Ignition Mix for Hard to Start Compositions

[Steigede]

Does anyone know of a general purpose ignition mix that could be applied as a slurry to hard to ignite stuff like strobe pots or sparklers? I'm making some strobe pots but I typically need to use a blowtorch to get them going. Normal visco doesn't work. Could I just take some meal powder, add some dextrin and water to make a slurry, and plop some on top of my strobe pots? Stick a fuse in and let it dry?

 

Thank you!

[SharkWhisperer]

Depending on your comp, you might want something a little hotter than just plain meal powder. Perhaps adding +10% metal to your meal, whether Al or MgAl, will increase heat. A bit of silicon powder will form nice hot glass slags that are good at transferring heat. If your comp is super slow, you might benefit from a layer of 50:50 strobe comp:prime mix, and top it off with straight prime mix--step priming.

 

Dextrin's fine as a binder providing your comp isn't water-sensitive, but you might need to wait a few days for it to completely dry. I generally prefer fast-drying and flammable NC lacquer for making such slurries.

 

You might benefit from granulating your meal powder to increase burn rate and heat production vs time.

[MadMat]

A prime I have had great success with is:

71 potassium perchlorate

14 charcoal

6 red gum

5 magnalium

4 silicon

+ 3 dextrin

It takes fire easily and burns hot!

Silicon is a great addition for aiding ignition of hard to light comps. When burned it leaves behind a hot slag that will ignite even the hardest to light comps. The +3 dextrin can be switched out for a different binder if you wish

[itwasntme]

I've found 70/20/10 potassium perchlorate/325 mesh atomized aluminum/phenolic resin to work really well. It's a simple mix that burns slow, hot and allows alcohol to be used as a solvent for quick drying. The phenolic allows for relatively easy ignition. Other organics can work such as red gum or even shellac.

[Steigede]

Thank you! I will give that a go. Do you make your own NC lacquer? I've made some before with some flash cotton I've made but it's a pretty convoluted process. Is there a better source for NC? I tried buying some ping pong balls but they were not NC...

[Steigede]

A prime I have had great success with is:

71 potassium perchlorate

14 charcoal

6 red gum

5 magnalium

4 silicon

+ 3 dextrin

It takes fire easily and burns hot!

Silicon is a great addition for aiding ignition of hard to light comps. When burned it leaves behind a hot slag that will ignite even the hardest to light comps. The +3 dextrin can be switched out for a different binder if you wish

 

What is the source for silicon? Just like silicon sealant from the hardware store?

[Steigede]

I've found 70/20/10 potassium perchlorate/325 mesh atomized aluminum/phenolic resin to work really well. It's a simple mix that burns slow, hot and allows alcohol to be used as a solvent for quick drying. The phenolic allows for relatively easy ignition. Other organics can work such as red gum or even shellac.

Unfortunately I do not have any phenolic resin on hand. Is that only found on specialty websites or can that be found elsewhere?

[mabuse00]

I don't know where you live, but here in Europe I could only find phenolic resin in dedicated pyro shops.

 

 

What is the source for silicon? Just like silicon sealant from the hardware store?

Silicon metal, not silicone.

You will need fine metal powder, <63µm.

 

 

Do you make your own NC lacquer? I've made some before with some flash cotton I've made but it's a pretty convoluted process

Forget about homemade NC, it's possible but not worthwhile.

 

 

Is there a better source for NC

There are certain kinds of paint, look for "guitar finish".

 

Depending on where you live, get some double based gun propellant for reloading and dissolve it in acetone.

 

 

You don't need to go the NC route. It's convenient because it dries quite fast, while other binders take a lot of time when they are used in slurries. The formula MadMat posted will work fine with dextrine.

Edited July 1, 2021 by mabuse00

[SharkWhisperer]

Unfortunately I do not have any phenolic resin on hand. Is that only found on specialty websites or can that be found elsewhere?

This is an international forum so when you're asking for sources, it helps if you clarify what country you're in.

 

If you're in the US, good PR from Fireworkscookbook.com for $8/lb. He also sells silicon metal powder, -200 mesh, for $9/lb (that should last you awhile). Not silicone sealant, grease, or oil. Review MadMat's description of exactly why he includes it in his primes. I do, too.

 

As MM said, if you are in the US (very easy access) or another country where you can get your hands on some smokeless powder for cartridge reloading, that's the best NC you'll find, cheaply too. A single pound of smokeless powder costs $15-20 depending on brand and locale. Celluloid (low-nitration nitrocellulose) ping pong balls are getting harder and harder to find, and you're likely to buy kaka ones made of cellulose acetate or a synthetic plastic that suck for pyro. It's easy to tell the real NC balls from how they smell and how they burn, but you don't get either option if buying online. Pure NC is also for sale in the US as medium-nitration guncotton ($16/pound from pyrochemsource.com) but that stuff does not have stabilizing chemicals in it, must be stored wet (mine's in my freezer unused), and will degrade if not treated. Smokeless powder is about the highest-nitration NC you'll find, and the cheapest.

 

Dextrin is a cheap and functional binder alternative with a long history in pyro as a binder/slow organic fuel. That said, water /dextrin-bound comps, especially high-water slurries, take a lot longer to dry than acetone or alcohol-based binders like PR or red gum. This is more of a concern when drying stars for shells than for ignition assistance for ground works like strobe pots, but an important distinction.

 

Personally, I use a very similar recipe than MM for my hot primes, but use more red gum and no dextrin, and bind with acetone (red gum is now the binder). Stuff's great and lights anything. Easy to work with and dries super fast. I use it for metallic stars and dragon eggs, but will light pretty much any common comp (haven't tried thermite, but DEs are similar in activation energy needs and they all fire up...). This perc-based hot prime can benefit from an over-layer of a slower but easily ignited BP-based 2nd prime layer when ignition needs to be guaranteed. This is more of a concern with stars that are igniting at speed after the burst charge goes off. A piece of visco fuse in your stationary ground strobes will light the perc hot prime without a problem.

Edited July 1, 2021 by SharkWhisperer

[MadMat]

 

 

 

 

Personally, I use a very similar recipe than MM for my hot primes, but use more red gum and no dextrin, and bind with acetone (red gum is now the binder). Stuff's great and lights anything. Easy to work with and dries super fast. This perc-based hot prime can benefit from an over-layer of a slower but easily ignited BP-based 2nd prime layer when ignition needs to be guaranteed.

 

That's exactly how I two-step prime my hard to light stars!

Edited July 1, 2021 by MadMat

[Steigede]

Thank you very much for the information! When I asked about the resin I meant is it something you can find at a hardware store sold as something else or is it a dedicated pyro chemical, sorry! I'll have to go grab some smokeless powder then. I really liked NC when I used it to make a small batch of stars. Loved the quick drying. For the wet dextrin mixes, I did notice they took quite a while to dry, yes. For those I put them on a piece of cardboard and left them in the sun on a hot afternoon, Seemed to speed things up quite a bit.

[SharkWhisperer]

Thank you very much for the information! When I asked about the resin I meant is it something you can find at a hardware store sold as something else or is it a dedicated pyro chemical, sorry! I'll have to go grab some smokeless powder then. I really liked NC when I used it to make a small batch of stars. Loved the quick drying. For the wet dextrin mixes, I did notice they took quite a while to dry, yes. For those I put them on a piece of cardboard and left them in the sun on a hot afternoon, Seemed to speed things up quite a bit.

Ok, so we are assuming you're US based?

 

Some stars you can dry in the sun. Some you can't. Most do fine in the shade with a breeze. Look up "driven in moisture" on the forums search bar. When dextrin-bound stars first feel dry, they probably are not and might benefit from another day or two of additional drying to maximize performance. Dextrin-bound comps in your case of strobe pot priming might not be so temperamental.

 

Any time you're drying comps in the sun, take care of accidental ignition from reflected/focused sunlight, particularly if using shiny containers or pans.

 

PR is a generic name for any of literally thousands of distinct phenolic resin chemicals (or mixtures) with the same basic chemistry. I know of no hardware store resin that functions as a direct replacement but somebody else might and that would be interesting. The stuff we get from fireworking shops is a milled/ground powder of a solid starting polymer that's soluble in alcohol and sometimes acetone (rub a solvent-wetted finger into a small dab of powder to see what dissolves it).

Edited July 1, 2021 by SharkWhisperer

[itwasntme]

Unfortunately I do not have any phenolic resin on hand. Is that only found on specialty websites or can that be found elsewhere?

Pretty much any organic works, shellac or red gum. It just serves to allow the aluminum in the comp to be easier to ignite. Atomized aluminum and perchlorate is rather difficult to ignite until you get into the <10 micron range, then it's just flash.

 

I've made the above comp into match, where it works pretty well as a way of igniting difficult to ignite mixes, or even as a short lived sparkler if you are bored.

[Piccaso]

Thank you! I will give that a go. Do you make your own NC lacquer? I've made some before with some flash cotton I've made but it's a pretty convoluted process. Is there a better source for NC? I tried buying some ping pong balls but they were not NC...

https://www.pyrocreations.com/Chemical-kit-fireworks-chemicals/Nitrocellulose-Lacquer

[SharkWhisperer]

https://www.pyrocreations.com/Chemical-kit-fireworks-chemicals/Nitrocellulose-Lacquer

He's already out of stock. And no details on whether it's stabilized or not.

 

This NC guitar lacquer works well, too, though not pure NC. It also contains stabilizers, which is important. https://www.amazon.com/Mohawk-Finishing-Classic-Instrument-M610-1406/dp/B07PG9Z64V/ref=sr_1_31?crid=2828O0F0PHBAT&dchild=1&keywords=behlen+mohawk+string+instrument+lacquer&qid=1625270603&sprefix=behlens+mohaw%2Caps%2C100&sr=8-31 . $25/free shipping is going to cost less than the Pyrocreations $19.49/quart when shipping is added. In the US, smokeless powder is still your best bet, and you can make over 4 quarts of 10% NC from a single pound of smokeless costing perhaps $15-20 (but add on acetone costs)...

 

Pyrocreations is decent, but FWC carries all of his chems for cheaper, except for the Chicom perc (has 1% Cabosil silica for free-flowing; I've used--it is good stuff) at $6.49/lb vs $7/lb at FWC and PCS. Or Skyrobber's perc going for $11.99/pound if your money is really weighting you down and becoming a hassle to own.

 

For the purposes of priming a ground strobe pot, you don't really need NC lacquer at all. You can just add 10% red gum to your prime mix and dissolve in acetone just like NC. It's a nice burning fuel and will work for your needs. And cheap dextrin will work, too, though you'll need additional drying time... Your problem is not difficult to solve at all.

Edited July 3, 2021 by SharkWhisperer

[Steigede]

 

For the purposes of priming a ground strobe pot, you don't really need NC lacquer at all. You can just add 10% red gum to your prime mix and dissolve in acetone just like NC. It's a nice burning fuel and will work for your needs. And cheap dextrin will work, too, though you'll need additional drying time... Your problem is not difficult to solve at all.

Oh awesome! I got some red gum. I'll go that route until I can get to an outdoors store that has smokeless powder. Thank you!

[SharkWhisperer]

Oh awesome! I got some red gum. I'll go that route until I can get to an outdoors store that has smokeless powder. Thank you!

Easy peasy, and just in time for the 4th!!! Very excellent. Take some video of your strobes if you can and post them.

 

I go through a lot of acetone for red gum/parlon rubber stars, and it used to be a bargain at the Dollar Store when it was 10 oz for $1. It's still a buck, but the bottle size went down to 8 and then 6 ounces during DJT's trade wars with the Chicoms... Making HD/Lowes $17 gallons similar. Just found a crumpled-up gallon metal jug at Wallyworld that was marked down to $6--grabbed that sucka up with the quickness!

 

Steigede, one bottle of smokeless will take care of your NC lacquer needs for quite awhile unless you turn into a Dragon Egg factory man! I suggest you get a bottle of smokeless powder designed for shotgun shells--it's fast burning which means thin discs of NC/NG that dissolve very easily (the hard extruded pellets take much longer).

[Steigede]

Steigede, one bottle of smokeless will take care of your NC lacquer needs for quite awhile unless you turn into a Dragon Egg factory man! I suggest you get a bottle of smokeless powder designed for shotgun shells--it's fast burning which means thin discs of NC/NG that dissolve very easily (the hard extruded pellets take much longer).

Good to know! I love dragon eggs... I'm just about out of my last batch too. I lit one of the strobes off but it just burned bright and white with little to no strobe effect. I got a few more. I'll try to remember to film one. What's weird is I used the same formula last year and it worked great. These just seem to be burning hotter and faster. Wonder if it's too much starter comp. Maybe I'll chisel a bit of that off.

[Steigede]

Here's a quick video

[SharkWhisperer]

Good to know! I love dragon eggs... I'm just about out of my last batch too. I lit one of the strobes off but it just burned bright and white with little to no strobe effect. I got a few more. I'll try to remember to film one. What's weird is I used the same formula last year and it worked great. These just seem to be burning hotter and faster. Wonder if it's too much starter comp. Maybe I'll chisel a bit of that off.

What strobe comp are you using, including chem mesh sizing and mixing methods?

 

What did you end up using for your prime comp?

 

Hard to imagine that the prime is going to affect strobe comp burning--that prime should be pretty much gone by the time your strobe is in full action. But looks like you did slather it on pretty thick... Is there silicon in your prime? If so maybe just maybe those molten glass slags are dropping downwards into your strobe mix and disallowing the smouldering dark phase between flashes. But that'd be a guess.

[Twesla]

I made a bunch of the silver sizzler sparklers from the sky lighter article here:

https://www.skylighter.com/blogs/how-to-make-fireworks/silver-sparklers

Prior to getting a nice creme brûlée torch, Id ignite stuff with a little arc igniter I made with long leads, so in order to light the sparklers easily, I dipped just the very edge of each tip in a water slurry of monocapa prime. It was almost overkill in the sense that using a bic lighter would have led to finger burns.

 

I apologize if this is too far off topic, but does anyone in the US have a source for smokeless powder right now? Ive simply been unable to find any, neither in person nor online.

[Steigede]

Barium Nitrate 51%

Sulfur 22%

Magnalium, granular, -100 mesh 15% (I think mine is -375 mesh. Could be the issue)

KNO3 7%

Dextrin 5%

 

 

For the ignition mix I just used meal powder with some atomized aluminum mixed in.

[Steigede]

I made a bunch of the silver sizzler sparklers from the sky lighter article here:

https://www.skylighter.com/blogs/how-to-make-fireworks/silver-sparklers

Prior to getting a nice creme brûlée torch, Id ignite stuff with a little arc igniter I made with long leads, so in order to light the sparklers easily, I dipped just the very edge of each tip in a water slurry of monocapa prime. It was almost overkill in the sense that using a bic lighter would have led to finger burns.

 

I apologize if this is too far off topic, but does anyone in the US have a source for smokeless powder right now? Ive simply been unable to find any, neither in person nor online.

I'll have to give that composition a try. I found a sizzler sparkler recipe somewhere and it was absolute trash. I have not tried to find smokeless powder yet.

[Twesla]

I'll have to give that composition a try. I found a sizzler sparkler recipe somewhere and it was absolute trash. I have not tried to find smokeless powder yet.

I really liked these, though Ive tried them with coarse and fine Ti and Fe/Ti and the sparks from the fine metals are washed out by the large flame produced from the bamboo being consumed along with the sparkler composition. I only had sponge Ti in a coarse size, but its effect of snowing sparks that pop when they hit the ground made it really unique, but also a fire hazard unless youre standing on concrete.