weknowpyro Posted March 23, 2006 Posted March 23, 2006 Hi, Have you ever made one and wht stars and how long did u make yours. Because i'm thinking of making one but last time i made it rammed the delay to much and runied the lift so the stars did not come out. have any advice?
Frozentech Posted March 23, 2006 Posted March 23, 2006 Hi, Have you ever made one and wht stars and how long did u make yours. Because i'm thinking of making one but last time i made it rammed the delay to much and runied the lift so the stars did not come out. have any advice? I make mine 18 inches long, 3/4" I.D., using 11/16 pumped stars longer than they are wide. I use Veline red, green, and blue stars usually. I also use more lift int he first 3 stars, a bit less in the next three, and even less on the bottom stars. You do have to ram the delay fairly hard, to avoid 'machine gunning'.
dragonman586 Posted March 23, 2006 Posted March 23, 2006 Machine gunning is an aweosome effect though. I sometimes do it purposely for the aggressive popping sounds. Kinda reminds me of the night vision vids of the fighting in Iraq. I use 1/2" I.D. that is 12" long. About the compressing make sure to use well granulated lift so that it doesn't get compacted by the blows.
weknowpyro Posted March 23, 2006 Author Posted March 23, 2006 lasted i time i pressed it i must have done to hard then cause it just flamed inside the tube and burnt all the stars out inside the tube.
d4j0n Posted April 13, 2006 Posted April 13, 2006 Mine are 3/8" candles. At least with mine, I only need to apply firm hand pressure to compress the delay. I only really hammer in the last delay. Also, make sure the lift isn't too fine...I use rather large mesh for lift, 2cm+ for roman candle lift. They break up a little in the process anyway. http://www.wecreate4u.net/dwilliams/romancan/romancan.html
weknowpyro Posted May 16, 2006 Author Posted May 16, 2006 Question on roman candles again. I have tried them and the thing is they just burnt in the tube i have looked at sites but none say how big the stars should be compared to the tube i have been making mine like half the size of this 1/2" tube i have, the problem is it just means the stars aren't propelled the just pop out. But if the stars were the exactly right size for the tube wouldn't that mean the delay compostion would just hit the star and burn that and not reach the lift underneath it? Please help out with this one.
hst45 Posted June 28, 2006 Posted June 28, 2006 I make my candles from 1/2" I.D. tubing, and roll stars to just under the width of the tube. i use a 1/2" long section of the tube as a gauge as i roll the stars to make sure the stars are large enough to just fit loosly. Remember that the fire is passed down from above, so the delay comp starts to light the star, and the fire then passes to the lift charge below. By using a snug fit star, the lift charge blows the star very energetically, instead of the force just blowing past between the star and the tube.Because the stars start to burn just before they are ejected, you can usually light even a hard to light stars without a prime layer. For a two-stage effect, try a colored core, rolled to about 5/16" then follow with a BP prime made from hardwood charcoal. This will give a nice orange flitter trail going up and end with a color core.
aquaman Posted June 30, 2006 Posted June 30, 2006 I just shot off one of my 3/8" roman candles and it went ok. I used Chrysanthemum #6 as the delay between each star and it gave the candle a fountain look. It was a five shot and all of the stars lit except the last one. Not sure why maybe a little too much lift as a lound bang was heard but I could of swore that I measured correctly... ohh well. I will have to make another tomorrow with my freshly made stars that I made earlier today. I will have to video tape it to show everyone.
Mephistos Minion Posted June 30, 2006 Posted June 30, 2006 How thick do you all make tubes for 1/2" candles? I can roll one sheet of 55# virgin Kraft adn get a tube about 12" long. The walls are fairly thin, but the glue makes the tubes very hard, so I imagine they will be able to withstand the pressure and burning. Just want a second opinion.
aquaman Posted June 30, 2006 Posted June 30, 2006 My candle's walls are a little more than 1/8" and they are 3/8" ID. They seem to hold up the pressure just fine. I don't know about yours Mephistos but if you want you can try taping a couple sheets of paper to your tube to make it a little thicker or you can glue them and have to wait for it to dry.
dragonman586 Posted July 1, 2006 Posted July 1, 2006 Is that 1cm thick walls? Because that is an obscene overkill. My 1/2" candles used a little less than 1/8" thick walls. Hey weknowpyro try uing a very thin strand of blackmatch along the side of a star that fits fairly snug. It worked wonders for me. The trick is to use a star pump that cuts a small groove along the side of the star so that the black match can fit without causing too tight of a fit.
Mumbles Posted July 1, 2006 Posted July 1, 2006 Actually, it would be a lot easier for alignment purposes to have a hole in the middle. That is how the Wolter star pumps for roman candles work. The fuse lights the star and goes to the lift.
weknowpyro Posted July 2, 2006 Author Posted July 2, 2006 I have seen a couple of delay mixtures but i was just looking for a quick and easy delay. Before i used bp and Al but that burnt way to fast, so i was thinking could a normal kno3 and sugar mixture work well as a delay?
d4j0n Posted July 25, 2006 Posted July 25, 2006 You really only need a small gap between the star and the tube and it will ignite the lift just fine. I use fines from my lift powder granulation process to fill the gap on the sides.
mormanman Posted November 25, 2007 Posted November 25, 2007 I made one today and I hope it works. I always get scared with things I've never made before b/c there are all these storys about how things go wrong. Like rockets scare the crap out of me b/c the cato and shit.
deadman Posted November 26, 2007 Posted November 26, 2007 Roman candle's are by comparison one of the safer pojects in the sense of cato'ing. Very little lift is used and the star offers very little confinement. It should be fine. What kind of rockets are you afraid of? Most of my rockets do indeed cato, but are always much quieter than a 3" mortar firing.
mormanman Posted November 26, 2007 Posted November 26, 2007 Roman candle's are by comparison one of the safer pojects in the sense of cato'ing. Very little lift is used and the star offers very little confinement. It should be fine. What kind of rockets are you afraid of? Most of my rockets do indeed cato, but are always much quieter than a 3" mortar firing. All of them except the visco ones. I think those ones are kind of funny, they're like little bugs flying off. My fountains look like the have alot of thurst and I'm tempted to turn them into a rocket but still scared of a fire altho there has been alot of rain.
Achtung Posted November 26, 2007 Posted November 26, 2007 you can use willow, chrysantemum 6,8, or tiger tail composition for a delay. for lifting charge the best is pressed and crushed black powder(about 1mm grains),
Bonny Posted November 26, 2007 Posted November 26, 2007 I've only ever made a few candles, but for delay I just used milled bp + about 10-20% mixed charcoal. it seemed to work fine for me.
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