MisterSteve Posted July 2, 2007 Posted July 2, 2007 I'm down at the shore right now and I just tried to light off my first aerial shell and sadly it didn't get any height. The shell weighed about 90grams so I used 90 grams for lift. I had made some BP earlier that seemed to burn pretty slow so I figured it would be fine to use for lift. When I lit the fuse there was a lot of smoke comming from the mortar which I assume was the lift igniting and then the stars flew out and lit. It looked more like a fountain than a shell. Now do you think this is because I just used meal or some other reason?
crazyboy25 Posted July 2, 2007 Posted July 2, 2007 first of all you want fast BP for lift otherwise it wont go anywhere also where you using pulvrone or pressed. also if there was a delay between smoke and flowerpot its your lift if it just flowerpots you need a better seal around your fuse.
MisterSteve Posted July 2, 2007 Author Posted July 2, 2007 It was just meal powder. What do u mean a better seal around the fuse? I thought the whole point of making lifting powder was to make it into granules so it burned slower am I right?
oriansbelt Posted July 2, 2007 Posted July 2, 2007 Actually the reason is the exact opposite, in granual form the flame "flashes" between the granuals so the whole is lit at once (almost) instead of burning through though the mass. This increase the speed of combustion of all the BP as a whole so u can have even hotter powder without actually increasing the speed at which it burns.
crazyboy25 Posted July 2, 2007 Posted July 2, 2007 It was just meal powder. What do u mean a better seal around the fuse? I thought the whole point of making lifting powder was to make it into granules so it burned slower am I right? first you want fast BP second how did you make your lift? third by a better seal i meant hot gluing a seal around the time fuse but since you used slow BP thats obviously not the problem.
MisterSteve Posted July 2, 2007 Author Posted July 2, 2007 well I have some lift that I made by putting it through a strainer. It came out in chunks so now I'm crushing it into powder. Should that work? I found that putting it through a strainer wasn't as easy as they make it seem. It all seemed to stick to the strainer and didn't really come out on the small pieces that I wanted it to.
pudidotdk Posted July 2, 2007 Posted July 2, 2007 You added too much water then. You want the granules to come out easily when granulating. 90 grams of lift is WAAAAY to much! you only want about 9 grams or so.
aquaman Posted July 2, 2007 Posted July 2, 2007 To test your BP, put it on the ground, light it, and it should go poof. There should really be no "burning". When its done there should be little left overs or stuff that didn't burn. I had the same problem with my first roman candle. I thought my BP was fast but in my case it was way way way to slow. I never saw what fast BP looked like. This was also before I had by ball mill so. Steve by the way do have a ball mill?
pudidotdk Posted July 2, 2007 Posted July 2, 2007 Haha, you should see my very first attempt at an aerial shell, which was a kinderegg shell, I tried to lift it with green meal. Popped out and landed right beside the small mortar...But that was along time ago now
ULTRABUF Posted July 2, 2007 Posted July 2, 2007 My first shell did the same thing pudidotdk. However I haven't progressed much past that point, I ran out of money lol. I should be starting back up with making bp and hopefull shells soon though.
MisterSteve Posted July 7, 2007 Author Posted July 7, 2007 O yeah my bad I typed it wrong I only used 9 grams lol didn't mean to add that zero. Yeah I think I might need better charcoal some of the stuff that I made wasn't very good. And yes I have a ball mill thats how I make all my BP. I'm back from vacation now but before I left I tried another one with some of that lift that I made and it got out of the tube but it only went about 5 feet in the air. I think later this week I'll get some good quality charcoal and I'm getting more potassium nitrate. Once I do that I think it should work but we'll see.
Mumbles Posted July 16, 2007 Posted July 16, 2007 The purpose of granulating the BP is infact to slow it down. However there is a great different from 20 mesh lift granules, and say 400 mesh meal powder. While it may seem obvious that a finer grain will burn faster from a higher surface are, there are more factors at play there. The powder can become so fine that it forms a fireblock. It is literally so fine that the fire can't flow between granules and it behaves more like a liquid than solid in this case. Granulating does slow it down in the fact that a 20 mesh powder will burn slower than a 50 mesh powder. In some cases, like lifting shells, this slower burn is actually better for an easier push on the shell. I used 1Fg to lift a 6" ball shells once, it is roughly -12+16 I believe, and that thing really flew out of there. Using a finer powder does allow you to use less though, which gives some people the illusion their home made lift is stronger than commercial stuff. I'm not saying it isn't or can't be, but if you don't compare the same lift sizes, you can't really make that claim.
mormanman Posted July 18, 2007 Posted July 18, 2007 Ok I got a question on stars for a shell.You know the comp for tiger tail itsKNO3...44fine charcoal...44sulfur...8dextrin..4 OK so my question is does the KNO3 charcoal and sulfur need to be milled all at the same time together then roll it with dextrin?And another thing can I mill that same comp w/o the dextrin and use that in a tiger tail rocket if not how might I go about making a tiger tail rocket? Thanks
Frozentech Posted July 18, 2007 Posted July 18, 2007 Ok I got a question on stars for a shell.You know the comp for tiger tail itsKNO3...44fine charcoal...44sulfur...8dextrin..4 OK so my question is does the KNO3 charcoal and sulfur need to be milled all at the same time together then roll it with dextrin?And another thing can I mill that same comp w/o the dextrin and use that in a tiger tail rocket if not how might I go about making a tiger tail rocket? Thanks You really don't need to mill tigertail at all. Screen finely powdered ingredients together 4 or 5 times is good enough. If you do mill it, keep out 1/2 the charcoal, then screen that in after milling ( and still, make sure not to overmill it ). I don't think TT is energetic enough for a good rocket fuel. Better to make a regular fuel ( what size rocket are you talking about ? ) and add a little extra coarser charcoal for a tail effect.
mormanman Posted July 18, 2007 Posted July 18, 2007 OK thanks so does that mean that if I already rolled them it won't work will anyway I'll dry them for a day or two and test them, but thanks.
BPinthemorning Posted August 4, 2007 Posted August 4, 2007 I had a similar lift problem tonight, but my lift is very fast, it seems that my time fuse is buring up all in ignition and the shell explodes prematurely. Any sugestions?
rocket Posted August 4, 2007 Posted August 4, 2007 If it’s going off in the mortar I’d say you have a gas leak somewhere, try sealing around your time fuse better, on the inside and outside of the shell. If you not already use hot glue for this.
BPinthemorning Posted August 4, 2007 Posted August 4, 2007 no it has plenty of lift, on a equal wheight dumby it got over 50 feet up, but the real shells still explode like 10 feet out of the tube. ill post some vidios on youtube and put a link
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