Dim whites and golds

[Siegmund]

So I'm sure that's not something most people want to have...

 

But I have a well saturated organic red and organic blue that I'm very happy with. The standard advice is "to make blue look bluer, part it with something like gold" - but to my eye, the usual bright gold glitter type comps overwhelm the blue and blind you. I am pondering what I might use to brightness-match those organic colors.

 

Presumably one option, once I have an organic green I like, is a simple mixing of R+G to make yellow, and all three to make white.

 

I suspect there are better options - maybe deliberately using tiny flakes of Al or MgAl in a slowish- or darkish-burning base, to make small rather than large white flashes, and investigating the "small flashes" glitters like Winokur 28-30. I've never tried those.

 

Also... did I overlook a "dim organic color system" in the literature? Have seen several color systems - Veline's, the "NX color star" from Ned, the Spanish colors from Jopetes - that all are metallic stars.

 

Long term I sort of like the idea of having two standard color palettes, one dim but saturated, one bright (and accepting the latter will have a rather deficient blue.)

[kingkama]

Subs sodium bircabonate with barium carbonate and add some al flake, i think that half carbonate will be ok to obtain a quite withish glitter that no owerpower blue stars.

[Carbon796]

Hardt yellow #2 pair's good with blues. For whites, your probably going to want a nitrate / antimony based star.

Non metallic blues can work well with metel fueled colors, and glitter comps. But, you need to bias the shell fill towards the the organic fueled star side. Typical quoted ratios are 3:1 and 4:1 The 3 or 4 parts organic fueled stars to 1 part metallic fueled or glitter stars. If your building ball or cylinder shells. Use blue stars as your larger and more plentiful outer color. Paired with your smaller metallic fueled inner color stars.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Carbon796

[Siegmund]

I may have a new chemical purchase coming up in my future... lacking barium carbonate or, well, any of the ingredients of Hardt Yellow #2 except the KP

 

Either that or some fun experimentation on my own, that is.

[Mumbles]

I agree with Carbon796 here. Everything he said is great advice. Changing the delay agent on a glitter isn't going to do a whole lot. White or gold, they're still going to be bright. I actually find white glitters to be a little harder to balance with cooler burning stars. You have to subjectively balance out the brighter flashes with a heavier loading of your dimmer star. In the US, red, white and blue is a common color scheme. If you want to do it really well, you definitely what to go heavier on the blue by a significant amount. Charcoal streamers of course are another way to get some of the golden effect without as much intensity of glitters. Firefly is also a really nice effect to pair with blue stars, as the brighter portion doesn't really come on until later so you get the full effect.

 

One other tip I see some people do is to call a mediocre metallic blue "aqua" instead so you don't feel so bad about it. In all seriousness, aqua is much easier to make as a metallic colored star. You just have to shift your color palette a bit. Instead of pairing blue with orange/gold for complimentary colors, you'd want to pair aqua with something like a tangerine red/orange. It also pairs really nicely with other cooler colors like magenta or amber and other charcoal type effects.

[NeighborJ]

Some glitters are not ideal pairings. W20 is often almost a strobe, with brilliant gold flashes, a lacy glitter effect will usually make the blues stand out better because the spritzels are tiny and more numerous, gold tremalon is one which is perfect for this application.

 

As suggested above, adding more blue stars help but you need to be aware that metals selection for your glitters makes a big difference in how they perform. A coarser mesh results in large "strobing" spritzels while fine mesh usually makes the tiny, lacy spritzels. Even the charcoal selected will change the effect, do a few experiments to find the appropriate light emittions which pair well with the blue, after all the blues are a lot more difficult to tune than a glitter.

[robbo]

Along Neighbor J's line of thinking:

Here's a more delicate star that is not such a bright large-flash glitter. It's a fine delicate silver glitter/charcoal gold. "Lacy" is a good description. Old italian hand-me-down formula. Looks good alone, too.

The 3:1 mixing rule still applies.

 

KNO3 19

AFC 6.5

Sb2S3 4.5

Atomized Al 3

BaCO3 1.75

Dextrine 2

 

Rolls well. AFC 7 parts for pumped. As with all BaCO3 glitters, you have to work the BaCO3 through 100m with a couple other ingredients 3 times (I use the Al and Sb2S3 to minimize the dusty mixing steps) to make sure it is very thoroughly dispersed in the final mix. If it doesn't work, you didn't get the BaCO3 mixed in well enough.

Al can be a "120" type or "325m", probably other fine aluminums work.

 

Of course, no boric acid in this one.

[Mumbles]

I'm curious why you say of course no boric acid for this? Not that I think it needs it, but I'm just wondering.

[robbo]

I usually use saturated BA in H20 when I need boric acid, specifically in gold glitters containing Na oxalate. When I first used this boric solution (used due to laziness; it was at hand) to roll the above composition, and even though the BA was at pretty low concentration and the BaCO3's not very soluble, I had "issues" when I rolled thick layers. I figured I might have some carbonate bubbling/outgassing which was making the dense layers dry out weak and friable and disturbing... something. Thick layers dried normally with just distilled H20. Yet another laziness lesson.

 

So I don't put boric acid in with carbonate glitters as a rule now. Just in the Al + Na oxalate mixes which are the only ones that have heated up on me. Any better theory is always welcome.

[Mumbles]

I am with you that I've only really had issues with oxalate glitters mostly, particularly with flake aluminum. I also had a bad batch of cryolite that seemed to cause issues. I really only use it if I've had issues with that particular comp in the past, which is very few honestly. It's caused more problems than fixes or solutions for me actually. It seems to attack MgAl for instance. I was just curious if you had another reason. Boric acid isn't strong enough to react with carbonates for what its worth, so there may have been other things going on.

 

That's not not to downplay it's usefulness. When it helps it really helps.

[robbo]

I guess something else may have wrecked the batch. About the only place I use boric acid now is in the oxalate glitters so I don't have to keep an eye on them. And I've tried to eliminate flake aluminums from my palette because of, well, flake aluminums. Hard to find a substitute for the coarser flakes, though.

[Michaelivan]

Along Neighbor J's line of thinking:

Here's a more delicate star that is not such a bright large-flash glitter. It's a fine delicate silver glitter/charcoal gold. "Lacy" is a good description. Old italian hand-me-down formula. Looks good alone, too.

The 3:1 mixing rule still applies.

 

KNO3 19

AFC 6.5

Sb2S3 4.5

Atomized Al 3

BaCO3 1.75

Dextrine 2

 

Rolls well. AFC 7 parts for pumped. As with all BaCO3 glitters, you have to work the BaCO3 through 100m with a couple other ingredients 3 times (I use the Al and Sb2S3 to minimize the dusty mixing steps) to make sure it is very thoroughly dispersed in the final mix. If it doesn't work, you didn't get the BaCO3 mixed in well enough.

Al can be a "120" type or "325m", probably other fine aluminums work.

 

Of course, no boric acid in this one.

excuse me it's AFC....Greetings from Peru

[Michaelivan]

sorry ... I meant it is AFC

[robbo]

AFC = Air Float Charcoal

[Michaelivan]

Thank you robbo

here a little white glitter waterfall