanism for the production of blue sparks? I've only seen Ti make the characteristic bright gold or silver sparks. Is it that the silver Ti flashes appear blue against the charcoal fire dust?

[lloyd]

Exactly that, Pyrokid!

 

The gold is SO gold that the white sparks appear to the eye to be blue(ish). It's (as I like to say) "an ocular delusion"! <G>

 

Lloyd

[Edwards]

Very nice effect -- what is the role of the calcium carbonate?

[lloyd]

It cools and slows the burn, and it makes the charcoal plume a little bit more reddish-orange. As you can see, there's not much in the formula.

 

It was used for 'tuning' the speed and brightness to our needs for the movie scenes. I wanted much more 'drop' and very little 'spray'. It also had to be quite dim, in order not to conflict with the scene lighting.

 

Lloyd

[Edwards]

Thanks, Lloyd. The occassional blue sparks still have me confused. I understand that an intense color creates an after-ghost of its complement -- your "ocular delusion." If the sparks are intense orange, this could explain that someone observing the fountain itself might see blue, but the sparks in the video are not so intense by nature and blue still shows up (in the video). Is it possible that the sparks actually are blue, occassionally?

[lloyd]

Eh... I doubt it. There's nothing inherent in that formula that would create blue, and titanium usually burns pure white (or a slightly yellowish-white, if you get the cheap Chinese stuff made by the sodium-reduction process, and containing traces of NaCl). That usually only affects sponge material. The formula calls out spheroidal material, which is usually very pure, even if sodium-reduced.

 

Just a note on the first post... It says "spherical sponge" in the list of ingredients. Nope; those are two different materials. Sponge is sponge, and spherical is spherical.

 

I suspect it's a video artifact; something about the camera, perhaps.

 

Still, the sparks do look just a little bit blueISH to the observer. If you view the video excerpts from the movie (as opposed to Ned's vids), you'll not see that as noticeably.

 

Lloyd

Edited December 23, 2015 by lloyd

[lloyd]

And PPS... that movie was filmed on FILM (Super-35), not digitally, so the colors and dynamic range are probably better than you'd get with consumer digital equipment.

 

LLoyd

[MrB]

Painters secret. (Yeah, i know, hardly a secret. Any painter knows this.) White pops with a hint of blue added to it. I wouldn't be at all shocked if it turns out that Ti burns with a small peak in the blue spectrum, and that causes us to see it as crazy white. Anyone got a setup to analyze the light spectrum of burning stuffs?

B!

[Edwards]

I looked at the two fountains in the video in slow-motion. The second fountain, from the movie, was shot against a blue building so I couldn't see if the sparks were blue. (The point was the movie anyhow, not the color of the sparks.) But the first fountain had blue and maybe also red flashing sparks -- striking. The red ones were in the first few seconds and the blue were mostly in the first third of the burn and exploded mostly low down. The pattern could reflect reaction conditions, but there are no obvious suspects for flashes of color in the ingredients. Still puzzling. At least there aren't too many ingredients...

[SKC]

Hi Lloyd, I see that Nitrate & FeTi present in your formula. Can I make them now & store it for six month?

I doubt metal Nitrate reaction which may reduce the effect.

Regards,

SKC

[MintuDas001]

Wow, nice effect