alternative to making e-matches

[ST1DinOH]

Ok as a service to all thoes who may want to make thier own e-matches, and more over as a service to all thoes who awnser these questions everytime they pop up, i've made this tutorial of my method. this method was handed down to me from a fellow pyro who shall remain nameless. it's a great option for thoes without access to nichrome. for this i use standard picture hanging wire, the shiny multi strand kind sold for dirt cheap at any hardware store. cut it into 1 1/2 to 2 inch pieces.

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0059.jpg

 

once you have it cut go ahead and unravel it into individual strands

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0063.jpg

 

now you have a good 15-20 strands of bridge wire.

 

next step is to take some 2 conduit shooting wire and cut yourself a nice 10 foot length

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0064.jpg

 

once you have that cut you are gonna want to twist each end to keep it tight and even, and toss in some twists in between the ends just to keep the wires neat (less likely to tangle up, keeps the 2 wires together). once it's all twisted up choose an end to work with. it should look something like this

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0067.jpg

 

now strip one of the wires back a bit and cut the other wire back a bit. you want the end of the unstripped wire to line up with the insulation on the stripped wire.

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0068.jpg

 

now strip that wire back a bit.

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0069.jpg

 

ok starting with the shorter wire take a strand of the picture hanging wire and tightly wrap it around the stripped short wire....then snug it back to the insulation. should be about 1/2 way up the stripped wire

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0071.jpg

 

now "fold" the excess stripped wire back onto the wrapped portion of itself. then pull the remaining strand of shiny metal wire tight

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0072.jpg

 

now repeat this process for the other (longer) wire of the 2. make sure there is a little slack in the bridge so you can build more resistance when firing.

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0073.jpg

 

now just fold over that 2nd wire as you did with the first and you're ready for dippin. the "un-dipped" ematch should look something like this

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0075.jpg

 

 

now just get a bottle of your favorite pyrogen/nitrocelulose whatever you like, and dip away. just for grins here's my bottle o stuff. gerber bottle's work great for this.

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0077.jpg

 

now once you dip the match it'll look something like this

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0079.jpg

 

and then you can just hang it out to dry for at least a few hours...it'll shrink quite a bit as the acetone evaporates and leave a skin around the bridge. i like to bundle mine up lenghtwise so they are easy to store. here's a pic of the fininshed product.

 

http://www.pyroreview.com/gallery/data/541/343IMG_0080.jpg

 

ok so i hope this helps everyone out. special thanks go out to all thoes here who helped me learn to do this. i think you'll find it takes a whiel for the first 10 but after that you'll be whipping 20 or so out per hour. if you do 10 or 20 a night from now till the 4th you'll have pleanty.

 

oh almost forgot....thses matches work perfectly for my 24 volt system. if your system uses less voltage you may want to test one before you make 100 or so

 

PS...i apologise for the watermarks in the bottom RHS of all these pics...the site i've hosted the img's at does that for some stupid reason. if it's considered advertising i can dig up the originals, host them elsewhere, and edit this post with pics minus that annoying watermark.

[crazyboy25]

why dont you just have photobucket host them its free

 

 

i don't really like electronic firing if i were to have multiple device s i would but i find it way easier and cheaper to simply use about 1ft of visco.

[ST1DinOH]

why dont you just have photobucket host them its free

 

 

i don't really like electronic firing if i were to have multiple device s i would but i find it way easier and cheaper to simply use about 1ft of visco.

i went from hand lighting, to visco shows, to e-fire...

 

trust me when i say this...e-fire is far easier/safer than hand lighting if you are lighting more than a few things.

 

when i'm doing shows we are putting up multiple cases of product, over multiple points/fronts.

 

there's no way to get the kind of percise timing necessary to pull of fronts that look good without using a ton of quick match or e-firing.

 

a buddy of mine makes e-fire systems, so i guess i'm spoiled in that regaurd, but once you make the switch you'll never go back.

 

take a gander at this show:

 

http://fireworks.agprojects.net/st1dinoh/July%201%202006.wmv

 

thats from 06.

 

here's a few pics of everything we sent up

 

http://www.pyrouniverse.com/gallery2/data/518/medium/IMG_00241.JPG

http://www.pyrouniverse.com/gallery2/data/518/medium/IMG_00211.JPG

http://www.pyrouniverse.com/gallery2/data/518/medium/IMG_0022.JPG

http://www.pyrouniverse.com/gallery2/data/518/medium/IMG_00231.JPG

http://www.pyrouniverse.com/gallery2/data/518/medium/IMG_00361.JPG

 

no way all that could have gone up and still looked good had we hand lit.

 

if you are only putting up a few shells there's no need, but if you are doing a show then it's worth it to e-match everything. you should try it sometime...just do a simple nail board show sometime and it'll change your mind.

 

there's nothing like matching the lift, hitting the button, and getting that insta lift responce. it's a nice to be able to have all that controll at a safe distance.

[h0lx]

Yea I used to do just that. If you have enough voltage it ignites as a sparkler in air For that purpose I think dipping it in something is a bit overkill.

[Truth]

The last 2 years I have been using the heating coil wire from an old toaster for my E-matches. I dip them in a NC lacquer and BP slurrey and fire them with a 12 volt car battery. They work very well. I have never had a misfire with them.

[NightHawkInLight]

Sorry to wake this topic up again. I have not used e-matches often for a while, just because I haven't had the need. At one point I used them quite a bit however, and I found a Christmas light bulb (the small ones) filled with a touch of dirty flash/meal works every time. Pretty cool, especially since you can get strands of lights with hundreds of bulbs for dirt cheap, particularly in a few days when the holidays end.

To prepare them I stick a bulb in a piece of cloth and break the glass tip with pliers. Then I fill the bulb with a small amount of the meal and/or flash, and plug it in with cotton. Little touch of tape to hold it in.

You must only be careful to not break the filament when breaking the glass and filling, but it's not hard after you've tried a few times.

Then to ignite, I used a firing rig made to fire with a camera capacitor, which made the filaments explode even without meal or flash. It works fine even with a 9 volt though, and a larger battery and ignition box as would be used for standard e-matches would work great. So there's my simple, cheap and fast e-match solution.

My only complaints are that the matches are a bit larger than usual and don't come with a wire leader pre-attached.

[tentacles]

Nighthawk: FrankRizzo taught me the xmas light trick - the easiest and most consistent way to break the bulbs is to take a triangle file and score the side of the bulb, then snap in your fingers. You don't have to score it all that deep or more than maybe 15-20 degrees of the circumference. It will snap very easily, you will be surprised! I did a 100 string a couple weeks ago in about 30 minutes, from new in box to cut up and snapped in a tub.

 

Nice thing is they already have good leads on em, and you just scoop the end into your favorite pyrogen/nc slurry. (chlorate/SbS3, meal, slow flash)

 

One thing to keep in mind is that they will not be reliable if you use old/used lights. Even if they all work when you start, you will have a high failure rate with used bulbs. No idea why, but since you can get 100 strands for like $2.50 right now even at walmart... That's actually cheaper than those oda enterprises chips, by a lot - and those don't even have leads yet.

[FrankRizzo]

This scoring/snapping process is a very common way of cutting glass tubing in the lab. Since the bulbs are basically small lengths of flint glass tubing, the technique works just the same. I like using a triangle file, but a dremel with a thin abrasive cutoff disk could also be use to score the bulbs. Make sure to cover your work surface and gloves are never a bad idea. The fine glass dust will stick to the layer of sweat/oil on your fingers and itch later.

 

The advantage with using this method over the pliers/crush technique is that the tube stays largely intact and will protect the fragile filament from damage.

 

Note: Different brands of lights, and strings with different total bulb counts or other configurations (ex, icicle lights) may have different filament resistances. It's best stick with of one specific brand and one particular light count (100, 150, etc.) when making a batch. Improvised e-matches made in this manor should *not* be used with firing systems that maintain a continuity check current unless you've tested them safe beforehand.

 

Scoring & snapping-off the bulb tip

 

DIY shroud

[NightHawkInLight]

Cool, sounds like a great way to open them up. I guess it pays to share my ideas from time to time

[Rogue Chemist]

Instead of picture wire in the original post, a single strand of steel wool can be used. Advantages are the ability to fire from a 9V, the use of a photoflash capacitor gives an extremely energetic ignition, with many hot sparks flying into the composition, and a 9V in series with a 470 ohm resistor and LED gives a safe connectivity test(test this for yourself of course, different fineness of steel wool are available, and resistances will vary)

[FrankRizzo]

Steel wool is a horrible bridge wire material. Different strands, even from the same wad, are of inconsistent diameter which leads to huge resistance variations. Coated with a pyrogen, the matches only last a short time due to corrosion so they become very unreliable.

 

The holiday lights don't seem to suffer this same problem, and can be fired off as little as 1.5V if using the bulbs from 100-150 ct. sets.

[Yankie]

FrankRizzo, those tutorials were great. I just went and tested one with some match heads (I am at my mums and theres no black powder here) But it worked fine.

If you say they can be lit from a 1.5v battery then I would say with a 9v you could get significant range? 30m or so?

Why on earth would you use the KClO3/SbS3 mix, it sounds like a prick of a thing, sensetive to everything. Whats wrong with good old black powder? Could you use black powder bound with red gum using acetone as the solvent? (thats if water is bad)

[FrankRizzo]

A 9V battery would likely be just fine out to 30m with one match. My firing system uses a small 12V lead-acid battery for reliability, and the ability to run a few matches in series.

 

I use SbS3/KCLO3 because of it's ease of ignition. I've tested copper oxide and manganese dioxide thermite mixes using fine magnalium and they work great as well if you're looking for a fairly insensitive pyrogen. Red gum bound meal would probably work as well, but you may run into filament corrosion issues due to the nitrate.

 

The bulbs are dirt cheap, try different mixes until you find something that works reliably for you.

[Yankie]

I may just try dumping some granulated bp in and sealing with a bit of hot melt glue or similar. Or get a short section of drinking straw, around 15mm long, put a dab of hot melt glue in one end and squeeze it togther, fill the bulb with granulated BP and slide the little sleeve over the top and secure with hot melt glue/ super glue.

I fused my NYE show together yesterday with visco and realised another bonus of E matches, They are alot more cost effective.

[NightHawkInLight]

I may just try dumping some granulated bp in and sealing with a bit of hot melt glue or similar. Or get a short section of drinking straw, around 15mm long, put a dab of hot melt glue in one end and squeeze it togther, fill the bulb with granulated BP and slide the little sleeve over the top and secure with hot melt glue/ super glue.

I fused my NYE show together yesterday with visco and realised another bonus of E matches, They are alot more cost effective.

I don't know if I would use granulated BP. Both because it seems that the granulated particles could damage the filament, as well as they might stand a bit less of a chance of catching fire as more finely separated particles.

[jacob]

I don't remember where but on some webpage I saw a method to make Xmass light E-matches by setting a pair of Vice Grips just smaller than the size of the bulbs and snaping away, I bet it would be even faster then scoring and breaking it, but you'd probably crack off all the glass.

[NightHawkInLight]

I don't remember where but on some webpage I saw a method to make Xmass light E-matches by setting a pair of Vice Grips just smaller than the size of the bulbs and snaping away, I bet it would be even faster then scoring and breaking it, but you'd probably crack off all the glass.

I have done that, but it does break all the glass away, and most often breaks the filaments.

[FrankRizzo]

I don't remember where but on some webpage I saw a method to make Xmass light E-matches by setting a pair of Vice Grips just smaller than the size of the bulbs and snaping away, I bet it would be even faster then scoring and breaking it, but you'd probably crack off all the glass.

 

Yep, as NightHawk said, that process usually breaks the bulb too much to be useful. Scoring the bulb and snapping doesn't take but all of a few seconds each, and leaves a nice protective tube around the filament. The cost for a small triangle file is usually quite low as well...it doesn't even need to have a handle.

[jacob]

Well darn, I thought that would work good, lucky I have a triangle file

[qwezxc12]

I don't know if I would use granulated BP. Both because it seems that the granulated particles could damage the filament, as well as they might stand a bit less of a chance of catching fire as more finely separated particles.

 

I've used BP fines left over from screening corned BP into different sizes. I reserve the really fine leftovers (-24mesh down to mill dust) for two uses:

 

Filling straws that pipe fire into the center of ball shells from the fuse, and

Filling Christmas light-bulb igniters

 

I spike the BP for igniters with 5% dark Al, fill the bulb, place a 1" piece of Chinese visco on the top, and tape up with masking tape. The cheap visco throws a lot of side-spit and will light anything.

[Yankie]

I used both granulated BP and meal powder and found the meal powder was better, it had more fire than the GBP. The only problem I noticed was the meal powder was falling past the filament and down inside the actual plastic housing. Using meal powder would be ok if you are firing something in the not too distant future but the longer storage of these E matches could lead to failure because of hte meal powder falling out through the plastic housing.

 

What are some suitable compositions (if there are any) for those of us who do not have perch or chlorate? As FrankRizzo said the KNO3 could corrode the filament if you use wetted black powder.

 

I can use perch later on as I will be getting some, I dont want to use chlorate because of the sulfur issue.

[FrankRizzo]

Ir you've got a dark pyro aluminum or fine magnalium, a copper oxide thermite mixture works quite well and doesn't have the compatibility problems that the SbS3/KCLO3 does.

 

Copper Oxide thermite:

Dark Aluminum - 18

Copper Oxide (black) - 82

[FrankRizzo]

If anyone is looking for cheap x-mas lights, now is the time to buy. My local Target has boxes of 100 in clear (white) labeled "Mini light Set" for $0.75/ea after 75% clearance.

[tentacles]

Frank, if you make it over there before they're all gone would you pick me up a couple of those? I'd appreciate it much.

[Miech]

Filing and snapping lightbulbs? I think that is way too much efford. I rather hold the tip of the bulb in a flame for a few seconds, and then dump the whole thing in cold water. Just look at the bulb after such a treatment and the tip almost falls off. If there gets some water in the bulb, thats not a problem. Neither the copper filaments nor the tungsten wire will corrode from some moisture. Just let them dry and you can use them.