firefly help

[bigbuck]

i tried rolling firefly today using mustard seeds coated in bentonite clay and got them going quite well, but started to have bad spiking problems using 75/25 water /alch solvent so I stopped rolling them to try and figure out how to correct the problem, I recall blesser touching on this subject in his book round stars and shells, so I followed his steps with wetting stars very wet this time with 50/50 with little or no improvement so I said screw it let me see what happens with 75/25 water alch and did get some improvement, so I finally got them up to size but boy do they look like crap, blesser mentions shrinking skins on the stars and that acetone creates minimal shrinkage would this work to correct spiking? or is there a trick or nick that I am missing when rolling these? I have been rolling stars from the veline system with great success, I suck really bad at rolling charcoal based stars, any help or tricks???

[MeowMix]

The large firefly aluminum causes the stars to roll weirdly, I normally just pump or cut my firefly stars, as both attempts of mine at rolling failed.

[Pyrophury]

Sounds like you're doing all the right things. You might also want to try granulating the composition to reduce edit: increase the particle size (Bleser also mentions this in his book), by wetting the composition with 10-15 parts water and granulating it through a coarse screen (12 mesh), allowing it to dry and then passing it through an 80 mesh screen (I find it's easier and faster to pass through a 60 mesh first).

 

It could also be the droplet size of your spray bottle (if you're using one), personally I use an airbrush which gives a very fine mist and allows me to aim precisely where I want. It makes things so much easier and helps a lot in avoiding over-spray, but I still regularly wipe off the sides of my star roller with a rag to remove any excess moisture.

 

I've not tried rolling firefly, but I did just roll some slow gold (which was ball-milled without ti, and 2/3's of the charcoal) which contains lots of charcoal and 40-60 mesh titanium sponge, on 2mm lead shot - I granulated the composition (before adding the ti) first and although it was very slow going, I didn't have any spiking problems. I also use a drop of isopropyl alcohol and distilled water, but I'm not convinced it makes any difference to be honest.

Edited July 31, 2016 by Pyrophury

[bigbuck]

tried second attempt and went flawless slowed it down a bit and kept comp real dry, they seemed to pick up charcoal first and then when sprayed with solvent started to pick up alum, it took forever though but we will see how they burn when dried, test lit one from first batch that looked like a blackberry and did not really see alum burn, I know the affect can be different flying through the air so I can only wait till dry and test a couple in a star gun and see!!! switched to a real fine mist bottle too, seemed to help, very tedious in the beginning, I think I am going to give d1 a try and see if it has same issues, I am assuming it will

Edited July 31, 2016 by bigbuck

[Sparx88]

Cutting them is best imop. Can't recommend pumping or star plate as I only cut them.