2" Cylinder salute shell construction!?

[TheGandalf]

Hello.

Is there any of you out there know how I construct a salute cylinder shell.

Can not quite imagine the picture in my head.

When I need to spike the shell, there is nothing to push against.!

Will my casing be flattened when it is spiked?

//TheGandalf

[nater]

The salute casing needs to be thick. Commercial thick walled spiral wound tubes are often used while the traditional method is to roll a core out of folded newsprint. A few others and I have shared pictures in the past, search for hand rolled bottom shot construction.

 

Both methods for hand rolling cores and using thick tubes are outlined in Traditional Cylinder Shell Construction Parts I and II aka the Fulcanelli Papers. Please research and ask more questions before continuing with salutes. If you cannot spike the shell without indentations, it will not likely survive the lift.

[TheGandalf]

Hmm Okay.

 

I think i'll stick to ball shell salutes then

[nater]

No need to give up, cylinder shells are great. Just know that the technique for salutes is a little different than a color break. Remember that a cylinder shell gains much of its strength by being filled solid and strong spiking. A ball shell takes advantage of the strength of the sphere shape and good pasting.

[schroedinger]

Gandalf look out for stretch wrap (the 20 cm wide stuff). This is usally supplied on 39 mm i.d. 49 m o.d. core, which i qjite perfect fkr salutes. These use no spiking.

[MrB]

Cylinder salutes... I always make them the same way. 2 fairly thick tubes, that "just" slides one over the other. Cut the smaller diameter one approximately 1.5 times longer then the diameter, And the larger diameter tube should be 2x the diameter of the smaller tube. Ram, or press a clay plug around a timefuze in the larger diameter tube, and "just" a clay plug in the smaller diameter tube. The plugs should be half the diameter of the smaller tube, in thickness. (At least. If they are made thicker, you need to compensate for it in the tube lengths.) Fill the inner tube with flash, (I've been "binary" filling them with KNO3/MgAl, and leaving 10-15% of the space free for the mixing to take place.) and add (wood) glue to the inside of the larger tube. Slide them together. Top fuse it, and stick 2-3 layers of double-walled well-pap for each inch diameter shell, between the shell, and the lift-charge. Make sure to test fire in buried mortars when testing it out, but i have actually never had a shell be compromised in the mortar. I'd very much imagine that a "flowerpot" would shred most mortars, so making sure shrapnel cant go anywhere is critical when dialing in. Anything from how well your particular bentonite clay holds up, to the power of your lift, or the stiffness of your well-pap might make it a bad experience, so to speak.

I've gone with slightly thinner clay plugs then i ideally want for confinement, and being able to resist the lift, and instead "pad" the shell with well-pap to make sure it survives the lift. I also put the fuse in the larger plug, to make it weaker, so that (hopefully) no larger solid chunks of clay return to earth. I doubt these would take the load of being used as bottom-shots, i roll those the more... traditional way. I should apparently be compacting the flash a lot more then i am, but so far i've been relying on the walls of the tube, and the layers of material to take the brunt of the lift-charge. But for standalone salutes, they work wonders, and i can pre-fab bunches, assembly is nice and easy.

The use of glue & particles, commonly Ti or Ferro-Ti to make donuts, or sparkly clouds in the sky seams to work well. My Fe-Ti is way to small in particle size, to make it justice, but it's there.

B!

[nater]

I do not like clay plugs in shells. The clay plug is not always destroyed by the burst and can become a very fast projectile on your shoot site.

[MrB]

I do not like clay plugs in shells. The clay plug is not always destroyed by the burst and can become a very fast projectile on your shoot site.

 

I've heard this claim before, but i've never seen it actually happen. There is a few reasons, that even if it happened, it shouldn't really be a concern. One is that shooting pyro shouldn't be done over crowds, or other peoples properties, like cars and such. Another is, that even if the plug gets ejected as a whole, and comes racing down, it ain't heavy enough to do much harm, without some really crazy speeds behind it. It's going to be tumbling quite badly, so it's terminal velocity wont be high enough to actually do you much damage.

 

If "fallout" is a worry. Stop using rockets. :- ) Thats why i stick mainly to shell & mortars.

B!

[schroedinger]

If you use paper tubes, 3 paper discs provide enough strenght.

But it is easier to just glue in one disc (on the inside 1cm deep) insert the TF and fill the void with hot glue and close up with a 2nd disc with the o.d. of the tube. Now just fill with flash and repeat on the other side.

[MrB]

Here i have to use my pitchfork. I don't like hot-melt glue. It really does provide shrapnel, it doesn't naturally degrade in the environment, and just introducing the glue-gun in the pyro-workshop is something i avoid. I don't think the plastics falling from the sky will hurt anyone, or anything, but i don't like distributing it in the nature anyway.

It does make for quick n' easy shell construction.

B!

[nater]

Hot melt glue also can create a strong plug to turn into a projectile. A friend of mine had a bad cut on his eye after being hit in the face from a clay plug that was in a 2" flash broken cylinder shell. His glasses broke causing the cuts, but it would have been worse without them on. Shooter safety is important too, fallout should never rain down on the crowd if you planned correct distances.

[Sparx88]

Try rolling 3' of 60-70# kraft around a 1 1/2" former 3" wide using thinned wood glue like tight bond original. Cut the strip into 3 pieces or whatever makes it easier. Should end up with 3/16" wall thickness. Cut some cardboard discs 4 for each end and paint them with straight wood glue, pva etc, stack them 4 high and compress between wax paper and some large bricks or whatever heavies you have. Give them a day to set and unwrap them to finish drying. I make a few dozen at a time, they're a pita otherwise. When dry they will be as hard a hockey puck, trim to fit the can inside and glue, let dry, you know. Make a bunch at a time. Also put a fuse hole and glue the other half discs at the same time. When all is dry fill them 3/4 with favorite vit f and glue in the remaining fused disc's. Or reverse it glueing in the fused discs first, no benefit either way, whatever is easier. let the cans dry for a day or two and then spike em. I even like using 3M fiberglass reinforced strapping tape 2-3 layers around after taping the ends.

 

Or not, any of it, it's just one of the ways I do it. Nothing really special just build them beefy and well contained. It's all about generating as much pressure possible before they pop.

[Mumbles]

Sparx, have you ever tried making a book or rolling out of chipboard? It's pretty easy, and doesn't involve any glue. Even if you don't roll straight, you can set the paper back into place.

[Wiley]

I made this video and posted it over on FW. This is how I make cores for bottom shots in my consumer-sized multibreaks. I've applied thinned wood glue to the strip immediately prior to rolling it up and snugging it down. This creates a rock hard tube, but isn't needed if the core is filled completely and spiked vertically.

 

Also, you don't need to beat the core straight while it's on the former, just roll it up close, twist it off, then beat the edges flat.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm4AF3USe6M

Edited February 3, 2016 by Wiley