Aqua

[Seymour]

Have any of you got Rosin/Pine Resin? I find that it burns very cleanly, although with a higher fuel value than phenolic, but significantly it burns slower. I've used a mixture of the two to slow compositions down.

 

You can also lower the MgAl content to slow most MgAl fuelled coloured stars, though this may not always be desired.

Otherwise another trick I have done is to add a small delay, by rolling half a second or even a second of a very high charcoal composition before the prime (and of course prime this delay too). It's kind of cheating, but it can help to get a shell with a full burst with good duration if using very fast stars.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Seymour

[dynomike1]

That could work, but it's done got to cold to do anything with stars here. It took three days for some powder i granulated to dry.

[NeighborJ]

I hear that Mike, I've got 3" of snow on the ground so I've switched from dex bound stars to Phenolic bound only and no alcohol, just acetone. They still took all day to dry. I tried making a batch of mcrh yesterday and it froze, so I put it in the spare bedroom for now so it doesn't dry too slow.

[MrB]

Those of us on mobile devices can't watch 4k video without going broke.

 

For me it defaults to 1080, but it really doesn't matter. Open it, click on "youtube" and selec your desired resolution, and you should be saving a bucket of that data limit your plan has.

B!

[braddsn]

Mike: What you said about the weather, that is the whole reason I got into phenolic resin. We live in a unique place for making fireworks. In the summer, the humidity is so high that when I tell people, they don't believe me. It can take 2 or 3 weeks for stars to dry. And in the winter, when it gets down into the 20's and teens, same problem... the phenolic resin is my answer to this problem. One other thing to consider Mike: Remember there are 2 ways to make a shell break LARGER..... 1) With a longer star-burn duration, or 2) Make the stars travel faster. In other words, if you have a star that burns for 2 seconds, your break diameter will depend on how far that star travels in 2 seconds. Trust me about this, I have done extensive testing. IF you experiment with this, you will see. There are some comps that I use that burn VERY quickly (bleser blonde comes to mind). So if I make a 3" bleser blonde shell, I boost it with 6 or 7 grams of slow booster, so that the stars travel a long distance in the 2 seconds that they burn. On the other hand, for very slow comps, I may not use any booster and they will still break huge. Does this make sense? I took notice of this last year while watching some Japanese fireworks displays, and noticed that the SPEED that the stars travel make a big difference in the break size. Here are 2 videos of shells I made that show this concept in action. The first shell has a slow burning star (N1glitter to blue). The second shell has a very fast burning star (lime to red). Both shells are the same size, and the stars are exactly the same size... but notice the speed that the stars are traveling. The second shell was boosted with 7g slow booster. So what I am saying is, give boosting a try, you may be surprised about the results you can achieve.

 

https://youtu.be/PXlQeuLfLaw?t=14s

 

https://youtu.be/A670_WxPCuc?t=8s

Edited November 21, 2016 by braddsn

[dynomike1]

OM if you can afford a i phone 7+ you should be able to afford the data. (LOL) Brad i see what you and Seymour are saying, but it is late in the year and i don't have time to add a color to make a 2 color star. Like you said i can just break them harder. Everything i have made is hitting between 2.5- 3 sec.

[OldMarine]

Hey now Mike! I'm an Android kinda guy. Boo likes to go slumming with those Apple products but I'm a Samsunger! I'm not home enough to justify wiring a rental house for WiFi so i live on my mobile devices and free WiFi. My daughter in law just told me I can save YouTube videos on my device for later viewing so I'll be able to watch 4k video soon! Edited November 21, 2016 by OldMarine

[dynomike1]

I don't know how it got to 4K. I-7+ is the only one that will play 4K. I am also a Samsung android person, but in time i am going back to motorola.

[dynomike1]

Brad are you priming with Phenolic?

[braddsn]

Mike, I am not priming with phenolic yet. I have read in a couple places that it may not be a good idea. 1) It could affect the performance of bp, and 2) It can be harder to get a dry/dusty/rough outer surface on the final prime layer. I am sticking with dextrin for priming right now. That's not to say that I won't try it in the future though. When I do, I will report my findings.