brad224 Posted November 24 Posted November 24 i’ve read with great interest the podts some of you serious pyrotechnicians have done on crossette inserts, and admired your video posts to the extent that i simply HAD to try it. i had played with the inserts and lit a few on the ground until i got one that seemed to work, si i assembled and fired a SMALL test shell this weekend. it was a 1.5” can shell with 6 tiger tail crossettes in it. it was burst with 4-1 mill dust coated rice hulls. the crossette inserts were made with my typical pyrotechnic blasphemy. i made them in my 1/2” star plate, pressed the slightly moistened tiger tail composition by hand with a 1/2” dowel until the hole was full, then cut the cruciform shape with a flat bladed screwdriver pressed about 3/8” deep, 1 indentation at 90 degrees to the other. a couple stuck but most were ok. i then carefully pressed them out of the plate with the 1/2” dowel and dried them in my dry box. when dry, i used a VERY slow drill press to cut a passfire hole to 1/8 inch from the flat end. into that i put a piece of blackmatch, added about 1 grain of 70/30 flash, hot glued a cardboard disk over the cruciform, and wrapped top 3/4 of the insert with two wraps of masking tape, with the excess tape folded over the cardboard disk. finally i touched the bottom to a damp paper towel and pressed it in black powder, around 4fg. typing the description takes longer than making the inserts this way. i know they need a lot af work yet, but for such small (1/2”) crossettes, i was happy to get something recognizable. thanks for letting me ramble on. IMG_1178.mov 2
cmjlab Posted November 25 Posted November 25 (edited) Not a bad start, you got a pretty nice break on your crosettes for being only 1/2". I liked it. Edited November 25 by cmjlab
pyrokid Posted November 27 Posted November 27 I commend your ingenuity in creating the effect manually. Well done! The shell was beautiful!
johnnypyro Posted November 27 Posted November 27 @brad224What great effect! Would you be able to post a photo of the crossete?
brad224 Posted November 27 Author Posted November 27 i’m out of town until monday, but will post a couple of pictures of the “construction” when i get home. thanks for your interest.
Carbon796 Posted November 27 Posted November 27 Those did really work nicely ! I've always heard the smaller ones are more difficult to get to work well.
brad224 Posted December 4 Author Posted December 4 here’s a picture of one of my 1/2” screwdriver cut tiger tail crossettes, as requested. this was obviously “pre-filling.” 1
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