Road flare stars. Good idea/bad idea?

[Guest]

I'm certain there has to be opinions on this, I just can't find any.

I have a number of your basic hwy flares, and got to wondering if maybe some could be incorporated into charcoal stars, or maybe just rebinded and primed. or rolled or.....

Obviously they'd most likely have to be rather small so they don't fall and continue burning on the ground.

Have at me. 

[TXpyro]

I would recommend making these stars very small. Those road flares burn for a long time. I've shot 3/8 inch cut stars with a similar composition with a star gun and they shot about 75 ft until they fell to the ground. Maybe it was my lack of lift powder but they still burn for a long time. 

Edited December 14, 2023 by TXpyro

[cmjlab]

I've never thought to try it, but if I were to take a wild guess, it'd be a long the same lines as TXPyro - probably would make burning stars?

[Guest]

As I already wrote, they'd have to be small, but then again, maybe just a nominal amount mixed in with some tiger tail composition?

I'll probably have to put in a little bench time tonight.🤔

[Richtee]

I used flares quite often as a strontium source. bust ‘em up and put it in a pot with an excess of water and heat it up. Scrape off what floats to the top when cooled and evap the water. It’s quite impure, but works pretty well.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Richtee said:

I used flares quite often as a strontium source. bust ‘em up and put it in a pot with an excess of water and heat it up. Scrape off what floats to the top when cooled and evap the water. It’s quite impure, but works pretty well.

So, are we keeping what's on top and evaporating that, or throwing out what's on top and evaporating what's left in the pot?

Thanks. 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Richtee said:

I used flares quite often as a strontium source. bust ‘em up and put it in a pot with an excess of water and heat it up. Scrape off what floats to the top when cooled and evap the water. It’s quite impure, but works pretty well.

Found a few videos. Got it.

[cmjlab]

Let us know how it goes.  And I'm assuming the videos you found about recrystallization told you to filter the liquid and evaporate the liquid.  

What kind of impurities were left Richtee?  Idk what's even in those things besides Strontium nitrate (obviously), sawdust, and a fuel?  

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, cmjlab said:

Let us know how it goes.  And I'm assuming the videos you found about recrystallization told you to filter the liquid and evaporate the liquid.  

What kind of impurities were left Richtee?  Idk what's even in those things besides Strontium nitrate (obviously), sawdust, and a fuel?  

From what I gathered, the main components are strontium nitrate, potassium chlorate, potassium nitrate, and other ingredients like sawdust,pvc, paraffin etc.

But yeah, pretty much dissolve it in water, filter and dry. 

[TXpyro]

I made a decent star comp that burned pretty well while back. It burned very similarly to a flare. The only downside is it smelled like rotten eggs.

This is the formula:

KClO4 35%

Sr(NO3)2 35%

S 20%

Charcoal (airfloat) 5%

Dextrin 5%

[Guest]

Since I’ve already crushed one up, I’m going to try the water extraction whilst I wait for my delivery of strontium.🙂

[Guest]

Interesting results so far....

Processed a flare (very old) in a mortar and put it all to a short but slow temp to get there boil.

Lots of little wood chunks and what appears to be sulphur floating around.

Strained it off (saved it) and set the rest on a low heat to evaporate. Took it down to about a half inch in the pan, and placed it in my toaster oven in a glass dish to finish evaporating.

Just for the hell of it, I soaked some up on a paper towel, let it dry, maybe almost, and lit it.

Might not have been completely dry, but it burnt with red present, but also with that white glass effect you get when you burn styrofoam, or of course a highway flare.

Always wondered what that was?

More to come later.

[Guest]

Hmmm....

Not so sure it went well, maybe it did.

Once dried I ended up with a pretty good pile of white crystal like stuff. It smells a whole lot like baked cookies.

Doesn't burn for crap by itself.

Mixed crudely with some kclo3 it does burn pretty red, but makes a bunch of goo. A better incorporation might help.

Red star #2 calls for 20 kclo3, 60 strontium nitrate and 20 shellac. Of course there's no way for me to tell how much kclo3 is already in there, and I'm going to guess by the time I get a recipe figured out, it'll all be gone.

[cmjlab]

Are you sure the Strontium Nitrate is dry?  I wouldn't go sticking it into an oven since it likely still has fuel or other oxidizer mixed in, but I wonder if you could put it in a cardboard box with a heater pointed towards it (outside).  

That smell you describe is similar to my Strontium nitrate.... I can usually smell a sweet(ish) smell, though it's probably not great for my health.  🙂

[Richtee]

On 12/15/2023 at 1:01 PM, Bbqjoe said:

From what I gathered, the main components are strontium nitrate, potassium chlorate, potassium nitrate, and other ingredients like sawdust,pvc, paraffin etc.

But yeah, pretty much dissolve it in water, filter and dry. 

And alot of sulfur...

[PyroGb]

Ya I’m doing similar things I have a couple of road flares I took them apart then sifted out the sawdust which left me some white powder I haven’t tried much but I found through some testing that if you roll some small bp stars then coat with that white powder and then prime they work pretty good. I could definentaly improve on it. This also gets rid of the falling to the ground problem since the star is about 50/50 mixture and bp the bp burn then the flare which is what you mostly see in the star then fades to orange. 

[Guest]

I vote we give up on road flares, unless we can light them at 30,000 feet just to watch them fall, then catch Kalifornia or some neighborhood in Detroit or something catch on fire.

[Richtee]

7 hours ago, Bbqjoe said:

I vote we give up on road flares, unless we can light them at 30,000 feet just to watch them fall, then catch Kalifornia or some neighborhood in Detroit or something catch on fire.

Hey... let me know in case I got a job going on down in the city!

 

[PyroGb]

I’ve been following this thread for a bit, I live in alaska so I Realy don’t have many other options for strontium. But what if you made a small canister with lift, fill the canister with flare powder and adjust so it burns before it hits ground? So like BPQ said just drop it out of the sky🤷‍♂️ Like a flare gun type thing. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, PyroGb said:

I’ve been following this thread for a bit, I live in alaska so I Realy don’t have many other options for strontium. But what if you made a small canister with lift, fill the canister with flare powder and adjust so it burns before it hits ground? So like BPQ said just drop it out of the sky🤷‍♂️ Like a flare gun type thing. 

The problem for starters, is just getting the stuff to light. So far I've tried BP, and 532 and a few other things. By the time you use enough of either to get it lit, the red color is lost or overcome by the comp used to ignite it.

The other problem I've found when trying to make off the wall formulations for strontium nitrate stars, is that they burn great on the ground, but get blown out easily in the air.

Of course I haven't tried everything, I've just been mucking around for fun. 

[PyroGb]

Yes for sure I’ve found that too the flare based stars are very weak what I did is just put another coat of heavy on the dextrin BP to light it and hold it together it seems to work ok for Grondin stress tests haven’t fired them off yet though.
 

You could take, as for your fuse that goes in the air and roll it in something like bp or I’ve found to work better (rocket fuel)  and have something like those storm matches so it burns hot all the way up through the mixture lighting it all the way up like a rocket. something to try at least👍

Edited January 1 by PyroGb