Flash as burst charge booster?

[Lrsnsam]

Hello, I've been using whistle mix for burst but I was wondering if I could also use flash powder instead? Pros? Cons? What if I don't have whistle and I only have flash powder? Skylighter said that whistle is roughly as explosive as flash so why not use flash? Edited July 13, 2016 by Lrsnsam

[Lrsnsam]

I should say booster... I use BP coated rice hulls as the burst and whistle as booster.

[GreginCA]

Yes you can. I use about 3 grams of stout 70/30 flash mixed in to the BP burst with my 3" can shells all the time. Due to the brightness, it does wash out some colors though.

[dagabu]

Many do use flash as a booster but in my opinion, it creates a more violent burst, not a better one. Its much harder for stars to light when thrown violently away from the fire and there is the extra light and sound, both of which I deplore.

 

Making shells that are constructed well is a better solution.

[Lrsnsam]

I've heard that the veline color system doesn't have that deep of colors aside from Orange, green, blue, purple, would the flash make it much harder to see these colors? I mean I'm trying to avoid making whistle as best as I can but if I have to what is the easiest way? 30 percent Sodium benzoate and 70 percent perch? I mean I have pounds and pounds of perch but Na benzoate is pretty darn expensive. About 20 dollars per half pound! That doesn't even count the shipping costs for me in the west coast. Any thoughts?

[Lrsnsam]

Also, I'm thinking of making canister shells. Thinking of rolling kraft paper over a 3 inch dowel to make the shells using some wood glue and spray adhesive. Dropping in stars around the perimeter and dropping the rice hulls in the middle. Of course I will spike them. Does this seem like a good idea? Anything bad about it? Would I have to add a booster to a kraft paper canister shell or will the BP coated rice hulls do the trick?

[Carbon796]

I usually use a SF booster in my shells. I've built a couple using granulated whistle as a booster. Which to me, seemed to give a inferior performance.

 

If someone is creating a violent bust, and/or excessive light and sound. With the use of a flash booster, they probably need to modify their technique or spend some time tuning it.

[Carbon796]

You will want to use a 2.5" dowel or former, for a 3" cylinder shell. You shouldn't need to use any spray adhesive or wood glue, to properly construct a cylinder shell case. They are traditionally rolled up " dry " Edited July 14, 2016 by Carbon796

[dagabu]

I've heard that the veline color system doesn't have that deep of colors aside from Orange, green, blue, purple, would the flash make it much harder to see these colors? I mean I'm trying to avoid making whistle as best as I can but if I have to what is the easiest way? 30 percent Sodium benzoate and 70 percent perch? I mean I have pounds and pounds of perch but Na benzoate is pretty darn expensive. About 20 dollars per half pound! That doesn't even count the shipping costs for me in the west coast. Any thoughts?

 

Sodium Benzoate is cheaper than that, try PHILS SHOP.

 

Also, I'm thinking of making canister shells. Thinking of rolling kraft paper over a 3 inch dowel to make the shells using some wood glue and spray adhesive. Dropping in stars around the perimeter and dropping the rice hulls in the middle. Of course I will spike them. Does this seem like a good idea? Anything bad about it? Would I have to add a booster to a kraft paper canister shell or will the BP coated rice hulls do the trick?

 

Seems like you have the basic idea, you may want to read the Fulcanelli papers to fill in the details some.

[Seymour]

 

 

I've heard that the veline color system doesn't have that deep of colors aside from Orange, green, blue, purple, would the flash make it much harder to see these colors? I mean I'm trying to avoid making whistle as best as I can but if I have to what is the easiest way? 30 percent Sodium benzoate and 70 percent perch? I mean I have pounds and pounds of perch but Na benzoate is pretty darn expensive. About 20 dollars per half pound! That doesn't even count the shipping costs for me in the west coast. Any thoughts?

 

Lrsnsam, ten years ago I would have been in exactly the opposite situation. I had five kilos of Sodium benzoate which I paid a little over $2 a kilo for, but paid over a hundred dollars for two pounds of Indian dark flake Aluminium.

 

Yes you definitely can boost with flash without washing out the stars. So long as you don't use too much, and you use a clean burning flash, the worst that can happen is a brief flash of light that many people dislike because they feel it distracts from the effects of the shell, and if you tune it correctly you can minimise this to the point that it can be difficult to know if there was flash in it or not.

 

To be more specific, if you have a 4" shell and boost it with 5g of Flash, and have quite strong, well primed stars, then you will have a blink of white light followed by the stars flying out so far that they look too sparse and a rather excessive sound. But if you use 0.5g using dark flake Al, paste the shell well, and either keep it in the centre of the shell, surrounded with black powder, or spread it out over the surface of the BP, the shell will have a blink of light that is less obviously white might seem yellow, if you even notice it, and the shell will have a less excessive burst diameter and noise as well as being more kind to weaker stars.

 

The Aluminium is also important, in my opinion. I feel like there is a considerably brighter flash of light from Aluminium other than than Dark flake as it is not finely enough powdered to complete burning in the time it takes for the shell to break up.

[joeyz]

why do you need a booster for normal shells? what is the shell your trying to make? we can help you with that shell. Normally good quality BP rice coated hulls work for normal shells. For me, I never have a need for whistle or flash for breaks unless im working on something special. A teaspoon of high quality BP will do the hard break trick nicely when i need that extra punch. Sounds like maybe your BP rice hulls are too weak, thin coat, not enough or shell wrapping too thick or stars too large, etc. I can see and understand the need for the extra punch (booster) as learners grow and get it perfected.

 

How do you know if your BP is good? if your mix is correct, ball milled it long enough and granulated it correctly, lighting a half a teaspoon on the ground should give a lightning fast like poof and produce a nuclear mushroom cloud, acting like flash powder. If not, ball mill it longer. Some ball mills and media vary the time. I periodically take samples from the ball mill and test until im satisfied with the reaction. Sometimes it can take 4 days of ball milling. Mill it for a week if you must lol. The longer you ball mill it the more potent it will be. I have had excellent BP flash like results with balsa or spruce wood self made charcoal. This is one powerful powder you would never want to reload a pistol cartridge and thats for sure. On that note, the charcoal at pyro chem source is not all that great unless your making something slower burning like stars or rocket fuel. I have no idea what types of wood they use but i do know that my homemade charcoal rocks, even 2' x 4' soft cheap pine from lowes seems to be better than commercial charcoal bought online.

 

As others have noted, whistle or flash my spoil the effects of the stars by either stealing the effect with a bright flash or can make your stars go blind (some stars not igniting, not giving them a chance to burn). It also lights up more smoke clouds and your stars burn out faster if the break is too hard because the stars are zooming outwards getting too much oxygen. But then again, it depends on the type of shell your making, size of stars and other pyro effect contents. Maybe you want the center to produce a flash with red gum stars as part of the theme or trying max wide spread dragon eggs, sub reports, hummers, whistlers etc, then you may want that flash. But for example, if you have a shell with silver stars, maybe you dont want the bright silver flash effect to steal focus of the already bright silver stars and high BP will give you a softer signature of red/yellow/orange in the core of of burst effect but still give a nice hard break you need or desire. So, in conclusion, it really depends what you are trying to achieve, what is the art your trying to perform? You really dont need to add whistle or flash to everything you do, especially windbells, waterfalls, horse tails etc that reqiure a normal or soft break. If its bigger breaks your looking for and exceed the burst threshold for the shell size, move up to a bigger shell and larger stars.

 

hope this helps.

[ExplosiveCoek]

This is really not true Joeyz, you will need to past much and much more when you are only using blackpowder burst. Or as you mentioned, mill it forever. Why not just use x hours milled powder, and spice it up with some booster.

 

In the end it all comes down to giving you stars a certain momentum after the break. You can either do that by using regular MCRH + flash/whatever booster and regular pasting, or use superduper megaforce ultra power (you get the idea) BP as you suggested, and paste a lot more. It is just whatever you like.

I see a lot of people here, who are satisfied with a droopy break, commenting to use bp only. This is not what I'm after, especially since most of the time I build round shell's warimono style.

 

You can over paste on a BP only broken shell, and blow your stars blind. With booster this point is just reached a little bit faster and needs more dialing in. Besides that, the horsetail shell's etc. mentioned are more of an exception instead of the norm when building shell's.

 

I also think it is more of a fable that you see the flash during the break. I break all of my shell's with flash and never noticed such a phenomena in person. You might see it on vid, but this is more of a 'too much light for the camera too handle situation IMHO'. In the end it all comes down to preference, just don't make it like your way is the only way .

Edited July 30, 2016 by ExplosiveCoek

[dagabu]

This is really not true Joeyz, you will need to past much and much more when you are only using blackpowder burst. Or as you mentioned, mill it forever. Why not just use x hours milled powder, and spice it up with some booster.

 

In the end it all comes down to giving you stars a certain momentum after the break. You can either do that by using regular MCRH + flash/whatever booster and regular pasting, or use superduper megaforce ultra power (you get the idea) BP as you suggested, and paste a lot more. It is just whatever you like.

I see a lot of people here, who are satisfied with a droopy break, commenting to use bp only. This is not what I'm after, especially since most of the time I build round shell's warimono style.

 

You can over paste on a BP only broken shell, and blow your stars blind. With booster this point is just reached a little bit faster and needs more dialing in. Besides that, the horsetail shell's etc. mentioned are more of an exception instead of the norm when building shell's.

 

I also think it is more of a fable that you see the flash during the break. I break all of my shell's with flash and never noticed such a phenomena in person. You might see it on vid, but this is more of a 'too much light for the camera too handle situation IMHO'. In the end it all comes down to preference, just don't make it like your way is the only way .

 

I think that after seeing several thousand, all BP broken shells that worked supremely, I have to take this reply to task. Boosters MAY be needed in certain cases but overall, BP has plenty of push for conventional shells of appropriate size.

 

Small shells? yes, I use whistle as a booster, never flash. Once I get to 4", there is plenty of space for ample break and the booster is left out.

 

Overall, blanket statements with shells are pretty useless, every shell has different burst characteristics and need to be determined on an individual basis. If I boost my twister stix shell, they will blow blind. I am grading all my BP when dried into three distinct sizes, what we call 2FA, 4FA and fines. Of the fines, I run them through a -20 mesh screen and use everything that sits on the screen for rockets, below gets used for prime, black match, etc. The twister stix will get the largest BP for fill and a canulle of the FFFF.

[joeyz]

coek, dag,

 

agreed, both great talking points. so true if time is major factor and you need it now or constructing somethhing that needs it, flash is a quick fix. so true on smaller shells too, like 3" and 4", especially if your using multi rows of stars, larger stars or other payloads that hog room in the hemis that takes away room for bp rice hulls (balance act) and need that boost to compensate for either the deficient (weak) bp rice hulls, lack of rice hull quantity or just need that harder break for the specific shell being built. i usually dont need to go out of my way in extra ball milling a seperate batch for i am already making the same batch for my lift charge. high quality bp for me serves both lift and burst charge boost needs when i need it and a lot safer to store in contrast to whistle or flash which some people do. i do use flash but i make it on the spot as needed and never stored but usually 1 teaspoon of my high power bp satisfies my boost needs. pretty strong and reliable that i tone down 3-5 to grams in my lift cups for most shells. sure, not saying not to use flash or whistle mixes, just wanted to point out to the newcomer he may not need it and totally depends on what your making.

 

sorry for the camera focus and sorry for the camera jolts, the intense heat/blast took all the hairs off my hand, should have worn a glove and sometimes forget how strong this stuff can be. as you can see, very fast like flash. not my best batch, i have made even faster BP but i get that boost and nice hard break when i need it.

 

BP Dime Test1, 8 granulars

 

BP Dime Test2, about 25 granulars

Edited July 30, 2016 by joeyz

[dchambers490]

That's some fast bp Playing with fire! What kind of charcoal did you use??

[joeyz]

This was balsa wood and ball milled for 4 days. I also tried home depot 2" x 4" lumber pine wood and pretty much get same results in 6 days. The video has some latency, In real time its a bit faster. I have had faster than then that what you saw. It appears the longer you ball mill it the more powerful it becomes. I guess it continues to break down into microscopic particles and bind as one. Or multiple particles big ones into millions of little ones. Not sure what the exact terminolgy is, i just know this is one BP you wouldnt want to reload any bullet catridges with, it would probably blow up a gun. I wonder what would it be like if you ball milled BP for a week lol Edited August 15, 2016 by joeyz

[joeyz]

but what i mean by ball mill for 4 days is not constant 24/7 of running ball mill. i run it while home and cut off when not home or sleeping. so basically a total of around 96 hours. it would be interesting to weigh 8 granulars and make an tiny batch of flash and do a side by side test. of course flash is faster and stronger with no doubt but this kind of BP is some great stuff for those that dont want to mess with flash or whistle booster mixes. Edited August 15, 2016 by joeyz

[braddsn]

Boosting certainly has it's place in shell building. I build ball shells. When watching shells break, you will notice differences that boosting can make.. like, 1) Speed of the stars, 2) Brightness of the stars, 3) Sound of the shell, and 4) Diameter of the break. ALL of these factors can be controlled and fine tuned by using booster. I use 2 types of boosters in my shells. A slow flash, and a fast one. I prefer the slow flash most of the time, which is 35-KNO3, 35KCLO4, 30 Dark Aluminum. The fast flash is the standard 70/30. In most of my 3 inch color shells, I like them to break hard and fast with more of an 'exciting and flashy' feel. I boost them with 6g of slow flash. It makes the stars move fast and the break diameter nice and big.

 

https://youtu.be/A670_WxPCuc?t=6s

 

With other shells, like charcoal streamer shells, I will boost much less, or none at all to get more of a lazy, calm feel from the shell (if that makes sense)..

 

https://youtu.be/PXlQeuLfLaw?t=12s

 

Boosting (and pasting) allows fine tuning of the shell. Stars are generally going to burn for a precise amount of time. So if you have a star that burns for say 2 seconds, you can boost the shell so that the stars travel faster during that 2 seconds making the break bigger. HOWEVER, by doing so, the break is not going to be as bright, because the stars will be moving faster and will be more sparse due to the larger spread. Hope that makes sense.

Edited August 16, 2016 by braddsn

[joeyz]

Very nicely said brad. you definately worded it better than I.

I do basically the same, it all depends what kind of shell your building and the effects you are after.