16" Blue Peony w/ Hot Pink Inner Petal

[Xtreme Pyro]

A bit quiet in here lately, so I thought i'd go ahead and post my 16" shell from earlier this year. This is just a build diary.

This past February we lost a fellow pyro in our club, I was asked and given the honor of building and putting said persons ashes in this 16" shell as a final send off, a bit of a memorial if you will. Since I don't have any good videos, other than the one taken by the family and to respect the familys privacy I won't bother asking for it or posting it.. so please don't ask as it was quite an emotional thing. I was already skeptical of sharing this.

But I hope everyone enjoys looking at the construction photos. I'll be posting another 16 with video later this week..

Specifications:

Star weight - 20 pounds of 1 1/8" rolled stars
Burst charge - 30 pounds of 2:1 cotton seed
Lift charge - 2.3 pounds of 1FA

Pasting - 32 layers of 1.5" gummed tape (6 x 500' rolls!)

Inner petal - 8" with 3/4" stars.. Will use a 10" this year.
Final shell weight after pasting: 63 pounds.

 

 

First, an action shot. As you can see there was a bit of a delayed ignition there on the rising effect. Oh well.

Filling the hemis:

 

Both hemis filled (glue gun is OFF don't worry):

Laying out the inner petal:

Petal filled:

Closing it up:

 

 

Signed shell ready to fire:

 

 

Edited August 6, 2017 by Xtreme Pyro

[MrB]

I've of course heard of this style of "sendoff" before, but, i never quite figured one thing out. What is actually done with the ashes?

 

Fiberglass reinforced plastic tape? Guess i'm not to crazy about that, but the size of that thing... Nice. And the break, including the late tail... nice.

[Xtreme Pyro]

I've of course heard of this style of "sendoff" before, but, i never quite figured one thing out. What is actually done with the ashes?

 

Fiberglass reinforced plastic tape? Guess i'm not to crazy about that, but the size of that thing... Nice. And the break, including the late tail... nice.

 

 

The ashes are just sprinkled into the burst charge. What's wrong with using fiber strapping tape? I'm quite curious your reasoning behind that. It's not like I pasted the shell with it.. That picture was taken after mating the halves. Masking tape simply will not hold these things together, ratchet straps need to be used to close the shell as it is. I've had one pop open on me using masking tape to hold the shell together before pasting, it sucks. Each shell half weighs 30 pounds, so the amount of force pulling on the tape is ridiculous. After building 8 of these 16's i've learned a thing or two.. As you can see the shell WAS pasted properly, using 3000 feet of PAPER gummed tape on a WASP.

Edited August 7, 2017 by Xtreme Pyro

[MrB]

The ashes are just sprinkled into the burst charge.

 

Ah, thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

 

What's wrong with using fiber strapping tape? I'm quite curious your reasoning behind that. It's not like I pasted the shell with it.. That picture was taken after mating the halves. Masking tape simply will not hold these things together, ratchet straps need to be used to close the shell as it is. I've had one pop open on me using masking tape to hold the shell together before pasting, it sucks. Each shell half weighs 30 pounds, so the amount of force pulling on the tape is ridiculous. After building 8 of these 16's i've learned a thing or two.. As you can see the shell WAS pasted properly, using 3000 feet of PAPER gummed tape on a WASP.

 

It's just a pet peeve of mine. Plastics in pyro... I mean, i see WHY, and the end result is beautiful, but the shredded plastic ends up just about everywhere, and it isn't going to break down any time soon. I don't build at this scale, and time spent, convenience, and damn, just the fact that plastic tape sticks at once, all makes it superior to, for example fiberglass reinforced gummed tape, but to me, there is something about the idea of leaving plastic behind after a shoot that doesn't sit well.

[OldMarine]

Rocks are inert as well and they're everywhere. Fiberglass strands will become entrained into the soils eventually and like a matted root web will prevent soil erosion. I watched a documentary on the life of a beer bottle sank into a freshwater lake and was amazed that it was a beneficial part of the environment in only hours. Within days it was a hub for a whole new community of critters. Plastics are not environmentally dangerous any more than stones are and will be used by the local flora and fauna.

Oh, and that fiberglass is made from those same stones....

Edited August 7, 2017 by OldMarine

[MrB]

Plastics are not environmentally dangerous any more than stones are and will be used by the local flora and fauna.

 

If only that was true. Large bits of plastic is indeed rather harmless. It just looks ugly as hell. But, sunshine, and mechanical stress causes it so break into smaller fragments, all the way down to the issue we have today where there isn't a fish in the ocean that isn't like me, bits of plastic imbedded in it's tissue. Microscopic plastic particles isn't just a real problem, it's also one that is hard to see due to the size of the particles...

 

Anyway. We are spreading heavymetals and other toxic waste when we are shooting fireworks, so i don't really know why i got so hung up on plastic, but i did, i don't like it, and great work can be done without it. It doesn't diminish the fact that XP created something beautiful and showed us above, and that i want to see more.

[Arthur]

Plastic usually offends the land owners much more than paper waste, because paper waste degrades so much faster. There are now large floating islands of plastic in the Pacific Ocean which are very unpleasant to see. Plastic micro beads are now well out of favour in cosmetic scrubs and cleansers simply because they do not degrade.