Fuses

[mormanman]

Piss thats fast.

[ULTRABUF]

Thanks dude. I made the black match by making a thick slurry of willow meal and rubbing it into the string with my fingers, then sliding the string through my fingers to remove the excess globs. Then I put it in some dry meal powder and coat it with that. Then I again remove the excess with my fingers and hang it to dry. It seems like pretty good stuff, I wrapped the middle of about a 1.5 inch piece of it with tape and even this small of a fuse made a quickmatch effect.

[mormanman]

Hey guys

I need to know what touch paper is?

I think its a fuse.

I saw it one pyroguide.com and I don't know what it is and frankly they don't either.

[rocket]

Touch paper is just paper that has be soaked in a solution of KNO3/water the dyed. It burn rather slow but its very cheap to make.

[pudidotdk]

Well, normally a strong potassium nitrate in water solution and tissue paper is used. I have tried with kitchen towel (jamesyawn.com) but that works best for the e-match that james refer to, and not as a fuse.

 

http://www.thegreenman.me.uk/projects/bltou.html

[Frozentech]

Hey guys

I need to know what touch paper is?

I think its a fuse.

I saw it one pyroguide.com and I don't know what it is and frankly they don't either.

Traditional British fireworks fuse for what they call "shop goods" ( 1.4g or Class C in the US )

 

http://www.thegreenman.me.uk/projects/bltou.html

 

You really need to UTFSE, as they say.

 

[edit - I see Pudidotdk beat me to it]

[cplmac]

Just wanted to pipe in on the QM. I think the tighter the paper wrap is on your quickmatch the faster it will burn. The real cause of quickmatch burning so fast is the fact that it is wrapped. If your QM is kind of slow try wrapping it tighter. The commercial QM that has the ribbon blackmatch is very fast, but I like the five strand style because you can use it for so many different things.

 

Pudi nice job on the negative X video on Break.

[Zmuro]

Does anybody know what is the core composition of Visco and Flying Fish fuse?

[tentacles]

Looking around a bit, I see a fuse comp listed as "chinese fuse" as 6/1/1 kno3/S/C

 

I think standard "gold" flying fish is just a really hot BP core. Yellow would be sodium nitrate instead of potassium.. barium, etc. You might just try experimenting some.

 

You should try coating your fuse in lacquer (or even shellac) and see if that doesn't help contain the fire and give you some thrust.

[Mumbles]

From looking at flying fish, the core is silver. This makes me think it is pretty much bound flash. That is how ultra-fast comets are made. They would provide both the color and the thrust needed.

[Sybernetic]

Hello, this is my first post. Homemade falling leaves?

 

Does anyone have any information on soaking visco fuse in NC mixed with comp or metal powder and setting to dry to create star substitutes for mines and shells?

 

I'm hoping that it is possible to coat inexpensive fuse with comp mixtures to quickly and easily create interesting fill material.

 

I know about flying fish, falling leaves, strobe and crackle fuse. Basically I would like to create my own.

 

Any ideas?

[moonshot]

I have made effect stars out of different types of falling leaf and flying fish fuse. I cut short lengths of fuse say 1/2" and tack four pieces together with super glue then lightly wet the glued pieces and roll them with a few layers of charcoal streamer comp. The end result is an orange tail with the fuse making a color effect at the end of the burn. I don't see why you couldn't do this with other types of star comps. As far as making special effects fuse thats a whole different project. I would think that white leaf fuse would be made from meal BP mixed with either very fine aluminum or titanium powder and colored fuse would use the metal salts that produce the specific colors you want. Red/ strontium, green/ barium, blue/ copper carbonate or oxide etc... I would think it would be easier to buy commercial effect fuse rather than making it. Unless thats not an option for you.

[Sybernetic]

Thanks for the info! I also thought about adding a glop of comp to the end of a cheap chinese visco and adding that to mines instead of rolling or pressing the stars. It seems to me that would be a little faster to do and I think the visco burning in the center of the comp would provide sufficient heat to light the comp nicely.

 

I just bought 288 ping pong balls from ebay for $12 for making NC lacquer. I checked and they burn very rapidly.

 

I'm going to do some experiments by making batches of NC lacquer mixed with some composition (maybe bismuth subcarbonate 75, black iron oxide 10, magnalium 200 mesh 15 - since it's solvent is NC lacquer anyway) and simply dipping the visco into it to give it a nice interesting coating. That seems faster than screening and rolling stars since you essentially skip those steps. But I wonder if the powder coating will produce a different effect than small stars...

 

Will the % concentration of NC lacquer affect the outcome, for instance, should I try to make a 10% concentration, or does it matter if it's stronger?

 

Also, I've read that dragon's egg formulas can be sensitve to shock and heat. Would it be a good idea to run it through a ball mill for mixing? My initial instinct says no. Unless someone says that they've done it and it's okay, I'll just stick to mixing it by hand.

 

I don't know if anyone is aware of it, but skylighter has 100 feet of pale blue falling leaves fuse on clearance for $5. I bought 500 feet of it, and have been messing around with it. It generates a tremendous amount of smoke and produces a very light blue color with an additional white/orange flame. Would it be possible to make a NC lacquer coating with an added chemical such as pvc, saran or parlon would bring out a stronger blue?

[rocket]

There is no way that I would put dragon egg comp in a ball mill. As you said it a shock sensitive comp. When dragon egg comps in powder from it is the same as flash and just as powerful, I’ve seen a video of the loose powder going off and it had a lot of power to it.

[mormanman]

This may not be something that your talking about but for good pretty slow blackmatch I used newspaper bp. The ratio (by weight) for the bp was

Kno3 75

C 15

S 10

 

 

And the ratio for the blackmatch itself (by volume)

Bp 10

dex. 1

 

With alcohol as a solvent and fallow the same steps as you would blackmatch. It goes about 1 second an inch if the sparks don't ignite the rest of the fuse first but its real cheap and easy.

[psyco_1322]

If you got the chems to do the stuff your suggesting than just go and try it. Dont come asking if people have done this and that to fuse and if it would be ok to do other junk to it. Try it and if it works tell us, if it dont than still tell us it doesnt. Most people dont miss around with tweaking there fuse to do strange things. And dragon eggs need to be bound with PURE NC LACQUER of 5% concentration.

[deadman]

Just to clarify why he capitalized "PURE NC LACQUER" is because ping pong balls dissolved in acetone is actually considered cellulose lacquer. I am not sure if it can be used for the purpose, but I believe it isn't good enough for AP and Mg so this may be a similiar case. I have read 5-8% is the best range for these.

[Bonny]

I've made several batches of dragon eggs using ping pong ball NC lacquer and they were fine. If I remember correctly, it was 6 balls dissolved in 250ml acetone.

 

As for fuse I use:

1/4" chinese time fuse

3/32" visco

blackmatch

quickmatch using rolled up newspaper as pipe.

[Gottagotomoz]

Yeah, that's correct. NC lacquer = 6 ping pong balls to 8 oz. of acetone. Since one US fluid ounce = 29.5+ ml, 8 oz. = 236. Round it. It's 240 ml. I don't think it needs to be exact so yeah more or less that's correct

 

Aside from that, and getting back on track to fuses I use:

 

American Visco (3/32")

Chinese Visco 3mm

Chinese Visco 2.2mm

Chinese Visco 1.8mm premium

E-Matches (Nichrome briged)

Black Match

 

 

Touch Paper for things like powdered smoke comps, small batches of bp for burn tests, ect.

[nath0r]

Bit of a noob question here so i apologise for that, but is it ok to use flying fish as the timefuse in smallish shells like 2-3"?

 

Thanks

[mormanman]

I recently made some e-matches out of copper wire, and black powder. It worked like a charm, it did suddenly go woof but in about 1-3 seconds it did and still have yet to have on fail on me.

[hst45]

mormanman, if I get your drift correctly, your E-match fires, but it does so with a variable delay, is that correct? If so, you might try:

 

A ) A higher voltage to increase the heat of the element more quickly.

 

B ) An element with higher resistantance, such as nichrome.

 

C ) A pyrogen that fires at a lower temp tham BP.

 

Hang-fire delays are a potential source of accidents, and bug the hell out of me. I like to hit the cue and have an instant response.

[FrankRizzo]

Bit of a noob question here so i apologise for that, but is it ok to use flying fish as the timefuse in smallish shells like 2-3"?

 

Thanks

Yeah, that's no problem. You'll need to measure and average the burn-rate of a few precisely cut pieces using a digital camera in movie mode or some other video device. After you've figured out the proper length for your specific timing, you'll need to add a 1/4" or more on both ends to allow for priming (cross-matching or splitting and dipping into a prime). You'll also need to cover the outside of the fuse with a wrap of some sort to prevent the side spit of sparks from prematurely igniting your burst...I use a few wraps of aluminum HVAC tape because it molds very closely to the outside of the fuse.

[Mumbles]

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't believe you at all mormonman. Firstly, you have no real resistance source. Copper wire alone should just complete the circut and not heat up enough to ignite the BP. If you are talking about bridgeless ignitors, the BP is a very poor conductor, and wouldn't do well enough to ignite on it's own.

 

Using a graphite coat under the BP should do just fine though. I see no reason why, bridgewire or not, the BP should ignite. You should also shoot for a faster ignition time. Any sort of noticeable delay is not good at all.

 

I have never used flying fish, but I have used visco as time fuse. My trick was to use a few wraps of Al foil before masking tape. Some sort of fireproof layer is totally essential in my experience. Using pasted kraft worked, but just masking tape failed on occasion for me.

[Bonny]

I have never used flying fish, but I have used visco as time fuse. My trick was to use a few wraps of Al foil before masking tape. Some sort of fireproof layer is totally essential in my experience. Using pasted kraft worked, but just masking tape failed on occasion for me.

I use 3/32 visco (uncovered) as timefuse in 1" cylindrical shells. I cut and glue so 1" is outside of shell. They are cut on an angle and primed with slurry or, if time is short, dampened by touching on a wet rag and dipped in meal before loading into tubes. Works fine for me.

 

Is the fireproof layer needed mainly on larger shells?