Yankie Posted April 27, 2009 Posted April 27, 2009 I hope you get what you ordered from supremepyro, I was less than impressed with what I received.Oh poo...What did you order?By the way Wally, did you get my PM about tooling?
WarezWally Posted April 27, 2009 Posted April 27, 2009 Yea, ordered rocket tooling, tubes and hemis. Hemis were good, that was the only good thing about the order to be honest. Tooling was 'basic' and the core was way to small and the expensive tubes I paid for looked like they came out of a old cake. I did manage to get a partial refund and the tooling did work once you drilled out the cores I don't see how they can screw up a star plate though
Mumbles Posted April 27, 2009 Posted April 27, 2009 ...I don't see how they can screw up a star plate though You'd be surprised. The body is made from a resin or plastic of some sort. Titanium and FerroTi will tear through it like a knife through butter. The plates also only fit together one direction, so pay attention to this. Trying to put them together backwards will result in the pins not lining up, and potentially getting stuck. Keep some fine sand paper around to "buff" the female plate holes from time to time, as they will get rough over time. This leads me to believe it is at least slowly scratched by Al and MgAl.
Yankie Posted April 28, 2009 Posted April 28, 2009 Got my star plate from supreme pyro today. The silly post office people sent it to John Schultz rather than me Yannick Scholz..... easy mistake *sarcasm* Anyway, it looks pretty cheaply made, some acryllic plastic, similar to chopping boards, brass pins, only fits one way and there is about 1/2mm gap between the pins and the holes, I don't know whether this is normal or not.The screen is pretty good, stainless steel, and I got a fair bit, but it was wrapped onto a peice of freshly cut wood, good think customs didn't find it or my star plate would be in some office right now.
scrappy Posted April 28, 2009 Posted April 28, 2009 but it was wrapped onto a peice of freshly cut wood, good think customs didn't find it or my star plate would be in some office right now. a loss of $100 is far better than introducing a ravaging pest to decimate our forests,, best you give that wood a hell of a good soaking with a pest destroyer,, if you wait it may be too late, don't hang on to it to burn it... spray it now,,
Yankie Posted April 28, 2009 Posted April 28, 2009 a loss of $100 is far better than introducing a ravaging pest to decimate our forests,, best you give that wood a hell of a good soaking with a pest destroyer,, if you wait it may be too late, don't hang on to it to burn it... spray it now,,Yep just threw it on the fire, it smelled kinda funky, and it was moist....
scrappy Posted April 28, 2009 Posted April 28, 2009 Yep just threw it on the fire, it smelled kinda funky, and it was moist.... giggidy giggidy excellent ! good on you, i will be able to sleep tonight,
WarezWally Posted April 28, 2009 Posted April 28, 2009 My lot was packed with rice hulls, found a few small dead bugs Good work customs
TheSidewinder Posted April 28, 2009 Posted April 28, 2009 They probably irradiated your package. Are you sprouting any new limbs yet?
Pretty green flame Posted April 28, 2009 Posted April 28, 2009 My lot was packed with rice hulls, found a few small dead bugs Good work customs Put those hulls in the oven and sterilize them, unless you want a small infestation of critters from china....
50AE Posted April 28, 2009 Posted April 28, 2009 Safety question : I was thinking about some tempting stars formulas which contain a metal powder, chlorate and nitrate. Shidlovskiy states that chlorate mixture's sensitivity is greatly reduced when a nitrate plays 50% or more the role of an oxidizer in the mix.BUT, when wet, nitrates are reduced by most metals powders and form ammonia. This one reacts with chlorates to form ammonium chlorate, which is very hazardous.The main question is : Can I rely on the 2% boric acid solution which should keep off the reaction ?
Swede Posted April 29, 2009 Posted April 29, 2009 Rocket, that's some nice tooling. Do you have a background in machining? What sort of lathe did you use?
rocket Posted April 30, 2009 Posted April 30, 2009 Rocket, that's some nice tooling. Do you have a background in machining? What sort of lathe did you use? Thanks, don’t have much experience with turning really just the few little bits and pieces I’ve made at home. The lathe has been sitting in the shed for year and since getting into pyro and getting the belt fix on it I’ve been using it every now and then, just to square the ends on rammers and such but nothing really like the tooling. The lathe it self I got no idea about, it was me grandfathers. All it says on it is PARKANSON 4 ½” centre bench lathe. Its pretty basic but does the job.
Swede Posted April 30, 2009 Posted April 30, 2009 Well, you got a nice finish, especially on the tapered core pin. Stainless? If so, that can be a challenge, and usually involves abrasive paper plus a bit of oil, to get the sort of shine I see there. A shiny tapered core pin makes clean separation so much easier.
rocket Posted May 1, 2009 Posted May 1, 2009 Well, you got a nice finish, especially on the tapered core pin. Stainless? If so, that can be a challenge, and usually involves abrasive paper plus a bit of oil, to get the sort of shine I see there. A shiny tapered core pin makes clean separation so much easier. The whole things made out of Al. I used a buffing wheel to get it as smooth and it is, motors come of it really easy as well.
_DB_ Posted May 4, 2009 Posted May 4, 2009 My first year of college just ended and I moved back home today. As soon as I get unpacked and settled I'm going to start doing some pyro projects. It's been entirely too long!
Pyrohawk Posted May 5, 2009 Posted May 5, 2009 Lucky you....I don't get to go home from college for another month. Haha but I brought all my pyro stuff up with me, I just never find time to do much and obviously I can't test or set off anything in the city....
mike_au Posted May 6, 2009 Posted May 6, 2009 (edited) Has anyone here tried Freeman blue? I've made something similar (with a couple of substitutions) and I am having a horrible time getting it to light. Works fine on the ground but I just can't get it to work in the air. I'm wondering if it is always this bad or if it is something to do with the changes I have made (1:1 replacements of redgum with shellac and parlon with chlorinated polyethylene (~66% chlorine content)) I've tried Ofca, fencepost and pinball primes (again with some substitutions, redgum->shellac, silicon to Al) as well as a few things I just made up with no luck. I'm just waiting for a few more to dry so I can try multiple coats of inner prime and then BP on the outside. If it still doesn't go, would something like C#6 or TT rolled over the stars help them to light? Edit: I should mention I did get one of them to light using fencepost prime...when I underlifted it so severely that it got stuck in the gun. I don't think I'm using an excessive amount of lift normally though, they go up to about 5-6m. Edited May 6, 2009 by mike_au
Yankie Posted May 6, 2009 Posted May 6, 2009 Has anyone here tried Freeman blue? I've made something similar (with a couple of substitutions) and I am having a horrible time getting it to light. Works fine on the ground but I just can't get it to work in the air. I'm wondering if it is always this bad or if it is something to do with the changes I have made (1:1 replacements of redgum with shellac and parlon with chlorinated polyethylene (~66% chlorine content)) I've tried Ofca, fencepost and pinball primes (again with some substitutions, redgum->shellac, silicon to Al) as well as a few things I just made up with no luck. I'm just waiting for a few more to dry so I can try multiple coats of inner prime and then BP on the outside. If it still doesn't go, would something like C#6 or TT rolled over the stars help them to light? Edit: I should mention I did get one of them to light using fencepost prime...when I underlifted it so severely that it got stuck in the gun. I don't think I'm using an excessive amount of lift normally though, they go up to about 5-6m. They are probably lighting fine, just blowing blind. You may need to try adding more oxidiser, how well do they burn on the ground? Are they quite hot and steady or a slow flickering flame?
scrappy Posted May 6, 2009 Posted May 6, 2009 hey mike, the substitution of silicon with Al, is it bright Al or dark pyro Al i had trouble lighting blues so i used AP prime and subed the charcoal with 50/50 dark pyro Al ( indian) and it worked well
Yankie Posted May 6, 2009 Posted May 6, 2009 I am surprised to hear that you have had trouble lighting blues, I have tried several comps and all lit very reliably with just BP+MgAl+Al+RG prime.
scrappy Posted May 6, 2009 Posted May 6, 2009 2 shells, a 3" and a 4", it was a terrible feeling, all that work for just a report part of my problem i think also was breaking them to hard, i used 9# williow pulverone to break them with a 70:30 booster ( 10 grams ) i originally had 2% dark Al but increased it to 4% and dropped of the booster to 5g
mike_au Posted May 6, 2009 Posted May 6, 2009 I'm fairly sure that the prime is lighting (at least a couple of them anyway) because I have seen a couple of smoke trails. They burn fairly smoothly on the ground once they get going, but a couple of them have coughed and spluttered for a few seconds at first. The Al is just junk from the local casting place, I suspect it is spherical and not terribly fine. If this stepped prime doesn't work I guess my next job is to make some MgAl and try that or maybe I should try a couple of other comps and come back to freeman once I get some silicon. Scrappy: I had a similar experience with a 3" shell (I thought I had the prime problem licked at the time) fortunately I had a ring of TT in there as well (I ran out of blue stars) so everyone thought that it had worked
Mumbles Posted May 6, 2009 Posted May 6, 2009 Would you mind posting the formula you're talking about? The one I have doesn't contain any Parlon. I really have a hard time believing that you're having issues lighting an organic star in the first place. They're generally light pretty easily. It might be the chlorinated poly(ethylene). While structurally similar PVC and Saran, it may not have the same properties. This is probably a dumb question, but you're sure the stars and prime layers are dry, right?
_DB_ Posted May 6, 2009 Posted May 6, 2009 Lucky you....I don't get to go home from college for another month. Haha but I brought all my pyro stuff up with me, I just never find time to do much and obviously I can't test or set off anything in the city.... Do you live in a dorm or what? I lived in a dorm building and occasionally our RA would thoroughly inspect our rooms. It would have been kind of hard to explain what I was doing with various chemicals and equipment, haha.
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