Comet b*mbs (Aerolites)

[Pretty green flame]

Excuse the terminoloy but people call them by this name.

 

What i'd like to know is, has anyone ever made these. From what I understand they consist of a comet pressed into a cardboard casing and the remaining space filled with small stars and some break charge (Probably a small ammount of flash) and then closed off at one end.

 

I'm worried that when the comet composition burns up it will leave a too big of a gap and thus provide no confinment for the break charge to take full efect resulting in a shitty break in the sky. Should I make a special rammer that will form a slight recess in the comet portion so that the comet spits fire into the other part igniting the other components before the comet portion burns out? Basicly an x-ette type rammer.

 

Please share your thoughts and experiences if anyone has made this in the past.

 

PGF

[pudidotdk]

Sound pretty much like a crosette, exept the cardboard tube-confinement instead of the composition around the break charge... If you just made a pin-rammer, to insert a fast-burning fuse in the comet, it probably would give enough confinement?

[lja]

Sounds like you're talking about aerolites.

 

A chipboard disc with a bit of blackmatch through it glued in place between the comet composition and the area with the stars and burst charge will help with containment.

 

One of the BAFNs had an article on these.

[Pretty green flame]

Thanks lja, that answers the main question I had. I'll make a couple of each, one with the disc in between and one withouth and see how they fair.

 

Thanks for your help pudi and lja.

Still, if anyone has any experience in making them, please share your thoughts.

 

 

 

PGF

[rocket]

You could press some clay on top of the comet then drill a pass fire hole in the clay and there’s your confinement for the burst/flash.

[Pretty green flame]

Evening

 

Just fired my first Aerolite. Overall i'm very happy, with flash and some micro stars in them they are gonna rock. The next couple aerolites are going to be filled with flash.

 

Also, this one was made the simple way, the delay was rammed with a normal rammer so the report is basicly non existant, another one i made which had a slight recess in the delay grain was a bit louder which just goes to show that there is no clay needed to provide suitable confinement.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGuBGpWYTj0 (D1 delay, BP break, 20mm ID)

 

Second attempt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8lFXITErgs (Green mix delay with recess, BP break, 16mm ID)

Edited November 24, 2007 by Pretty green flame

[Pretty green flame]

Here's the drawing of what a finished aerolite looks like

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a374/AVP2/aeroliteaj9.jpg

 

As you can see, the recess in the delay grain is at an angle so it spits fire into the contents of the aerolite igniting them, this all happens before all of the delay grain burns up so there is a fair bit of it still unburnt, this provides the neccesary confinement for the break charge to take effect (Although you won't need much confinement when using perch flash, but something a bit more tame like nitrate flash, whistle or even some seriously good fine grained BP).

 

 

Hope we'll see more of these in the future and thanks to pudi for a job well done on the cross-section.

 

Pgf

[qwezxc12]

Evening

 

Just fired my first Aerolite. Overall i'm very happy, with flash and some micro stars in them they are gonna rock. The next couple aerolites are going to be filled with flash.

 

Also, this one was made the simple way, the delay was rammed with a normal rammer so the report is basicly non existant, another one i made which had a slight recess in the delay grain was a bit louder which just goes to show that there is no clay needed to provide suitable confinement.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGuBGpWYTj0 (D1 delay, BP break, 20mm ID)

 

Second attempt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8lFXITErgs (Green mix delay with recess, BP break, 16mm ID)

PGF,

 

I love how the casing spirals and makes a helix out of the charcoal streamer...those will rock with some real headers. Are you going to add some metal (Al flitters, FeTi, etc) to the delay mix?

 

Can't wait to see the results.

[Pretty green flame]

Are you going to add some metal (Al flitters, FeTi, etc) to the delay mix?

 

Can't wait to see the results.

I'll most probably use a mix of 10% Aluminium and 90% Black powder as this is the cheapest and looks OK, 5% Titanium would probably knock your socks off, but I don't have any at the moment.