Views on Ground Salutes

[Senz]

What are your views on them? not selling them, just making them for fun on private property.

[Richtee]

What are your views on them? not selling them, just making them for fun on private property.

Kind of like screwing the town pump. Satisfying at the moment, but lacking in any real meaning or import. Plus they tend to attract attention. And detract body parts.

[Senz]

havent made any yet, but they seem tempting for a boring day.

[tentacles]

Just be sure to hang em from a tree limb with string or something - you'll get a better thump, and then they're bird chasing devices.

 

Rich: lol! Everybody likes a good thump, those 8 and 10" salamis with their bottom shots were fantastic at PGI this year. The bigger ones had a nice roar of thunder back from the hills.

Edited August 22, 2008 by tentacles

[mormanman]

I will not lie I have made a couple but nothing that could do real damage to anything besides a hand. So dangerous like all fireworks/ salutes but they are kind of dumb. I would rather paint the sky instead of destroy the earth. When I do make them the fuse is like 5 to 10 seconds so I have plenty of time to run or throw.

[Senz]

ok. would a gluestick be a decent casing for one? i dont have any tubes less than 3/4 inch id -.-

 

EDIT: i am serously going to get my ass flamed by an admin for this thread

Edited August 22, 2008 by Senz

[LGM]

When you start asking if shit that you have lying around will work as a salute casing, you end up sounding like a kewl. You also sound like a dumbass if you have to ask if a tube will work for something as simple as what you are after.

 

Your other posts haven't been too smart either.

[Senz]

well, if im not so smart, perhaps i should be asking smarter people questions. and the only reason i was asking this is to see if there would be any dangers in using the specified casing.

[TheSidewinder]

Senz, you're asking questions that reveal how little you know about pyrotechnics, and especially the use of flash within the hobby.

 

Discussion of Salutes and Flash, if done in a mature, safe, and responsible manner, is allowed. Asking whether a glue stick tube is suitable for a casing fails all three of those tests. I see you realized that after you posted.

 

We here at APC have no desire to see potential Darwin Award Winners amongst our members. If you are serious about this hobby, take the advice that's already been offered to you. Start small, with Black Powder based devices. Fountains, small Mines, then small aerial shells. You won't learn overnight, believe me.

 

Flash and Salutes may be fun, and they DO have their place in pyrotechnics, but they are NOT FOR BEGINNERS. You're bored? Make a fountain. Or a sparkler. Or a BP rocket. Forget salutes.

 

And this is the last time I'm going to tell you that in a polite fashion. Be thankful Mumbles wasn't in a peckish mood and saw this post. You'd likely have been given a vacation.

[Senz]

It is true, i do know little about pyrotechnics, i just started an interest in it a month ago. and half of that month was consumed reading totse. Thats not a very good start for a beginer if i may say.

[mormanman]

You won't learn overnight, believe me.

I have to disagree. You can learn overnight but cannot do what you have learned overnight.

 

Flash and Salutes may be fun, and they DO have their place in pyrotechnics, but they are NOT FOR BEGINNERS. You're bored? Make a fountain. Or a sparkler. Or a BP rocket. Forget salutes.

I wouldn't suggest sparklers b/c all mine burn in a hurry. Its scarier than any of my shells that fall to low or my salutes.

[asilentbob]

I have to agree with sidewinder, you can not learn overnight. Even if you had a great pyrotechnics book that was long and you were reading it all night... you would only learn some things based specificly to a few areas. The scope of pyrotechnics is vast and you don't quite understand this quite the same until you have spent a good year or 2 activly researching 10+ minutes or so a day.

[Bonny]

I have to disagree. You can learn overnight but cannot do what you have learned overnight.

 

 

 

That is kind of an oxymoron don't you think? If you can't do something then you have not really learned it at all!

[Arthur]

Get some of the most respected formal text books - Weingart, Lancaster, Shimitzu, Bill Ofca, Perigrine, Davis(COPAE) READ THEM thoroughly. Look at all the designs see how and why they work, see what the hazards are, see how they surmount those hazards.

 

Show these to your mum then ask her if you can make some of those http://members.shaw.ca/gryphon223/consequences.html Gore Alert

[Senz]

yet those are from pipe b*mbs

[Swede]

Show these to your mum then ask her if you can make some of those http://members.shaw.ca/gryphon223/consequences.html Gore Alert

Arthur I think the warning needs to be repeated:

^^^^ Bloody Awful catastrophic and totally graphic manglings of human beings; VERY unpleasant. ^^^^

 

I understand a safety reminder was the goal but that is some awful stuff. Senz, they were not all pipe bombs. There were BP rockets and other devices too.

Edited August 22, 2008 by Swede

[jacob]

yet those are from pipe b*mbs

 

Don't think for a second Flash can't/won't do that to you, it's more then powerful enough.

 

This is the second dumb thread you've started about Salutes, I know you're asking what people here think about them but if you read (the forum rules are a good place to start) and hang around enough you'll find out on your own.

[TheSidewinder]

The point has been made, gentlemen.

 

Thank you.

[mormanman]

That is kind of an oxymoron don't you think? If you can't do something then you have not really learned it at all!

Well its like the song by Smash Mouth, your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb.

You still know how to do it but you don't have the experience.

 

Arthur, did you get that from Maxumus' signature? I think his/her name is Maxumus. Not active anymore, the avatar was a pale woman with RED lipstick.

[Gunzway]

Arthur I think the warning needs to be repeated:

^^^^ Bloody Awful catastrophic and totally graphic manglings of human beings; VERY unpleasant. ^^^^

 

I understand a safety reminder was the goal but that is some awful stuff. Senz, they were not all pipe bombs. There were BP rockets and other devices too.

Oh, I reckon that page is very beneficial for new members and shows you what could happen if you do things wrong. It shows you importance of just using paper/cardboard tubes and not to even think about using something else. I used to have a bigger page of "Consequences" but I think they may be on another computer.

But sure, it may be gory, but it damn right gets to the point of what COULD happen.

[mormanman]

Gunzway, it may get the point across to some but think about the people or limbs in those pictures. I bet you money that they knew what could happen. I bet they thought that it would never happen to them. I know a PRO and a 3" went off in his hand. Hand is fine and by fine I mean he can still count to ten but if it can happen to someone that knows what they're doing who is to say it can't happen to you?

[oskarchem]

Unfortunatly shit happens evrywhere, and it's so much worse if it dose in pyrotechnics. I'm having serious questions about if I should continue Pyrotechnics, or leave. I love the art, but I dont want to loose a limb whilst doing somthing I love, and at the same time I want to continue making shells and all of that.

 

On my side, I don't make ground salutes, anymore, I used to, but honestly, it's not worth the big risk. I use my flash to a minimum.

 

Stay safe man...

[mormanman]

Unfortunatly shit happens evrywhere, and it's so much worse if it dose in pyrotechnics. I'm having serious questions about if I should continue Pyrotechnics, or leave. I love the art, but I dont want to loose a limb whilst doing somthing I love, and at the same time I want to continue making shells and all of that.

 

On my side, I don't make ground salutes, anymore, I used to, but honestly, it's not worth the big risk. I use my flash to a minimum.

 

Stay safe man...

I think shells are the safest thing in Pyro. You light the fuse... run..... do a count down if you want..... thud from the lift...... boom plus pretty colors. Now there are the cases where the shells don't go off or go off too early or late and when the visco or bm doesn't light the qm.

All these have happened to me.

I like to think of myself as a good Pyrotech but don't have much money to progress and I don't like ordering from the internet for chems very often... don't know why. Mainly its the money.

Oskar, if you really feel danger with pyro then that means your either doing something right or messing something up.

I love the rush after lighting a shell. Even more so the 4" shell of shells. Oh I wish I video taped it.

[Nerdlock]

I like to make polumnas, if made right they are loud plus they are safe. I like to make chains of them and light it.

[flying fish]

I think what Oskarchem was getting at (though I could be wrong - I don't want to put words in peoples' mouths/keyboards) was the dangers of MAKING shells, and not so much using them. When assembling an aerial shell you do generally have a dangerously large amount of open pyrotechnic material which could be accidentally ignited by electrostatic discharge (ESD). And that risk increases significantly if you are working with flash, which can be ignited quite a bit easier than BP based compositions. Also, don't kid yourself and think you are safe from ESD triggered explosions just because you are working fireworks other than ground salutes...even if they don't contain flash. However, people who make ground salutes are generally at higher risk because they work with higher quantities of flash and they work with flash more often. Also, ground salute makers are usually less experienced (as they have not discovered pyrotechnics beyond making a bang yet) and are therefore also more at risk to make poor judgments about a particular situation.

 

I do wonder how many of us actually take the proper precautions. I am careful, but probably not as much as I should be. I ground myself periodically, but do not have a grounding belt or mat or anything to continuously rid myself of electric charge (and I probably should...). The one thing I DO have, however is moisture. In the Michigan summer, it has been raining ALOT and the relative humidity is usually pretty high as a result. I don't have this moisture "on purpose", but certainly helps to dissipate charge before it has a chance to build up. The winters get pretty dry...and frankly working with fireworks is scary in those conditions. I don't have heating in my workshop, so that is generally enough to discourage me from working with pyrotechnics in the winter .

Edited August 24, 2008 by flying fish