How many Aussie Pyros are there?

[Gunzway]

Nah, I'm from Melbourne.

I live near a river, so you can see why it is a popular firework area.

I would rather live in Adelaide or in SA due to the fact the population is smaller. But here, there is open space and a river to prevent fires so I am happy that I got a suitable site.

[DIYMark]

Some what off topic but in my earlier post I said how I started making smaller rocket tooling and I said Id try to see whats the smallest rocket I can make...

 

WELL I made one! It was 9/64" (~3.5mm) case ID and 3/64" (~1.2mm) Nozzle ID. the case was a 1" (~25.4mm) long. It few about 10 meters up lol. It was pretty cool. Not exactly a work horse motor lol but was fun to make.

 

I "borrowed" a 0.8mm drill bit from electronics today and I will make a even smaller rocket. 0.8mm Nozzle and a 2.5mm ID case (20mm long).

[Mumbles]

If moving to the US, and don't mind snow, Wisconsin would not be a bad place. They have conceal and carry in most places. Can't do so on college campuses, airports, churches, etc but nothing extremely major. Very low violent crime rate, unless you live in Milwaukee. The biggest crime is probably related to alcohol, whether it be drinking and driving or underage drinking. Plus who doesn't want to go to the WPAG and get to bullshit with Steve LaDuke and Jim Freeman?

[Rogue Chemist]

Most of the USA energetics groups were shut down after accidents. There are only a couple left, and one does masters degrees, not in new explosives research, but further research of already known explosives. There is also one about to no longer exist as the supervisor/professor is really really old and not taking new grad students.

I have recently read a gov release from the USA stating that they need to recruit more researchers, as the remaining handfulls are almost retiring.

 

Other than the USA, there is 1 group in sweeden, a bunch in russia and china, a couple in germany, a whole institute in the czech republic, and one or two in france, and a military one in the UK. Maybe one in australia somewhere too, I forget.

 

"Pyrotechnics, explosives, and propellants technology are not stagnant,"

No of course it is not...read JoPEP( http://www.wiley-vch.de/publish/en/journal...eticIndex/2014/ ) and look where the research comes from

 

EDIT: Also, if you care about concealed carry, check if they issue to non-citizens...not all do!

 

EDIT2: Here we go, the masters program http://www.oaee.umd.edu/grad/energetics.html

[Frozentech]

Also, New Mexico Tech has programs, some are named "materials engineering" but course work includes work at the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center , Sandia Labs, Los Alamos National Laboratories, etc. They offer undergraduate to PhD level I believe. Hey, someone has to build what those whacky physicists think up.

[ULTRABUF]

At the moment I'm planning on pursuing the specialization in explosives engineering degree that NMT offers after I get a undergrad degree, the only prerequisite to pursue that degree is any degree in engineering. Not sure what career I want to go for yet, I'm kind of thinking about explosives research or something, or maybe pyro.

[WarezWally]

Become a shot firer and go work in the mines, last I heard you should be making $120,000+ a year.

[Yankie]

sorry for bumping an old thread but I would like to get into contact to south aussie pyros, particularly close to Laura (near Port Pirie) my hotmail is yankie_scholz@hotmail(dot)com

[Seymour]

! ATTENTION ALL AUSTRALIAN SHELL BUILDERS !

 

There has been a Southern Shell competition started. Details as per this website:

http://chemnpyro.awardspace.com/homepage.html

 

I agree, the chemical restrictions are tight - I would love to throw in some Ammonium perchlorate purples, but most Pyro's down this end don't have the chemical stash I do and we need to level the playing field.

 

So far all the competing pyro's are either from Australia or New Zealand, but for those who belong to the thirty or so other Southern Hemisphere Nations, you are welcome to join.

 

The Youtube site has been created, and if you are serious about competing please contact me or reply to this thread, or talk to one of the Australian pyro's who are organising/competing this event with me.

 

I know that half the people who have posted on this thread that I've borrowed (thank's Yankie) are already competitors, but this is a real opportunity to get us an active community down here, and who knows, look what they did in the UK, it all started with a bunch of backyard pyro's and now they have a legal society and are in the process of getting a registered factory.

[nick2354]

I cant get to details website, does anyone know why it dosent load?

[Mumbles]

It wasn't loading for me earlier, but it is now.

[rocket]

The sites working fine now and it was last night too, someone else had a problem accessing it the other day too.

[Gunzway]

Yeah, sorry about the website problem. One of these days I need to pay $8 a year to get a proper website. If it isn't up, it's probably due to maintenance or something. I'll just put the information here.

SOUTHERN PYRO COMPETITION RULES!

 

You must submit a video of a 3" Ball Shell, It must include a picture of the shell before being fired. The word "George" must be visible on this shell

 

You may only use the following chemicals

 

- KNO3

- Sulfur

- Charcoal

- Aluminum

- Iron

- Zinc

- Any Binder of your choice

- Misc chemicals (Such as your baking soda etc.)

 

Your burst charge is entirely up to you, also your lift may also be up to you. Everything must be homemade, not including fuse, timefuse and shell hemisphere. There has been talk of "Can I use ------- but only for blah blah effect?" I think it should only be limited to kno3 based compositions and no other oxidizers.

 

Rising effects can be added also, but must apply with the chemical list

 

Submit the video to the youtube account which we made, Please edit so we can see the shell and do not need to wait a minute to see it fire, but do not put a title etc or tell anyone who it is from

 

When all the submissions or the deadline is finished, you will grade the shells on a criteria to be made. As said, do not give someone a better score because "You like them more" or do not negotiate with a friend to rig the results

 

A prize MAY be given.

 

Competition ends January the 2nd. So you got New Years to fire if your hesitant of doing so other times.

[WarezWally]

Anyone interested in buying a set of 1/2" end burner tooling?

 

Aluminium base with brass rammer.

[mike_au]

Um...If you can tell me of a source for suitable tubes I might be How much are you after for it?

 

I have been meaning to get some 1/4"x2" tubes from ebay for some little bottle rockets, so if you can make tooling for them I might be interested too.

[WarezWally]

Not looking for much, just enough to cover costs

 

Bottle rocket tooling is dead easy to make.

[mike_au]

I've had a bit more of a look around and the only 1/2" tubes I can find are at skylighter (I'm not willing to pay their prices).

 

Are you rolling your own or am I just blind or something?

 

Just as a ballpark figure, how much for 1/4" tooling? (PM if you prefer)

[tentacles]

Mike: have you tried contacting Jim Biersach of Hobbyhorse? He sells NEPT tubes for very reasonable prices. Shipping, however, would be nightmarish to say the least.

[mike_au]

Shipping, however, would be nightmarish to say the least.

 

Eek! Nightmarish is about right, almost $100 shipping for $11 worth of tubes. I've heard NEPTs are good, but I doubt they are that good.

[tentacles]

NEPT tubes are incomparable to other tubes. But I don't know if they're worth $100 shipping! If you could get some crammed into one of those neat 25kg flat rate UPS/fedex boxes, it might be more manageable. But hardly cheap.

[WarezWally]

$100 shipping my ass

 

USPS have flat rate boxes for $36

 

As for the tooling, you buy the aluminium and I'll do it for the price of a few tool blanks ($10)

[Mumbles]

Guys, you don't take everything into account here. Jim offers a service, he is not there to bow to your every need. The tubes will not fit into a flat rate box, as it, which is why the shipping is exorbitant. Instead of bitching and moaning here, try e-mailing him, offer him a couple extra bucks to see if he can cut them in half for you, in which case they will fit into one, and still have correct dimensions for rockets. Also see if it's possible to ship via USPS, where it will save some money. At the top of the page, it very explicitly states he ships via UPS. Also, try to team up with others. I did a bit of math, and if he's willing to cut them in half for you, you'll be able to fit 80 tubes per normal flat rate box, which would be 4 bundles of 10. Same shipping price. I'm not sure on the weight though.

 

A large flat rate box would fit 100, so 5 bundles of 10. The extra shipping makes it no more cost effective than the normal sized box though.

[mike_au]

I won't deny that I was having a bit of a whinge, but it was directed at Australia being so limited in local supplies and possibly at shipping companies, I certainly have no problem what so ever with the people who are nice enough to even consider shipping internationally. I dare say it would be far easier for the suppliers to just say "US Only" and forget about the tiny number of orders that they might lose along with the extra work that those orders would involve.

 

The price I got was worked out by messing with the UPS calculator, I did consider emailing to see if he would cut them down, but I didn't want to waste his time on a theoretical exercise.

 

A group buy would certainly bring the $/tube down and is obviously the way to go, but being the lead up to christmas and what not I'm not going to try and organise anything like that at the moment.

 

I appreciate all of the suggestions on where to get the tubes and how to do it economically, and in a month or three I might well make use of them. I was hoping to find a source of 1/2" tubes that were as simple and cheap to sort out as the 1/4" ones (ebay, $20, done), it appears that such a source doesn't exist at the moment so I will just leave it for now.

[WarezWally]

There is a 12x12x6 flat rate box for $50 which goes to show how excessive UPS's rates are.

 

 

I would be interested in a group buy, perhaps after Christmas - hopefully our dollar gets a bit better

[MilkyJoe]

I too would am interested in a group purchase. I am sick of rolling my own inferior tubes but cringe at the expense of buying decent ones.

 

Count me in!

 

~Milky~