BlueComet24 Posted February 7, 2016 Posted February 7, 2016 Name of composition: Improved Paraffin Smoke (IPS)Composition Type: SmokeCreator: BlueComet24Color: WhiteComposition:KNO3 48%Paraffin Wax 28%Powdered Sugar 24% Precautions/Incompatibilites: No common incompatibilites. Don't get hot wax or hot water on yourself!Procedure/Preparation:1. Weigh out the KNO3 and powdered sugar. If the KNO3 is not already finely powdered, grind it until it is.2. Dry the KNO3 and sucrose in an oven. I found that 30 minutes at 120°C (250°F) was enough, but it may take longer.3. Weigh out the wax and put it in a container to melt it in. Do not use a nice container or cooking ware.4. Heat a bowl of water to at least 37°C (98.6°F) to melt the wax. You can't get the water too hot, so I recommend heating it until it starts to bubble.5. Screen together the powders. Make sure to mix them thoroughly and to eliminate any lumps.6. Put the container with the wax in it into the bowl of hot water. The wax should fully melt and become clear. Don't let any water get into the wax.7. Stir half the powder mixture into the wax, let the wax melt again, and stir in the rest.8. Once the composition is melted again, it can be cast into tubes. Notes:- I use tea candle wax, and a single one of my tea candles weighs just about 14g, exactly enough for 50g of IPS. Other types of wax may work, but I cannot confirm yet if they will. I will test this in the future and provide updates.- This comp's smoke is prone to flaring (because it's largely particulate paraffin), so make sure to choke your tube or put a cardboard disk with a hole securely on the top of the tube.- If your chemicals are dry enough and your wax is good, this comp can be lit by American visco. Otherwise (and really always, just to be sure) you should make a hole in the comp before it solidifies and put a prime into it. I recommend something that produces lots of hot slag, such as Peregrin's basic meal gold fountain comp (8 KNO3, 3 S, 2 meal).- This comp should be very water-resistant, but I have yet to test this.- Approximately 40-50g of IPS can fit into a 1x2.5" tube, and may burn for as long as two minutes.- Unlike rocket candy, IPS is a tame smoke comp, and will not explode if there are air bubbles in it. It also (if it's properly choked) does not spit a large flame, making it safer near flammable materials.- The lack of a need to heat the composition to high heats makes IPS much safer to make than most rocket candy. 1
schroedinger Posted February 7, 2016 Posted February 7, 2016 How do you melt parafine wax at 37ºC. I is just softens a little but is nowhere being castable. Also why do you cal it IPS and not legendary like normal?
BlueComet24 Posted February 7, 2016 Author Posted February 7, 2016 Paraffin melts at around 37°C, but you should heat it hotter than that to get it fully liquid. I probably should have been clearer in stating this. What I really meant was that the water must be hotter than 37°C, so heating it until it bubbles should be plenty. Get the water hot enough to fully melt the wax and remelt it several minutes later while it's still warm. I find that 4 minutes in my microwave is enough to keep about 500ml of water hot enough to make 100 or 200g of comp.My composition is not the same as the "legendary" comp. Legendary smoke is 60 KNO3, 40 paraffin, and 40 powdered sugar, or about 43% KNO3, 28.5% paraffin, and 28.5% powdered sugar. I optimized this comp by making the amounts of ingredients add up evenly to 100, be divisible to easily make a half or quarter batch while still having integer amounts of chemicals, and use whole tea candles one at a time.
BlueComet24 Posted February 8, 2016 Author Posted February 8, 2016 I tested three different kinds of wax: white tea candle wax, Parowax canning wax, and some yellowish wax from scented candles. All were charged into .75x2.5" tubes, primed with about .5g of Peregrin basic meal gold fountain comp, fused with American visco, and capped with aluminum tape.Results:The IPS made with tea candle wax lit and was self-sustaining.The IPS made with Parowax was hesitant to light at first, but did catch fire and was self-sustaining.The IPS made with the yellowish candle wax did not light and was only self-sustaining after much blowtorching with a propane torch.I believe that even though it should be more refined, the Parowax did not work as well as the tea candle wax because Parowax is meant for sealing jars, not burning/vaporizing.Conclusion:Purer waxes are better for making IPS. The best wax is pure candle wax, free from additives such as fragrances and colorants. I'm currently running another experiment right now. I made a completed smoke flare from tea candle IPS and cast a cylinder of IPS with a hole for prime and fuse. The cast piece is not in a tube and weighs 21.6g. I put it in a vial and covered it with about 15ml of cold water, and will let it sit for several days, then test both the soaked and non-soaked IPS side-by-side.
lloyd Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 Blue,I applaud experimentation, but you'd be WAY better-off discarding IPP and those "Peregrin" (Dan Dolata) formulae for good, reputable, 'industry standard' formulae. The problem with Dan's stuff is that the beginner cannot discern from the text what is unduly dangerous, and what is 'normal practice'. He recommends methods that can readily result in maiming or be fatal if they go awry (like cooking 'CIA'-style powder in a glass carafe!!!), and many formulae or instructions that have been mis-copied, mis-attributed, or just never tested by him before inclusion in the book. Get thyself a copy (each!) of Shimizu, Lancaster, and Hardt (at the barest of minimums), then proceed to look up and cross-reference various formulae among those sources, in order to get a better feel for how they're actually used in industry. Dan meant well with that booklet of his, but he didn't execute well, even ignoring major editorial changes recommended by his several proof-readers. He's accidentally endangered a lot of folks by his omissions as well as his erred inclusions there. And... please tell me the 'vial' you put the water & smoke candle into was polyethylene plastic, not glass, styrene, or acrylic! Lloyd 1
BlueComet24 Posted February 8, 2016 Author Posted February 8, 2016 No worries, Lloyd. The Perigrin composition that I was using is just BP with extra sulfur and KNO3. I didn't use any special (or unsafe) procedure to make it, I just screened the powders together.Of course I used polyethylene. I wouldn't want a pyro composition, even a tame one like IPS, in a glass vial.
BlueComet24 Posted February 11, 2016 Author Posted February 11, 2016 After letting the cast piece of IPS sit in water for 72 hours, I lit it. It did not ignite from the prime, but eventually did after I held a flame to it (just a lighter, not a torch), then burned the whole way through. I suspect that part of the composition near the surface absorbed some water, but most of it was dry. The other piece that had not been sitting in water ignited from the prime.It seems that IPS may not be fully waterproof, but is at least water-resistant, which is better than most smoke compositions. 1
schroedinger Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 Ok, i tested it and have to say that it works really good, but no idea how you get it to ignite with visco, but green mix did the trick.
lloyd Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 And... green mix ignites just fine from visco. (It's what we call 'priming'! ) (just kiddin')LLoyd
schroedinger Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 Green mix is a prime, you don't say In his original post he wrote can be ignited by visco
lloyd Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 Heh! (I knew you knew, but some folks might not have made the connection.) Some visco fuse might do it... Some are made with green mix, so especially slaggy. LLoyd
BlueComet24 Posted February 29, 2016 Author Posted February 29, 2016 I've gotten it to light from American visco before (my stuff is quite slaggy indeed) but I always prime it to make sure it lights. I like to use something slower than green mix so my cardboard disk isn't popped off the top.
schroedinger Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 I used 39 mm i.d. tube. The plugs where castet from gypsum, bottom solid, top with a ~11mm hole (i used a spend 7, 62x54R casing). Grain lenght 12 cm with 10 cm core lenght.
OldMarine Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 (edited) I'm metric system impaired but I do speak 7.62! Edited February 29, 2016 by OldMarine
lloyd Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 Just 'weld' 25.4mm/inch into your mind, and it's all simple, Patrick! Lloyd
OldMarine Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 (edited) I'll try to remember that Lloyd but if math were a human I'd get a restraining order against it! Thank goodness for Google calculators! Edited February 29, 2016 by OldMarine
schroedinger Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 ^^ wait thats just basic multiplication, but you got not problems with things like 1/1000" ?
BlueComet24 Posted February 29, 2016 Author Posted February 29, 2016 Schroedinger, sounds like you cooked up about 200g of IPS, right? I bet your neighbors love you.
schroedinger Posted February 29, 2016 Posted February 29, 2016 200g? 3kg ^^ (OK test was 50g), the 3kg got split into 15 smokes of ~200g.
FlaMtnBkr Posted March 2, 2016 Posted March 2, 2016 I've always wanted to get the big bag of ghost peppers my brother tries to give me, dry them out good, and grind into a powder. Then take a bit of mineral oil and let them soak for a few weeks. As you heat up the wax add in about 10% of the oil and make like normal. Just to see what happens. I bet it would be pretty mean. Might be good to have on hand for the zombie apocalypse! It's been a few years since I messed with a paraffin wax smoke. Is there much flame coming out the choke? Seems like it just smoldered and sprayed out smoke if I remember right?
BlueComet24 Posted March 2, 2016 Author Posted March 2, 2016 I've always wanted to get the big bag of ghost peppers my brother tries to give me, dry them out good, and grind into a powder. Then take a bit of mineral oil and let them soak for a few weeks. As you heat up the wax add in about 10% of the oil and make like normal.I may have tried adding 2% ground black pepper to 60/40 sorbitol rocket candy. It wasn't pleasant, but not terrible (I didn't take a big breath of smoke, as I was rather hesitant). If you really want something nasty, try this: http://www.pyrodb.org/composition.php5/285However, that comp puts out a toxic smoke that is very choking and awful. I accidentally got a little whiff of it the one time I tested it and I was periodically coughing for a few hours. It's been a few years since I messed with a paraffin wax smoke. Is there much flame coming out the choke? Seems like it just smoldered and sprayed out smoke if I remember right?No flame should come out the choke. It just burns like a smolder, but a bit more intense, and puts out lots of smoke. If you don't choke the tube properly then it turns into a flamethrower.
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