Glitter Star Problem/Question

[asdfd]

I’ve been trying to get a specific effect that I always see and really like in D1/N1 glitter stars and shells. I’m trying to achieve the long lasting glitter that keeps popping in the air like the videos below.

https://youtu.be/PpwPxDBvRyg

https://youtu.be/W76hDTOh8cM

https://youtu.be/qUAxqiNfnL0

I have tried rolling, cutting and pumping these stars with little luck, I even bought atomized spherical aluminum from a different source and tried a different charcoal with little success. The stars work and do glitter, but not nearly as much as those videos. I have also found that the recommended way of making glitter stars (pumping/pressing with minimal water) seems to water down/weaken the glitter, it looks somewhat weak and you cant really even see much popping glitter. So far my best results have come from probably the dumbest way of making them, made a comp patty as if I was going to cut them, and used a syringe to “pump” the stars. Does anyone have any experience in these sorts of glitter stars or has anyone faced my issue?

Edited August 22, 2022 by asdfd

[cmjlab]

I'm not sure what process you are using for making the comp (i.e. for the KN03/Charcoal/Sulfur - using actual finished B.P. granules vs. individual ingredients), but I've had decent luck with using B.P. granules instead of individual components, resulting in a longer glitter trail with larger flashes, using D1, Gold Tremalon, W20, and a variation of N1.

 

Charles

[cmjlab]

Forgot to include that I pumped and cut stars from all of those comps. I've NOT tried rolling them though.

 

Charles

[asdfd]

I'm not sure what process you are using for making the comp (i.e. for the KN03/Charcoal/Sulfur - using actual finished B.P. granules vs. individual ingredients), but I've had decent luck with using B.P. granules instead of individual components, resulting in a longer glitter trail with larger flashes, using D1, Gold Tremalon, W20, and a variation of N1.

 

Charles

I have just been milling the chemicals together for about an hour, except the aluminum of course. When you use bp granules is the na2co3 and atomized al and dextrin amounts the same? Or is the comp different? Lastly around what size/mesh granules are you using for this?

 

Thanks

[cmjlab]

I assume you are really using Sodium "bi"-carbonate or baking soda (not Na2co3 = sodium carbonate) if you are using the carbonate I'd be curious what formula listed that.

 

For B.P. base in glitter star formulas - To be honest I look for comps that have already been converted to use meal powder for the common glitter formulas.

- When pumping stars I use soft granulated B.P., from 12 mesh down to fines, usually from alcohol granulation.

- When cutting stars I use a mix of whatever I have left over from pulverone, granulating, and/or powder straight from the ball mill. It'll get wet / softened up again so it prob doesn't matter much anyway.

-**some glitters may look better as individual chemicals, especially if cutting..... But you do a comparison sometime to see for yourself.

 

The rest of the ingredients remain the same (Baking Soda, Sodium Oxalate, Dextrin, Al, etc).

 

There is a formula/document floating around somewhere that talks about taking a formula given in individual ingredients and converting it to B.P. (75/15/10), then adding the leftover amounts as individual chemicals. I believe it was Lloyd or Richard (UK Pyro Forum and BAFN Contributor) but I can't seem to find it.

 

Again, a lot of the glitter formulas have already been converted to use B.P. - just takes some searching.

 

I'm no expert either, so don't take my word as gospel. I just read about it from other people who make awesome fireworks, and they talked about the difference between glitters with B.P. base vs. individual chems - so then tried ityself and really liked the glitters. (They will burn a bit faster when you use b.p. as well.)

 

I'll keep looking to see if I can find the document I was talking about.

 

Charles

[pyrokid]

I would try not milling anything, assuming your starting components are already fine powders. Glitters want slag and dross, because that's what causes the flashing.

[cmjlab]

Hers an example of Gold Tremalon - if you decide to try the B.P. route (these can be cut or pumped)

 

Sorry, I am forum "illiterate" but it's a post by Mumbles who is far more knowledgeable than I!

 

-----------------------------------------

 

https://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/11830-pumping-gold-tremalon-stars/?fromsearch=1

 

 

What are your star plates made from? Antimony trisulfide, which is what I assume you're actually talking about, is actually relatively soft. It should be fine with most common tool materials. You can always rub a little bit of it against the side or an otherwise unimportant part of the tooling to see if it scratches it at all.

 

The biggest culprit for marring tooling is titanium granules. Steel granules or turnings can also cause a problem with aluminum tooling. Even still, the biggest issue is metal particles getting wedged between a rammer and wall of the tooling. This is where it causes the most destructive damage. To prevent this, you can use carefully selected particle sizes, or use tricks like Mike Siefker's disks or a top layer of non-metalized composition.

 

Here's the fomula from Jerry Taylor I have for Tremalon.

 

Glitter Star:

Name: Tremelon

Source: Jerry Taylor

Meal Powder 24

Antimony Trisulfide, Chinese needle 4.5

Aluminum, atom, spher, 120-325 mesh, 20 micron 3

Dextrin 2.25

Strontium Carbonate 1.5

Sodium Oxalate 1.5

Tare: Total: 36.75

 

 

Meal 65.31%

Sb2S3 12.24%

Al 8.16%

NaOx 4.08%

SrCarb 4.08%

Dex 6.12%

 

 

Broken into meal components

 

KNO3 48.98% 49

C 9.80% 9.8

S 6.53% 6.5

Sb2S3 12.24% 12.2

Al 8.16% 8.2

NaOx 4.08% 4.1

SrCarb 4.08% 4.1

Dex 6.12% 6.1

[Carbon796]

I always preferred Mg/AL based glitters to Al based one's.

 

Tuning them was easily accomplished by adjusting the Mg/AL mesh size and the delay component amount. I'd imagine the same technique should also work well, with AL based glitters.

 

7FA is the traditional size BP, for making tremalon stars.

[cmjlab]

I definitely like some of the Mg/Al comps as well, it just gets more expensive to make large amounts of those comps due to my inability to source magnesium to make my own magnalium.

 

The local junk yards aren't willing to part with ANY of their metals, even if I offer to pay more than 50x the going rate and buy a case of beer! But where I live, that's pretty much the standard (nobody helps eachother and when they do it's because they are taking you for all your worth financially) It's too bad, because I enjoyed the process, it was satisfying.

 

Charles

[asdfd]

I assume you are really using Sodium "bi"-carbonate or baking soda (not Na2co3 = sodium carbonate) if you are using the carbonate I'd be curious what formula listed that.

 

For B.P. base in glitter star formulas - To be honest I look for comps that have already been converted to use meal powder for the common glitter formulas.

- When pumping stars I use soft granulated B.P., from 12 mesh down to fines, usually from alcohol granulation.

- When cutting stars I use a mix of whatever I have left over from pulverone, granulating, and/or powder straight from the ball mill. It'll get wet / softened up again so it prob doesn't matter much anyway.

-**some glitters may look better as individual chemicals, especially if cutting..... But you do a comparison sometime to see for yourself.

 

The rest of the ingredients remain the same (Baking Soda, Sodium Oxalate, Dextrin, Al, etc).

 

There is a formula/document floating around somewhere that talks about taking a formula given in individual ingredients and converting it to B.P. (75/15/10), then adding the leftover amounts as individual chemicals. I believe it was Lloyd or Richard (UK Pyro Forum and BAFN Contributor) but I can't seem to find it.

 

Again, a lot of the glitter formulas have already been converted to use B.P. - just takes some searching.

 

I'm no expert either, so don't take my word as gospel. I just read about it from other people who make awesome fireworks, and they talked about the difference between glitters with B.P. base vs. individual chems - so then tried ityself and really liked the glitters. (They will burn a bit faster when you use b.p. as well.)

 

I'll keep looking to see if I can find the document I was talking about.

 

Charles

Shoot, I meant bicarbonate haha. I was tired making that post. Thank you for the help, I have found a bp based version of n1 and i'll try it as soon as I can.

[asdfd]

Hers an example of Gold Tremalon - if you decide to try the B.P. route (these can be cut or pumped)

 

Sorry, I am forum "illiterate" but it's a post by Mumbles who is far more knowledgeable than I!

 

-----------------------------------------

 

https://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/11830-pumping-gold-tremalon-stars/?fromsearch=1

 

I have seen and also love the Mg/AL glittter stars, I have been thinking of trying it but i am not so much fond of using antimony trisulfide. I am thinking of trying out pirotex's mgal glitter comp someday when I get a larger mesh of mgal. Absolutely beautiful stars.

[Pyroboy]

As Pyrokid said: Don´t mill the chemicals together! Or at least mill them for just a couple minutes. Even better mill half the stuff and mix it with the other half that is left coarse.

 

Glitter is quite sensitive to changes in the particle size. Not just the aluminum, but the KNO3 and charcoal as well. A good glitter has a variety of delay. You dont want just short or just long delay. To achieve that the materials must have a wide margin in particle size. Try to make your mix as non-uniform as possible.

[Uarbor]

It's my understanding that the atomized aluminum mesh size is the critical thing. I have made comets but my mesh size was very small and I did not get the long lasting effect although it was still quite nice. Definitely my favorite effect I also like to add my leftover crackle grains. My aluminum massage was around 500 which I attribute my short duration glitter too. Do you want to always calls for a specific size. Can't quite recall what it is at this moment though.

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/IGn1xJO187A?feature=share

Edited September 5, 2022 by Uarbor

[rellim]

Baking soda seems to make glitter stars hygroscopic. Some people like to substitute sodium oxalate. I recently fired a w20 shell and there were no distinct stars, just a nice ball of glitter. So I left a few of the stars sit out for a day or two and they gained quite a bit of weight and were easily crushed between thumb and forefinger. Making them from a BP base might help.

[SKC]

Having a composition without process is just being a king without kingdom. So for D1 & N1 glitter, if the both things applied result will be satisfactory.

[rellim]

Baking soda seems to make glitter stars hygroscopic. Some people like to substitute sodium oxalate. I recently fired a w20 shell and there were no distinct stars, just a nice ball of glitter. So I left a few of the stars sit out for a day or two and they gained quite a bit of weight and were easily crushed between thumb and forefinger. Making them from a BP base might help.

Update: I tried sodium oxalate in w20 and it immediately heated up! I think I can use this to kill moles since oxalate decomposes to CO.

[johnnypyro]

I really like D1 ("standard" formula with sodium bicarbonate) and have made it many times. My first attempts were pumped stars that disappointed in a similar way to that described by the OP.

 

The solution - for me - was to use the *absolute minimum* amount of 75/25 water/IPA to cause the composition to just clump together and then pump as normal. Subsequently, I found that rolling the stars involving just the finest mist of water/IPA was the way to get the best, most consistent results.

 

All the D1 stars I have made degrade over the weeks following manufacture. Whether they can be effectively dried, I don't know.

[rellim]

I made w20 with potassium bicarbonate. A largish star looked great in the air after drying naturally.