clay

[gabewills]

ok, whenever i see a tutorial they always say put the clay in.

 

where can i get this clay?

[cplmac]

For pyrotechnic use you want clay powder, usually bentonite. If you can't find it you can use regular old kitty litter which is 99 percent bentonite clay.

[marks265]

When I make things like fountains or saxons I use "Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty". It is a powder material similar in consistancy to bentonite clay and may even pack a little looser. I even used it for the nozzle side as well as the plugged end. If your purpose is rockets or other high power applications I would not suggest it. Keep in mind that I am new to pyro too and if the device you are making were to go bad I think it would be less of a missle than bentonite. I also like it because I do not like to spend the effort for grinding kitty litter to a powder.

[Gottagotomoz]

Kitty Litter Nozzle Mix

 

As stated before, kitty litter is commonly used for nozzles/plugs. To find out more for optimal performance, read the above posted thread.

[gabewills]

do i have to grind up the kitty liter?

into a powder?

[TheSidewinder]

From what I understand, no you don't have to grind it up as long as you're using good rammers. Just make sure to use small increments.

[mormanman]

From what I understand, no you don't have to grind it up as long as you're using good rammers. Just make sure to use small increments.

Poop, don't take this as advice. I've never really done it in small increments and have only had one nozzle blow out on 1x4" ID fountains that are very powerful.

[Bonny]

From what I understand, no you don't have to grind it up as long as you're using good rammers. Just make sure to use small increments.

I've always ground my clay (kitty litter) in the ball mill ahead of time and rammed in one solid mass. I've read that some people use it as is though, maybe pressed with a support sleeve to prevent the case from splitting.

[asilentbob]

From what I understand, no you don't have to grind it up as long as you're using good rammers. Just make sure to use small increments.

Poop, don't take this as advice. I've never really done it in small increments and have only had one nozzle blow out on 1x4" ID fountains that are very powerful.

Just because you personally have only had one nozzle blow out in your particular preparation doesn't mean it is the best and should be followed by others. That said, saying another *much more experienced* member's advice shouldn't be taken as advice... is completely out of line. He could have meant ram whatever composition you are using in small increments. Thats not clear. Don't jump to conclusions.

 

That said, the nozzles I have previously made were straight (un-milled) bentonite kitty litter rammed hard *in multiple small portions* then hand drilled out after whatever composition I rammed in in many small portions. The action of ramming the bentonite will reduce the particle size of many of the bentonite chunks. Having nice big chunks also gets them well dug into the walls of the tube.

 

Now that I have proper tooling next nozzles I make will likely be that bentonite/wax composition.

[Mumbles]

I was trying to figure out if he was stating not to take TheSidewinder's advice, or not to listen to himself as a reliable source. It is not clear however.

 

Whenever I have made rockets or gerbs I use somewhat powdered cat litter. It's not powdered to a fine dust, probably about the consistency of table salt. I feel it makes my increment amounts more reliable, and it seems to compact a bit better. When I have used the coarse material, I noticed it took many more and harder blows to get it to compact well. Then again I was not using small increments either. A blender or coffee grinder makes quick work of the clay.

[TheSidewinder]

LOL, I was trying to figure that out, too.

 

I use Sleeter's formula for nozzles, never tried Kitty Litter myself.

 

But a number of rocket pounders in our Guild (WPAG) use nothing but kitty litter. They don't add any additional binders (i.e. paraffin wax) or abrasives (i.e. grog). Most of them are pressing their rockets, though, and if you're using a good press then you DEFINITELY don't need to grind it up.

 

M

[mormanman]

Just because you personally have only had one nozzle blow out in your particular preparation doesn't mean it is the best and should be followed by others. That said, saying another *much more experienced* member's advice shouldn't be taken as advice... is completely out of line. He could have meant ram whatever composition you are using in small increments. Thats not clear. Don't jump to conclusions.

Not to be rude but my message says to not take that as advice.

[Mumbles]

The issue is that your message is unclear on which piece of advice not to listen to. You quote TheSidewinder's, and give your own, but do not state which is the one not to listen to. My previous post makes this fact blatantly obvious if you took the time to read it.

[marks265]

I could not take it anymore. I did a test with ground kitty litter (KL), unground KL, and bentonite clay, and 2 hardware available items. I will post results tomorrow. 1st impressions are Bentonite is #1 for the least errosion and then ground KL and 3rd is unground KL. I did this post now so I could see what the file size is for attachments. Oh poop the wife just found out I stole KL! IT WILL BE DETAILED! I just have to figure out how to post pics and video. darn newbie!

 

Details:

I made 5 fountains using 1/2" ID X 3/4" OD X 5" long tubes.

The composition I used was a green magnalium star formula that I used from Tom Perigrin's book which was "reported by "HWW" in Best Of AFN III" and the components are grams;

 

KCLO4 30

red gum 4

parlon 12

Magnalium 50/50 100 mesh (I used -200 mesh) 30

Boric acid .5

dextrin 4

barium carbonate 19.5

 

1) Each tube was plugged by using 1/2 teaspoon of bentonite and rammed then a second 1/2 teaspoon was added and weighed to equal 22 grams including case.

2) Each tube was rammed evenly with composition for a combined weight of 36.5 grams, this left 7/8" for nozzle material. Sorry no fountain tools so this was done the hard way as all my others!

3) nozzles were hand rammed solid then hand drilled to 7/32". materials were Bentonite, KL("Tidy Cats Scoop-the hard clumping litter"-I'm sure it matters to someone!) that was unmanipulated and also ground with a mortise and pestile, My hardware items of choice were Durhams Rock Hard Putty and cement patch.

 

To this point the total weight varied from 40.4 - 41.9 grams. The 2 hardware items were crap and from now on will be excluded. The cement patch crumbled while drilliing and the Durhams nozzle blew out when lit. The famous 3 are Bentonite and KL untouched and pulverized. Total weight of Bent.=40.7,ground KL=40.4, unground Kl=41.3grams. To me Bentonite was the easiest to penetrate when hand drilling followed by the ground KL, unground was the hardest. When hand ramming the KL unground not all particles pulverized completely and is why it was the hardest to drill.

 

After lighting the fountains they were weighed. Bentonite was 24.4, unground KL was 24.6, ground KL was 24.2. I chipped away loose dross from the nozzles and tried to get a best probable hole size using drill bits as a common gauge. A quick visual shows Bentonite as the smallest then ground KL then unground. From a cold state all 3 held there size and measured smaller than 7/32" (Dross). In this state the largest was unground KL @11/64" then ground KL @9/64", bentonite was 7/64". What this tells me is that all 3 can take the heat and actually not erode but differ with dross build up. I can only guess that some of the KL erodes initiatially more than bentonite and then dross builds after prolonged burn time.

 

I am sure that this will create some sparks and will gladly listen to what people have to say. My point was that I tried it with keeping variables to a minimum to evaluate an age old debate( I believe) between KL and bentonite. I still want to post pics and or video. I may also still do an autopsy of spent cases. At this point I would summize that if you were building a rocket that blows up maybe KL will help!!!!

Danger her because I don't build rockets.

 

Does this qualify for an APC info pool??????

[Mumbles]

The info pool is quite non-existant at the moment, and has been for some time. Probably should make this clearer in the FAQ or just remove viewing of the info pool section thing.

[marks265]

Here is a pic of assembled fountains. From left to right it was a cement patch, Durhams Rock Hard, Bentonite, kitty litter ground, and kittle litter unground.

 

For video go to;

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8157131169359947553

 

Two of them did not light so I had to do those individually. From what I experienced the smaller the nozzle the faster it burned.

[marks265]

I did not figure out how to add a second pic, so here is what the nozzles looked like afterwards. From the left it is bentonite, then ground litter and then unground. In the video check out the difference in burn time between the unground litter (far right)and the far left fountain which was "durhams rock hard" which had a hole size of about 3/8" after burning.

[marks265]

I know I beat this one to death but after thinking about the test shoot I remember a sputtering sound. If you were to watch again the far right one which was kitty litter it made popping noises from dross build up or additives from cat litter popping. Just thought it might be an interesting observation to some, ok maybe just me.