no ignition in sparkler compisition

[birdhouse62]

hi,

 

i cannot get my sparkler/star mixture to ignite, i thought i could maybe make some stars out of it insted of making sparklers. i found the website for it here:

 

http://chemistry.about.com/od/demonstratio...ht/sparkler.htm

 

 

it says i need:

300 parts potassium chlorate

60 parts aluminum fines, flitter, or granules

2 parts charcoal

10% dextrin in water solution

500 parts strontium nitrate (optional, for red color)

 

 

i have all of the chems for it and i scaled it down 4 times because i wanted to test it in case it didn't work

 

(scaled down 4 times):

75 parts potassium chlorate

15 part aluminum

.5 part charcoal

150 parts strontium nitrate

 

i tried my little torch on it directly and it seems to melt and bubble and it still doesn't ignite. the aluminum i am using is al powder and the mesh is like 1300, so i'm not sure if it will work. please help me out.

 

thanks

[InRainbows]

About.com isn't what comes to mind when I think of good sources. I personally think 2 parts charcoal out of 362 is too little, but hey, that's me.

 

First thing is it might still be wet, things like this tend to look dry before they are. A really simple way to test it is gently heat it, and check if it looks slightly watery. Maybe it's not your aluminum, it could be your potassium chlorate, where did you get it?

[birdhouse62]

i bought the potassium chlorate, aluminum and the strontium off ebay, and i made the charcoal out of i think oak.

[Mumbles]

It is the formula. Adding that much strontium nitrate makes the comp absolutely useless. I would also suggest staying away from chlorates until you are better acquainted with pyrotechnics and chemistry. They are rather unstable, and have many incompatibilities that can be troublesome if you are not completely aware of what you are doing.