asilentbob Posted June 21, 2006 Posted June 21, 2006 I need to really buckle down and get some stuff done! I have filler material and stars to prime, many salutes and inserts to fill and seal, lift to buy and test for 3 dummy shells, shells to make, including toilet paper roll italian shells which i partly made last night, naphthalene FAEs, starmines, rockets, and much more. Also i am thinking of getting either 1/2" or 3/4" BP rocket tooling or 3/4" stinger tooling from pyrotooling.com. Either way it is quite a bit cheaper than walterpyrotools.
PyroJoe Posted June 21, 2006 Posted June 21, 2006 Yesterday I started getting busy for the 4th. So far: 4 Pounds of BP rice hulls2 Pounds of magnesium green stars3 Pounds of blue stars30 Cherry bombs2.5 pounds of lift powder Still need to roll 3-4 Pounds of tiger tail and maybe another pound of reeper silver then ill be good on stars + maybe a pound or two of magnesium red stars. This year im going to bust out a lot of 3" shells both spherical and canister style along with some 4" shells as well! Im excited because last year I procrastinated so badly that I had 3 shells done for the 4th
aquaman Posted June 21, 2006 Posted June 21, 2006 I haven't even started yet... I will probably start this weekend and next week. This week is the friendship festival and on Saturday is the fireworks show. I think they suck worse every year but that is just what I think. Our mall even does a 4th show and that is when I did a lot of my stuff last year as most of my neighbors were watching them and I had my neighborhood to myself and to a couple of other people shooting off their stuff.
DeAdFX Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 I made a rocket propellant out of styrafoam packaging peanuts, potassium chlorate and aluminum. I added 10 grams of Potassium Chlorate to a glass jar and wetted it down with 6 mL of Xylene. I spent the next 30 minutes adding in 3 grams of packing peanuts. I stirred the goopy mass around for a minute and then added in two grams of Aluminum powder. I stirred the mass again for 3minutes and then placed the goopy stuff in a paper cup to cure. I let the propellant "cure" (i guess drying out is a better term) for a day. After a day the propellant was still tacky but I decided to burn the stuff any who. In response to _DB_'s post AHah the most important part... The propellant burned at about twice the speed of potassium nitrate and sugar[65/35]. There was a lot of black smoke generated(Lousy oxygen balance is my guess). I have a feeling the trace amount of solvent threw off the OB. During the burn there was a lot of soot floating in the air. The flame was bright but not that blinding. I assume I would need a vacuum to drive off the solvent at a faster rate, correct?
TheSidewinder Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 Dude, quater inch rockets are supposed to be nozzleless rcokets so no clay nozzles, just ram the fast BP propellant and they'll fly. No, 1/4" rockets can be either, just like bigger ones. The 1/4" tooling set sold by Rich Wolter uses a nozzle. I own it, I've used it, and it works perfectly. I'm sure there *are* nozzle-less 1/4" designs, but cored 1/4" rockets are more common. M
asilentbob Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 I was wondering if anyone here has a good picture of their BP coated rice crispy filler material. Or hulls. For comparison reasons, im thinking that i might need a thicker coating on mine. I made alot last night. I'll get a pic or 2 in a little while.
Mumbles Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 They should look black. Why the fuck does everyone need pictures of everything?
kbk Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 So that you can compare what other people's looks like. If you have a bunch of pictures from a bunch of people, you can get an idea of whether or not yours is right.
asilentbob Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 I know they are supposed to be black, im more concerned with if they are coated thick enough. http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/9209/p10102887se.th.jpg Good? And did anybody get around to coating filler material with whistle mix?
RUUUUUN Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 Why don't you try them to see if they are coated enough?
asilentbob Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 They are still drying. Edit: I forgot to mention in my college algebra class a couple problems we were working on dealed with calculating the height or velocity of a projectile. So of course im immediatly thinking about the practicle application towards pyrotechnic shells. Y=-16x^2 + Vox + Ho x-axis will represent time in secondsy-axis will represent feetVo = initial velocity (ft/s measurable with a chronograph if you have one)Ho = initial height (zero, since the shell is initialy at almost ground level) If you have a graphing calculator, for instance a TI-83 plus, have it graph that equation with Vo and Ho added in. You may need to adjust the viewing window to something like x-min=-1 x-max=10 y-min=-1 y-max=800. Most calculators can at this point calculate maximum, which would be the theoretical maximum height that your shell can reach when it leaves with an initial velocity of Vo. In a perfect world. When mine calculates this it also gives the x-coordinate, which would be the time in seconds when the shell reaches its theoretical maximum height. Pretty useful! You can also see the time it takes when the shell would theoretically hit the ground if it was a dummy shell or dud. Only draw back is that i don't know how well a chronograph would work on a shell especially with all the smoke and possibly debris such as quick match pipe. Also, i really wouldn't feel comfortable using it near the mortor, if it blew, the chronograph could be very damaged. Its a neat idea though i think. Try entering different values for the initial velocity and watch the graph.
justanotherpyro Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 The filler isn't terribly important if you are only going to use it for that. As long as it has a fair amount of BP it will do fine, but if you are going to actually use it as the main bursting charge (meaning not adding whistle, or flash) and plan on heavily pasting the Shell to get a good break, then it is important to have a good coat on it.
RUUUUUN Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 You don't really have to worry about other objects registering on the chrono when you are firing something through it, I fired a golf ball cannon through it and my paper wad didn't even register, the mortar blowing up would be a real problem though.
asilentbob Posted June 22, 2006 Posted June 22, 2006 I think i could use some thick wood to protect it, but either way the metal rods that the projectile passes through would be at risk, but i guess they can be replaced easy enough. Edit: Ok, i just primed my organic blue conklin #1 cut stars, a few didn't look so good, so i took them out re-powdered/crumbled them, mixed with some BP and made some pumped stars with them. Kinda a waste, but meh... I'm debating about priming my modified red metallic lancaster cut stars tonight too, but i just don't know either that or i make my 3 size star gun.
Mumbles Posted June 24, 2006 Posted June 24, 2006 -325 mesh bright Al is officially worse than lampblack.
asilentbob Posted June 24, 2006 Posted June 24, 2006 Silver hands? Or gloves rather? I hate the clean up, if you spill even a very small pinch and try to clean it up with a paper towel, wet or not it just smears and leaves a nice metallic streak.
Pyrohawk Posted June 24, 2006 Posted June 24, 2006 -325 mesh bright Al is officially worse than lampblack. Muahahahah so you finally agree eh?? I remember I posted that a while back and you disagree'd and said lampblack was worse!! HAhahaha, my desk is still sprakly from spilling it on there like a year ago. It gets in the grain on wood and will "not" come out. Heck it gets everywhere for that matter...to bad it makes such a nice effect!
_Po_ Posted June 25, 2006 Posted June 25, 2006 I made a sexy little leyden jar out of an ice cream container, al foil, sticky tape, a screw and some wires. I charge it by rubbing wool on a piece of PVC pipe. It gets a nice thick blue spark jumping about 8mm on a good charge. Here's a video of one of the crappier sparks: I named him Sparky.
_DB_ Posted June 25, 2006 Posted June 25, 2006 I made one of those once with a film can. I used to charge it up from the static of my TV. It made a rather weak spark compared to Sparky, though.
lacrima97 Posted June 25, 2006 Posted June 25, 2006 Can someone please do this? I have been really interested in a NH4ClO4/Mg composition, because I am interested in the supposed 1 million candela that is put out. Sadly I do not have the chems at the moment. Could someone please please make about 4.5g of this composition in the55% Ammonium Perchlorate45% MagnesiumRatio? I really want to know how bright this stuff is. If anyone has the chems, could you maybe try this out and see how it goes, and see if it is as bright as said?
lacrima97 Posted June 25, 2006 Posted June 25, 2006 Heh...I also have a device I named sparky: How did you construct that?
Rogue Chemist Posted June 25, 2006 Posted June 25, 2006 Camera flash circuitry, cap poles to nails, button for charging, 2AAs for power, flash tube removed as well as flash trigger. The sparks occur when the nails are shorted on anything metal. I have one that is 7x the power as well, but thats currently in a small coil gun(it will shoot a nail 10' or through a two ply sheet of TP) That makes a huge bang when the capacitors are shorted.
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