a newbs progress and question thread

[PeteyPyro]

"Owhhh... that was loud". LOL

[RiderX]

"Owhhh... that was loud". LOL

lol that was my 70yo neighbor , he likes to come out and watch when i test stuff.wish i could have tested when it was darker out but we had a big rain storm moving in on us fast, we got poured on about 15 mins later

[Wiley]

Not seeing the lamp in that vid for some reason.

 

Did you use the ridiculous amount of lift in the instructions? For lamps that size, I use no more than 1/2" of time fuse, and about 5g of -4+8 powder to burp them out of the mortar.

[RiderX]

Not seeing the lamp in that vid for some reason.

 

Did you use the ridiculous amount of lift in the instructions? For lamps that size, I use no more than 1/2" of time fuse, and about 5g of -4+8 powder to burp them out of the mortar.

 

i used 20g and a 2 second TF but neither mattered since it blew the hell up lol

Edited August 31, 2017 by RiderX

[Wiley]

20g of lift?

 

If your powder is even half-decent, those only need about 5g to toss them up. Any higher and the fireball looks tiny. I lift 4" lamps with 2% of their weight in -4+8 mesh powder when I want them low, and 4% is as high as I'll go.

[RiderX]

20g of lift?

 

If your powder is even half-decent, those only need about 5g to toss them up. Any higher and the fireball looks tiny. I lift 4" lamps with 2% of their weight in -4+8 mesh powder when I want them low, and 4% is as high as I'll go.

well the directions called for 17g of lift and since my bp isnt as good as commercial i figured i better go with just a lil extra

though i may have underestimated this new bp , im using milled potasium nitrate instead of ground stuff and my bp is a lil stronger then before

Edited August 31, 2017 by RiderX

[RiderX]

heading out to shoot a N1 3 inch ball shell this one will hopefully be nice , just a lil nervous because i had a lil trouble closing the hemi halfs up

shell wieght 193G ,7g booster and a 22g lift charge . its a nested shell

 

crossing my fingers on this one

[RiderX]

aparently my new bp is more powerfull then i expected , 22g lift was a bit to much ill have to back it down to 17g or so on the next shell , since the bp was more powerful 7g booster was also to much and a bunch of stars blew blind , so on the next one ill back the booster down to 4g and the lift to 17g

 

im happy about the bp for sure , my first few batches took 28-30g to properly lift a 3 inch shell with this weight

Edited September 1, 2017 by RiderX

[RiderX]

progress progress progress

 

 

 

oh hell this is easier

not sure what happened on the second shell in this vid

 

 

all of theese were nested shells , finally dialing i using the nesting hemis i think

 

 

more to come from my 1 inch cakes

Edited September 3, 2017 by RiderX

[RiderX]

ground zero on the cakes i made

assorted effects , some were old shells that didn't work properly that i just wanted to dispose of , and the 2 blind shells were the sulfur blue stars , for some reason the blue wouldn't light in these 1 x 2.5 canister shells

 

and from a distance

very first shell was a blue star shell

Edited September 3, 2017 by RiderX

[RiderX]

i was able to duplicate that very nice tail i made before shame it was on a salute though , never made a Ti salute before so i had to give it a go

first one i tried i sprayed the hemi halves with glue and rolled them in the ti , the effect wasnt near as nice as just putting the ti in the flash as in this shell , but boy was i nervous handling this one

Edited September 5, 2017 by RiderX

[Mumbles]

Blue is fickle. I don't think it's that the stars are not lighting. Rather, the stars are probably blowing out. Blue stars, for whatever reason, are notorious for having poor critical wind velocities. Break them too hard and they don't like to stay lit.

[RiderX]

Blue is fickle. I don't think it's that the stars are not lighting. Rather, the stars are probably blowing out. Blue stars, for whatever reason, are notorious for having poor critical wind velocities. Break them too hard and they don't like to stay lit.

that very first shell was broken with just a bit of bp and only 2 or 3 stars lit out of the 8 or so that were in it , same with the next 1 inch canister , they lit just fine in the 2.5 inch ball shell though.

im going to do a thicker layer of prime on the next one as well and try them in a soft broken 2.5 or 3 inch ball shell and then again in a 1 inch canister

Edited September 5, 2017 by RiderX

[RiderX]

getting better theese are 3 inch canister shells

first shell N1 glitter 0 booster

 

shell #2 2 parts TT 1 part N1 5g of booster , camea didnt pick up alot of the glitter

[RiderX]

camera 2

 

ps

u guys have me sold on the canister shells now , now i need to make some mandrells for rollng my own cans , the cans im using are about 14$ per 12 pieces

Edited September 6, 2017 by RiderX

[Mumbles]

You made the right choice with cylinders

 

There are a lot of OTC items that can be used for case formers in a pinch. Dowels are available commonly up to 1.25 or 1.5" and a little bigger with some searching or online. These are great for inserts. Cardboard cores, standard beverage cans, and several other household items are just about right for 3" shells. HDPE mortars one size down are conveniently close to perfect as well for medium sized shells. 3" HDPE make good formers for 4" shells, 4" HDPE make good formers for 5" shells. PVC has the same diameter. That said, real wooden case formers are really nice to use.

[RiderX]

now i need to figure out what to do with all my ball shell hemis , i think i still have 60 2.5's and aprox 40 3's left

the cyls are just so much nicer to load and take a fraction of the time to make

 

im going to make another shell tommorow with slightly more booster maybe 8g instead of 5 and see if it breaks a lil bigger or if it just blows blind

i guess i should make my stars slightly larger as well

 

im also thinking i only need about 25 gram of lift instead of the 30 i used on theese , and the first shell was 35g

guess my bp is better then i thought it was

Edited September 6, 2017 by RiderX

[Wiley]

I find the building experience to be exactly the opposite. I built a couple of 5" ball shells recently, and thought they went together much quicker than a 5" cylinder.

 

Cylinders are also better-suited for inserts, and those are very laborious to make. I absolutely love them, though.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Wiley

[RiderX]

I find the building experience to be exactly the opposite. I built a couple of 5" ball shells recently, and thought they went together much quicker than a 5" cylinder.

 

Cylinders are also better-suited for inserts, and those are very laborious to make. I absolutely love them, though.

i imagine a larger ball shell would go together eaiser then the 2.5/3 inch ones im making , my fingers are so big i have trouble getting the stars to stay in place in the ball shell when i fill them,im still having touble getting my stars cut to an even size as well.

 

prolly get alot easier when my star plate gets here

[greenlight]

I know what you mean you try and arrange them with your hands and ruin the whole ring.

I use a long pair of tweezers for the first half.

[RiderX]

I know what you mean you try and arrange them with your hands and ruin the whole ring.

I use a long pair of tweezers for the first half.

i tried that , and they would still fall in when i got up near the rim of the hemi halve

witht he canistersi like how i can just put my rolled up paper tube in the center , dump in the stars around it , tap them down solid , and then fill the paper tube with bp/booster and slolwy pull up on the paper tube to remove it from the shell , add in soe more burst on top and lightly pack it down then install the end plug tighly against it so nothing can move around

 

the down side is i need to ramp up star production now , 100 gram batchs arent going to cut it anymore

 

and a quick question in the future i seem myself doing 2.5 3 inch and 4 inch cans , nothing larger , what would be a good size comet pump to make or buy to cover those 3 sizes

im thinking 1/2 inch , and if i do go larger i could just put 2x comets on each etc

 

im actually doing multiples on each shell now to get that streamer and glitter effect with a TT comet and a n1 or d1 comet

Edited September 6, 2017 by RiderX

[OldMarine]

I was just reading a thread on attaching a rising comet to a cylinder shell and apparently it's harder to get the shell out of the gun with the comet intact than on a ball shell. I've not tried it with either so it will be interesting to see how it works. I'm assuming that is what you are referring to...

[RiderX]

I was just reading a thread on attaching a rising comet to a cylinder shell and apparently it's harder to get the shell out of the gun with the comet intact than on a ball shell. I've not tried it with either so it will be interesting to see how it works. I'm assuming that is what you are referring to...

on the 3 cans ive done so far i would have to say the comets were attached more securley to the cans then the ball shells due to the flat surface

but time will tell

 

what i was asking is what size comet pump should i buy , 1/2 inch 3/4 1 inch etc

[Wiley]

Cylinder shells are vastly different from canister shells, abd seldom have flat tops. In fact, it is desireable to have a built-up "crown" of string and pasted paper around the spolette to give it rigidity and protect it from the ingress of fire.

 

It's no trouble at all to securely tie a whistle to rhe spolette to create a rising effect, so I would imagine that one could do something similar with a wrapped comet or dry star composition pressed into a small paper tube.

 

The spolette provides a small rising effect in and of itself, so you may want to just shoot one "plain" and see what you think.

[OldMarine]

I like the idea also mentioned in the FW post of adding Ti to the spollette as a rising effect. Seems simple and shouldn't affect timing too much. I've been thinking about soft granulating some BP+Ti with alcohol to prevent the metal from settling in the tub and giving it a go. I made several pounds of BP this past weekend so have enough to play with.