Best shell building kits

[quadracer45]

Hi there. I have been dreaming for many years of building my own morter shells. Twice a year, I spend a fortune buying Chinese shells at the local stand. I have found Skylighter and looked at what they offer. I would like to build, for first time, some 2 or 3 inch shells. To do so with items from the Skylighter would likely cost me several hundred bucks. 

  Can anyone tell me another place that sells a complete kit to build shells? Is plastic or paper better? Plastic makes shrapnel, no? 

Does anyone have a complete list of items to get separately, so I won't be missing something in the end?

The ones shown in this forum titled "3.5 & 4 inch shells on a festive eve" are AMAZING! Something like those is my goal.

  I do these displays more for my elderly Father, and the neighbors kids. I too, enjoy the heck out of it. 

Thank a million. I have to get ready for the New Year. I hope the weather is good.

Edited Tuesday at 01:59 PM by quadracer45

[Mumbles]

You might have some difficulty in finding much in the way of something marketed as a kit. Things like that tend to get kind of a bad reputation after the CPSC came down hard on some vendors a number of years ago when they were perceived to have been selling something that amounted to M-80 kits. It was overblown, and impacted some good, ethical vendors but it happened. 

To get all the supplies, you'd need to decide what kind of effect or effects you're looking to make. I'd suggest starting with charcoal streamers or glitters. The chemicals are usually easier to come by and they're less complicated in my opinion. I'm also partial to paper shells for fallout and environmental reasons. That said, they're not quite as easy. I'm assuming you're talking about ball shells here, but there's also cylinder shells which almost exclusively use homemade casings. With a little more information as to what you'd like to do, we can do our best to get you pointed in the right direction.

[FrankRizzo]

Skylighter will always be on the high end of pricing. They have a great web presence, having been around for many years. They often show up as the first Google result.

 

As Mumbles said, it's best to start with BP ingredients and go from there. You'll need a good BP lift powder before you can really move on to making shells. Making good BP is going to require a ball mill, so along with the BP ingredients, either make or buy a ball mill with non-sparking media.

Edit: I'll add that we see posts like this pretty often in the lead-up to July 4th and New Years celebrations. Stick with commercial product this year. You don't have the time to mail order things and get stars and shells pasted and dried in time safely.

Edited Tuesday at 10:03 PM by FrankRizzo

[cmjlab]

I second all the input above.

Ive never bought kits, but when you get around to making stuff, I put some sites below that I have used a lot and have much better prices than what I've seen on a couple other sites.  (Forewarning - Pyro tooling is expensive no matter  where you find it, but the sites below offer the best prices and quality.)

Tooling: 
www.WoodysRocks.com (well liked and respected)
www. cannonfire.com  (this site sells a few tools, but they are a really decent price and good quality).

Chemicals:  
www.fireworkscookbook.com www.pyrochemsource.com 
**Neither site sells kits, but if you buuld a list based on a kit you find and want (like on skylighter),  you can find all the chems on these two sites for a much better price

Supplies (shell casings, paper, tubes, etc):                         www.pyrodirect.com
www.pyrocreations.com
www.cannonfuse.com (edit: changed from cannonfire")
www.woodysrocks.com (alsi sells some building supplies as well as tools)

Chuck

Edited Thursday at 07:25 PM by cmjlab

[Mumbles]

I think you may have meant www.cannonfuse.com in the supplies section Chuck. 

I'd agree with the above list and suggestions that cmjlab gave. I've also had good success with https://pyrodirect.com/ as well for supplies. There are a few more specialized suppliers for specific things (primarily mortars and wholesale supplies) if you need any suggestions.

In addition to that, a lot of useful things can be found at big box stores and hardware stores. This is mostly consumable supplies like glue, paper, string, some select chemicals, etc.

[cmjlab]

Good catch, thanks.  I edited my previous post.

[LiamPyro]

For a basic starter kit, all you need is:

- straw board hemispheres of desired size

- 1/2” or 3/4” gum tape for pasting

- time fuse for timing, fast fuse for fusing (or thin string for black match), visco for ignition

- KNO3, sulfur, charcoal, dextrin (ideally airfloat charcoal or pine for stars and fast charcoal for BP)

- mortar tube of correct size (HDPE, paper, fiberglass) 

- ball mill and media (the most expensive thing you’ll need, but harbor freight rock tumblers can be made to work) and assorted screens and tubs for mixing

- assorted paper and cardboard for making lift cups, leaders, etc. Also rice hulls for coating to make burst, hot glue, white glue, and other misc materials (cheap)

- add some ferrotitanium or titanium if you want a wider range of effects beyond just charcoal tailed stars 

I think this is most of it. Chime in if I missed something important. At a basic level, black powder ingredients and paper is all you need. Getting a ball mill set up to make decent BP is the main hurdle. I did something similar to what is shown here and it has served me well: https://www.skylighter.com/blogs/how-to-make-fireworks/quick-easy-black-powder-ball-mill

With these supplies you can get started making some awesome effects! I still remember my first 2” ball shells with chrysanthemum 6 and 8…

Edited Thursday at 11:19 PM by LiamPyro