Black powder rocket/comet hybrid?

[Guernica]

Yesterday I had an idea I'm curious if anyone here has tried. Basically I took a normal black powder rocket (in this case made from Caleb's wonderful 5/8" cohete tooling) and then smeared a layer of firefly composition on the outside, bound in place while it dried with a couple wraps of tissue paper and also a few feet of black match.

 

As you'll see in the photos, I embedded 2 fuses for redundancy, and the rocket itself will just be fused normally (with the 3 total fuses meeting in a little paper bucket containing a tiny amount of black powder, and an additional fuse leading to that bucket). I'd say this external layer of composition is between 1/4" - 3/8" thick and it uniformly covers the entirety of the rocket tube.

 

Obviously the hope is that it leaves a giant trail of firefly effect through the sky as the rocket takes it flight, but we'll see I guess. I'm jokingly calling it an "equinox wrap" since I conceived & executed it on the autumnal equinox, but if there's any sort of existing name I'd love to know it.

 

Anyway, what do you guys think?

 

 

 

 

[Uarbor]

Looks pretty awesome. I have seen people just glue a comet on the nose cone. I Like where you're going with it. Please film it. Also it might benefit from a faster fuse on the outside part or maybe lighting the outside part from the top. Edited September 24, 2021 by Uarbor

[Guernica]

Awesome, I appreciate the valuable advice Uarbor! I've added 2 faster fuses in such a manner that they'll light from the top down- great point.

 

I should be lighting it this Sunday, and I'll definitely get video for you guys. I actually made & lit a rocket just the other night specifically to post in the other thread I was participating in, but the video quality was so poor I didn't feel good about posting it. So fingers crossed that it turns out better on Sunday!

[Bourbon]

Looks like a true animal Sounds like fun.. Hopefully your outside fuse isn't so fast that the outside shell lite right in your face though..

[Guernica]

Thanks man! And you're definitely right about the fuses being too quick... I went ahead and completed the fusing and it should be reasonable at this point.

 

With the cocktail umbrella nosecone, ridiculous amount of fusing, and silly little sparkle tissue paper covering, it looks a lot like a cartoon joke rocket of some sort. Can't wait to try it!

[Guernica]

Well here's the video- it was super stormy tonight and incredibly windy, so I'm curious what this rocket would have done in calm air. And unfortunately I filmed in portrait mode as I didn't realize how quickly the wind would yank it sideways, so I missed most of the lingering firefly effect, but you'll get the idea. Also, you'll notice the transition to a nice orange tiger tail (the rocket delay comp) towards the end of the flight.

 

Ultimately, I imagine a comet on the nose like everyone else does it makes way more sense, but this was still a fun little experiment.

Edited September 27, 2021 by Guernica

[Bourbon]

It did work pretty darn good!

[Guernica]

Thank you Bourbon, I was pretty happy with it even if it didn't achieve much height (I'll just blame the wind for that, though).

 

Here's another test of a rocket from last night, this time I had several medium firefly stars glued & fused to the rocket tube, and a few more glued to the stick where they would ignite from the exhaust gases. You'll see in the video that this was another fairly low flight, so either again it was too windy, or possibly gluing stars to the rocket stick made it so aerodynamically dirty that it failed to get as high as my tests last week.

[justvisiting]

Fun rockets On a similar note, I attached a bunch of steel wool to the stick with wire. Holey sparks, what a tail it was (fire hazard too).

[Uarbor]

Thank you Bourbon, I was pretty happy with it even if it didn't achieve much height (I'll just blame the wind for that, though).

 

Here's another test of a rocket from last night, this time I had several medium firefly stars glued & fused to the rocket tube, and a few more glued to the stick where they would ignite from the exhaust gases. You'll see in the video that this was another fairly low flight, so either again it was too windy, or possibly gluing stars to the rocket stick made it so aerodynamically dirty that it failed to get as high as my tests last week.

that's fantastic what is your Firefly recipe?

[dlking59]

Look pretty good to me. FF Stars looked good on the one.

[Guernica]

Thanks, glad you guys like them! And steel wool is a cool idea, plus the price is certainly right.

 

The firefly exterior stars/comets are made from a recipe I found on the skylighter website back before I realized there were better suppliers, and is...

 

Potassium nitrate.......49

Air float charcoal......29

Sulfur...................9

Dextrin..................10

36 mesh charcoal.........11

Firefly aluminum..........5

 

I should have been more clear though and mentioned that the stars in the small header in the last video were N1, which is:

 

Potassium nitrate.............51

Sulfur......................15

Charcoal, airfloat...........10

Aluminum, atomized, 325 mesh...8

Sodium bicarbonate..........12

Dextrin......................4

 

For both stars I used commercial airfloat for the sparks, then in the firefly recipe where it calls for coarser mesh I used my own cedar (I didn't worry about getting it 36 mesh exactly, I just screened it so it was somewhere between 20 and 40 mesh).

[Uarbor]

Thanks, glad you guys like them! And steel wool is a cool idea, plus the price is certainly right.

 

The firefly exterior stars/comets are made from a recipe I found on the skylighter website back before I realized there were better suppliers, and is...

 

Potassium nitrate.......49

Air float charcoal......29

Sulfur...................9

Dextrin..................10

36 mesh charcoal.........11

Firefly aluminum..........5

 

I should have been more clear though and mentioned that the stars in the small header in the last video were N1, which is:

 

Potassium nitrate.............51

Sulfur......................15

Charcoal, airfloat...........10

Aluminum, atomized, 325 mesh...8

Sodium bicarbonate..........12

Dextrin......................4

 

For both stars I used commercial airfloat for the sparks, then in the firefly recipe where it calls for coarser mesh I used my own cedar (I didn't worry about getting it 36 mesh exactly, I just screened it so it was somewhere between 20 and 40 mesh).

thanks I can't wait to try it out yours really looked good

[Guernica]

No problem Uarbor, I predict you'll have great success with it! At some point it could be interesting to see what effect your blue spruce would have on the sparks if you use it for the coarse charcoal. I know I intend to try it with sitka spruce this fall for sure.