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Posted
I think we have all heard of black snake and I was just wondering how to make them (I don't believe there is a thread on this). Pardon me if there is.
Posted

"Preparation: Instructions for making mercuric thiocyanate: 1) Dissolve 64 parts of mercuric nitrate in water, and separately dissolve 36 parts potassium thiocyanate in water. 2) Mix both solutions, and filtrate to collect the precipitate that forms upon mixing. 3) Rinse the collected precipitate 3 times with distilled water, and place it in a warm (not hot) place to dry.

 

Mercuric thiocyanate..............................100

Dragant...........................................5

arabic gum binder.................................qs "

 

Have fun tring to get the stuff.

Posted

I'd like to try and make these. Sounds like a compo I've never heard of before.

The Merc-Thio I can make, no probs there.

But wth is Dragant? All I know it from is a sugar/gelatine mixture used to make like sugar-art.

Hope someone can shed some light on this.

 

Gr33tZ

Posted
Wow that sounds really really hard to do.
Posted
I think you can use other chemicals to acheive the same effect or something similar. I believe tetryl and or nitrated napathene was used after the health effects of Mercury became more public.
Posted
It's actually nitrated pitch that is common now in the snakes. No one uses the mercury formulas anymore.
Posted
There's some good info on snakes in the old form here it's on that page and the next one. man, tetryl, that would be crazy :blink: .
Posted
There's been some discussion of this on passfire - and the consensus was that it is simpler to just crush up a case of commercial snakes and then use a comet press or something to make large ones. I think someone actually described the process of nitrating the pitch, and beyond the fact that you would be working with hot tar, it did not sound like fun in any way.
Posted
How would you nitrate pitch. And would you get pitch at a hardware store since it like tar. Also, could I use tar instead of pitch.
Posted
why are you so intent on making these they are complex messy and frankly boring after all once i was able to make rockets and starmines i never made smoke bombs.
Posted
Well just image a 3 ft. tall by 2 ft wide black snake not even burnt yet. Do you realize how big that would get? I think it would be crazy and maybe set a world record for the biggest black snake.
Posted

I've saw something like that on youtube before...

 

Uhhh, here's link:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wWOJPTG0vPg

 

It would look a lot better if they crushed it, wet it, and pressed it into a puck like corning bp...

Posted
hmmm reminds me of dehydrating sugar.
Posted
That was pretty cool but I want a bigger one. :D
Posted
like i said dehydrating sugar alot slower but still very big.
  • 2 months later...
Posted

I just tried this formula:

 

Sugar...................2

Sulfur...................1

Cobalt Chloride......1

 

with the 1,4 grams of cobalt chloride I had :P

 

Expands nicely, however it only expands as long as you you heat it with a flame.

 

I tried to mix a bit of BP in it to make it keep itself going, and poured in some alcohol so I could make it a pellet, however I put in too much alcohol and it wouldn't dry... so I just ignited it, resulting in the same as if there were no BP in there.

Posted

Hmm...Seems to me you made yourself a nice compact sulfur and cobalt spiked marshmallow.

I think a bit of oxidizer might not hurt the effect to bad, especially ammonium perchlorate because it provides such an even and steady burn. Not all that useful of information now that you're out of cobalt chloride.

I've always thought that a sugar type mix might make a good black snake. Burnt sugar is the proper consistency.

Posted
I think I can get more, I got it from my granddad, who uses it in TINY amount in some sort of pills. If I can get more I will try it again. Also I think I will try binding wil NC lacquer to create pellets next time.
Posted

If you want it to keep combusting on it's own, you'll have to add some oxidiser. Not much, but just enough to keep the reaction going.

 

Just out of curiosity, is there any reason you chose cobalt chloride to add to the mixture?

Posted
I found the formula on rec.pyro or pyrobin (don't remember) and had to try it because I had that tiny amount of poisonous cobalt chloride I wanted to get rid of.
  • 4 weeks later...
Posted
a lot of pyrotechnic chemicals can be bought at skylighter.com if u have a promblem finding the chemicals
Posted
a lot of pyrotechnic chemicals can be bought at skylighter.com if u have a promblem finding the chemicals

We're aware of that. Not trying to be mean but you are stating the obvoius.

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