Fireballs, liquid

[Swany]

Liquid fireballs really are quite wonderful, as they are Hollywood's high exposives, and admittibly, even if we detest their portrayal of explosives, no one minds a good fireball.

 

Solid fireballs are the other option, however, they are a bit more tricky to get perfect, and they have less of the fireball effect and more of the supernova of doom look. Bad analogy, but hopefully you get it. Solid fueled fireballs rarely leave fallout. Liquid tends to leave some fuel burning on the ground when all is said and done.

 

There are 2 methods of dispersing/igniting the fuel that I am going to mention.

 

1) Blackpowder, or another lifting propellant. This is the most simple, as you simply place a measure of lift in your tube, a bag of liquid above it, and ignite. Instant fireball, and its mostly silent.

 

2) Flash, or similar, with secondary ignition. This is used to disperse your fuel in the air, where it is ignited by a secondary ignition source. I.E., a 500ml bag of gas over a 1.5g salute with burning paper surrounding it, makes a 5-7m fireball, with fallout, (should've used a bit more flash). These fireballs have sound, which adds to it all.

 

I need to get one of these on camera, as they are quite amusingly amazing, or amazingly amusing.

 

Other fuels could be used, for example. I reason methyl borate would be fascinating, or perhaps, liquid paraffin? Options are nearly endless. I wouldnt waste any 'real' solvents on fireballs, since petrol is plenty cheap.

 

Its quite amusing, and cheap, fun. Don't do it near the neighbors.... or anything flammable. We had to put out a few minor grass fires ourselves, even though we tried to fireproof the scene by covering the small dry patches that were about, and putting it in a hole. Even so, flaming gas fallout ignited about 4 spots, which were happily extinguished.

[Caleb51]

Aren't your worried that the lift charge alone could melt the bag, causing a massive fireball too soon? How do you get the fire from the lift to the bag of gas?

[RUUUUUN]

If you have Mg and Ba(NO3)2 you can make flash-lift with that that is pretty fast and burns very hot, its what I use for my liquid fireballs.

[Swany]

Aren't your worried that the lift charge alone could melt the bag, causing a massive fireball too soon? How do you get the fire from the lift to the bag of gas?

Thats the point, using lift. Using straight flash will make no fireball, just disperse it... well, at least with my specs.

[mr.pyro]

Aren't your worried that the lift charge alone could melt the bag, causing a massive fireball too soon? How do you get the fire from the lift to the bag of gas?

Melting the bag and igniting the gas as it expands upward is kinda the whole point.

[Caleb51]

I'm aware of that, I was moreso wondering why it doesnt ignite in the mortar, seeing as though there is a lot of heat and fire from the lift. I wouldn't be supprised if one of these CATOd.

 

Edited spelling*

Edited April 16, 2006 by Caleb51

[Frozentech]

I'm aare of that, I was moreso wondering why it doesnt ignite in the mortar, seeing as though there is a lot of heat and fire from the lift. I wouldn't be supprised if one of these CATOd.

Actually many fireball effects are supposed to ignite in the mortar. A cool one a 6 inch steel mortar tube with 2 gallons of gasoline and 75 grams of BP that is bagged and resin coated and set off with an ematch. Don't try this at home.

 

Traditional firepots using flammable powders such as Cremora can be set off in a metal coffee can, and they also ignite 'in mortar' so to speak. Search google for 'cremora pot'.

[Givat]

If some one already opened thread for liquid fire balls, any one found any relations between the amount of gasoline and the amount of BP?

 

I got some nice movie of 100 m"l gas fire ball in my garden:

http://www.apcforum.net/files/GasMinen75mn2.wmv

not the best fireball I've seen, but looked very nice.

[weknowpyro]

Nice fireball. I have problems before and cannot get a fireball evrytime, sometimes the bag of petrol just flys out the top and does not ignite. Whats going wrong?

[asilentbob]

The first time i tryed a fireball it was naphthalene based, and it worked, but was alot smaller than i was expecting. The second time i used a bag of acetone above pyrodex in a short mortor like tube, but i didn't use enough and all the acetone kinda went to one side and fell upon the ground, on fire, creating quite a mess of flames, but we were prepared with several extinguishers...

[Caleb51]

Okay, I get it now. I thought it was supposed to like fly way up like a shell and then go off.

[mr.pyro]

That would be called a lampara shell.

[Douchermann]

Weknowpyro, are you using flashpowder or blackpowder to lift it? If you're using flash, try a hotter burning comp (like an Mg based one). Also, try a shorter tube so that the flame actually reaches it before the pressure bursts it out.

[Swany]

My flash based fireball was very, very, crude. Basically, I dug a large hole, that was fairly shallow (2mx1m) with a salute and a ziplock bag of gas over it. Secondary ignition was a large twisted torch of newspaper stuck into one side of the hole.

 

I really really need to get a video of that.

 

I was also shocked and hurt when my first one failed due to no secondary ignition. So much for the flammability of gas, and its explosiveness....

[weknowpyro]

i just used bp next time i will try flash or both.

[d4j0n]

Yea...I followed some online tutorial from cannonfuse for creamer and bp in a cardboard tube. The thing CATO'ed. It seemed like a lot of black powder from the start but I went with it anyway.

 

Switching to gasoline; napthalene mothballs seem to not be availible ANYWHERE....I can only fine para mothballs. Apparently from what I can gather, napthalene gives babies liver problems and some other diseases or whatnot. figures.

[murderskill]

I thought you are not sup. to use flash for lift? Wouldnt it explode the launch tube?

[aquaman]

Yea...I followed some online tutorial from cannonfuse for creamer and bp in a cardboard tube. The thing CATO'ed. It seemed like a lot of black powder from the start but I went with it anyway.

I've tried it too and it worked great (BP and dairy creamer). I just cover the bottom of my tube (with one end plugged) with BP and insert the creamer. Stick the fuse in the side and lite it. It makes a somewhat good fireball. The only problem I've found is not all of the creamer is burned completly and it falls covering the area in a sticky mess.

[BigBang]

Flash is best for liquid fireballs IMHO. It "atomizes" the fuel so that you get a large, even burn. You must direct it to get the nuke effect, so you want a tube you are only going to use once.

 

Haggis once told me that it is good to use 100 grams of flash per 1 gallon of fuel. I don't have the video anymore but you might ask mumbles. It is a fireball filmed from very far away, that looks very similar to a nuclear mushroom forming. It was done in a 50 gallon drum.

[Mumbles]

It was 100g of flash for 1 gallon of aviation fuel.

[kwstag]

I've done some smaller ones.. It's always fun to do some every so often. Little charges with thin bags of gas on top work most of the time. I started out with those.

[delta_echo]

Flash is best for liquid fireballs IMHO. It "atomizes" the fuel so that you get a large, even burn. You must direct it to get the nuke effect, so you want a tube you are only going to use once.

 

Haggis once told me that it is good to use 100 grams of flash per 1 liter of fuel. I don't have the video anymore but you might ask mumbles. It is a fireball filmed from very far away, that looks very similar to a nuclear mushroom forming. It was done in a 50 gallon drum.

How was this consolidated (As in the was the fuel placed in a bag, what did the flash charge look like)?

[d4j0n]

Flash is good enough to light a liquid fireball? I'm trying to get film canisters and gasoline to work right now. I need something that isn't going to wake the neighbors so I'm sketchy about that flash...had bad experiences with a tiny bit of flash in a tiny masking tape roll. had no idea such weak confinement meant such a big boom.

 

Killed my last canister...the saran wrap zip tied baggie-o-gasoline just kinda flew up a foot and plopped on the ground next to the canister in a flaming puddle. Canister of course flamed and melted away.

 

Christ, I can't seem to get anything to work these days.

[Swany]

You need plenty of it in order for it to light it. A 1.5g salute placed under 500ml of gasoline simply dispersed it. Same setup in a crater with burning paper sticking from the crater wall resulted in a good 20ft fireball.

 

Today I will make a large flash/BP fireball and see how it goes.

[d4j0n]

Can I expect any sort of fireball from a film canister? Should I seal the gas bag? I can't tell if its just the black powder going off or a fireball. There's alkways a puddle of burning gasoline left on the floor.