Random Thread #1

[Mumbles]

Whoopdee freakin' do...SATs tomorrow. Wish me luck. I gotta beat 1800, which is what one of my friends got. What did you guys get on them, or the equivalent in your country outside the US?

 

I was really confused there for a minute. I forgot they added a writing section to the test. It wasn't there when I took it. Probably for the best, it would have likely killed my score.

[TheEskimo]

The SATs weren't too bad. Aced the reading and writing, and the essay was good. Math, I know I missed some, but am keeping my fingers crossed.

I stopped at a hardware store on the way home to pick up some rods for pumping stars, and saw some firestarters on the front desk. Little cardboard boxes with a sign (Warning--Do not hold in hand), with some Visco sticking out. Appeared to be thermite, for there was red powder leaking out between the tape. Felt to be about an ounce. I was tempted to buy one, for 1.75 each. I wonder if these were homemade, for they were just simple boxes held together with clear packing tape, and did not appear to be of the sturdiest construction. Isn't it illegal to sell such things w/out a manufacturing license?

Edited January 23, 2010 by TheEskimo

[flying fish]

I'm supposed to of taken the GRE by now. Hahaha, looking at grad schools for this fall. My top choice right now is University of Dayton which doesn't require the GRE, so I might see if I can get in without it. Lazy, lazy me...

[Mumbles]

The GRE was pretty easy if you ask me. The schools don't really care all that much anyway. You're expected to do very well in math, and probably relatively poorly in english/writing. It's high school level math, and Shakespearian PhD level english, grammar and vocabulary. I got a perfect score on the math section, and it was only 94% percentile, meaning 6% get perfect scores.

[scarbelly]

Whoopdee freakin' do...SATs tomorrow. Wish me luck. I gotta beat 1800, which is what one of my friends got. What did you guys get on them, or the equivalent in your country outside the US?

 

I got a 2190. What surprised me was my 780 on writing - I hate/suck at writing (or so I thought...)

 

I'm in CA, and we've been really stormy here recently. Last week, my house was actually struck by lightning (lightning happens infrequently enough here that no one has lightning rods), and half of the electronic portion of our house doesn't work - no internet, no cable, TVs won't even turn on, and many of our lights won't light. It's not that bad, but I still hope it's fixed soon.

[Swede]

OK guys, anyone looking for a relatively painless source of a large variety of super-hard lead alloys for making ball-mill media, check out Rotometals:

 

http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/30_antimony_70_lead.htm

 

Here is an extremely hard lead-antimony alloy (70% Pb) that melts at 550 F and would make great media. They also have linotype and other hard Pb alloys. The prices seem reasonable to me. It appears to be a good resource, if an expensive one compared to free wheel weights. Need Gallium or Indium for some nefarious chemical process? They have those too.

 

I made a purchase from them, including one of those cool bottom-pour ladles, so I can fill Titanium tube shanks with Pb alloys.

[dagabu]

OK guys, anyone looking for a relatively painless source of a large variety of super-hard lead alloys for making ball-mill media, check out Rotometals:

 

http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/30_antimony_70_lead.htm

 

Here is an extremely hard lead-antimony alloy (70% Pb) that melts at 550 F and would make great media. They also have linotype and other hard Pb alloys. The prices seem reasonable to me. It appears to be a good resource, if an expensive one compared to free wheel weights. Need Gallium or Indium for some nefarious chemical process? They have those too.

 

I made a purchase from them, including one of those cool bottom-pour ladles, so I can fill Titanium tube shanks with Pb alloys.

 

Why not heat treat the wheel weight lead?

[Arthur]

Lead only work hardens and heat aneals so it doesn't heat treat to hard.

[dagabu]

Lead only work hardens and heat aneals so it doesn't heat treat to hard.

 

I think I posted some short time ago about lead hardening and how to do so. I hate to argue but I think that you only need to read any bullet casting manual or Mechanics #13 to understand the process of heat treating. I do have to agree with you to a point, pure lead cannot be hardened. Wheel weights can be hardened but you must follow a process.

 

The following process from the Lyman Bullet casting book results is 30 B scale hardness bullets. The same thing applies to any casting using wheel weights.

 

 

Using cast bullets made from wheel weights.

Line baking dish with Aluminum foil

Place one or two bullets on foil nose up

insert into hot oven at ~500F

Slowely raise temperature until bullets start to slump or oven hits maximum temp.

(raise temp by 10- 20 degrees at 15 min intervals until slump point)

reduce oven temperature by 20 - 50 degrees

 

load cool baking dish with bullets, nose up if possible

place in oven for 30min to 60 min.

remove from hot oven and immediatly drop bullets into bucket of ice water.

allow bullets to cool

Bullets will reach ~1/2 hardness instantly and will continue to increase in hardness for up to 12 months. Hardness will then decrease slowly over time.

Critical points:

 

works for wheel weights and a few related lead alloys only, not pure lead.

[Swede]

I understand there are cheaper sources. But a lot of guys have large stocks of pure lead, and might want pure antimony or tin to create their own alloy. Any place that has a good, online "Add to cart" system, and is vaguely related to pyro or chemistry, gets book-marked by me pretty quickly.

[optimus]

Timelapse video of a Senko Hanabi I made last night:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/op_timus/4307204815/

[Twotails]

Great find sewde, I'll definity orderd some of there Bismuth and Antimony.

[scarbelly]

Hey guys just a random question. I decided to make up some BP (was going just for "green mix" I guess, didn't want to set up my mill for milling black powder, just single chems) in the regular ratios, 500g. I had pre-milled all the ingredients, and they are all essentially -100 mesh. I screened the chems together a few times (through ~35 mesh screen) , then threw it in my slightly understand mill jar and shook it around a bit to crush up clumps and hopefully mix it a little. When I burned a small pile, it burned ridiculously slowly.

 

If I granulate this, is there any chance it will improve drastically, or will i need to ball mill a bit? I'm not looking for A+, lift powder performance, just something I can use for breaking shells (I'm not afraid of using a booster), priming stars, making black match, etc...

 

As a little background knowledge, the KNO3 might be somewhat damp if it's of any relevance.

[dagabu]

When I burned a small pile, it burned ridiculously slowly.

 

I think this is a place we have or will all find ourselves at. There are so many resources for an answer to the why on this that I think I will stay with Danny Cregan and Ned Gorski's explanation as to what happens and how as to Black Powder integration.

 

Please follow these links:

 

http://www.skylighter.com/skylighter_info_...asp?Item=115#BP

 

http://www.wichitabuggywhip.com/fireworks/blackpowder2.html

 

What it all comes down to is the need to make a completely integrated mix by using either mechanical (ball mill) or chemical (denatured alcohol and red gum) means.

 

Tale a lighter to a pile of the three ingredients by themselves, only the charcoal will actually hold an ember KNO3 and S will not they melt. What you have left is the S, C & KNO3 melted in a little puddle.

 

I have read these two articles several times and I learn something new every time.

 

Green!!

[scarbelly]

That's the thing that frustrates me... I've made some great BP before, and I can still if I want to. I just wanted to give a new method a try, something I hoped would be easier and less (real) time consuming, although not necessarily a high performance product...

 

I guess I'll just go back to ball milling, because honestly, it's much easier, not too time consuming, and it works great every time.

 

I'll use the fine ingredients, so I probably won't mill it for as long as I normally would. Plus I'm not planning on as excellent a product as I have desired in the past and will desire for lift.

 

Thanks for the help, and those are great links! I've also read Mr. Gorski's article multiple times through, although the other one was new to me.

[Ralph]

Dude i totally don't understand American logic. why do you want an inferior product? I would say milling for 1 hour rather than 3 type thing would just be bazaar if im understanding you right your just saying your standards arnt set as high not that you nesisarily want slow bp

[scarbelly]

No, I would definitely prefer a faster product, but I don't have a particularly long time, so I was just going to use the least time consuming product possible for all uses other than lift. I can't run the mill when I'm at school (I don't know when or if my parents will be home, and I don't know if I trust them to know what to do if something goes wrong) or asleep.

 

I then thought about it, and realized that at the rate I can produce black powder - 6-8 hours in the mill for 400 grams of BP - there will be no problems with my time constraints.

 

I need to make somewheres around 5-10 lbs of Black powder (probably closer to 5, but it'd be nice to have some extra), so some of it will be milled for shorter times, and used for uses that allow that. Other portions will be milled longer and used where faster BP is needed.

[Mumbles]

There is actually a way to make polverone (granulated green meal) work for lift, canister shell burst, and ball shell burst. It of course can't be used as is, and there are special preparations and ways to apply it.

 

I think it is an issue with pyro in general. Everyone wants shells and stars faster and with less work. Thus the rising use of plastic ball shells, parlon bound stars, and flash bags.

[firetech]

Mumbles, I just now saw your addition of "Grandmaster". You finally made it to 5,000. Finally...

[Ventsi]

Help me out here, I have a friend who's looking for a website for his band, they are a bit more than your garage band. Any who, a good web hosting service with features which lets them link songs to sites such as Napster, top notch stuff.

 

Edit: Also , what are those little four squares under my Avatar mean?

Edited February 2, 2010 by Ventsi

[scarbelly]

Idk about your first question - sorry - but the 4 squares show what "level" of poster you are. You start off with just 1 square when you are labelled as one who has "smelt the smoke", at your second square you are said to be "playing with fire", the third square is "pyromaniac", the 4th is "pyrotechnician", the 5th is "firebreather", and next (which only mumbles has reached) is a crapload of little squares, and it is "grandmaster".

 

You earn more squares by the number of posts you've made. I don't remember off the top of my head what the post numbers for each are, but they get further and further apart. I believe firebreather is 1000 and grandmaster is 5000.

Edited February 2, 2010 by scarbelly

[NightHawkInLight]

I thought this was a particularly amazing tornado video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN2_czSBSD0...feature=related

 

Beautiful

[optimus]

Help me out here, I have a friend who's looking for a website for his band, they are a bit more than your garage band. Any who, a good web hosting service with features which lets them link songs to sites such as Napster, top notch stuff.

 

Are you looking for an 'out the box' template kind of site, because every web host will be able to link to external sites - this is a standard HTML feature.

[Ventsi]

Here are some military bloopers for you guys:

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL7gKsshieo...feature=related

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW2POaHWEKc...feature=related

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q_WDX2Ilhc...feature=related

 

[50AE]

I discovered something nice with CRT monitors, not sure if it will work for LCD though.

 

Use your computer at dark and turn the screen's luminosity and contrast to very low, so it won't appear bright and disturb your eyes.

Play a pyro video with shell breaks at full screen. You will notice that when the stars fly, there will be a tail. It appears that the phosphor in the CRT screen leaves a tail it slowly fades from its luminescence. This makes a nice effect, it clearly marks the break pattern of your shell.