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Happy bandwagon, I mean, New Year from the east coast!

 

So much commercial stuff in the glades, it is sad that I didn't have my mortars for my own.

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Man did the city make a great display this year... Giant red strobe shells, go-getters and all the cool stuff. I am abit worried tho, because I saw a shel explode somewhere ground-level, If it was from the display and from a flowerpot, someone is in the hospital now.
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My city did good too, almost ALL symmetrical breaks! There were such booms that I felt my chair and windows shaking. It sounded like a car with a LOUD ass stereo system at like 130 DB, and being inside! I also did a few salutes, 2 liter bottle salutes! There were some people with commercial crackers on the other side of the park, when I lit my stuff, I was like "pwnt!".

My rocket failed, with a header! Went up, 10 feet, fell to the ground, then boom! Charcoal stars every were.

 

I forgot to mention, that when I left the park and was going into my house, I heard fire engines at the park! the park is like 2 blocks away. Not to mention the cop cars driving around the block all night! There were also the fire marshalls keeping an eye on my house, as they probably have my picture and name!

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Mine was okay, once again my ariel shells had a problem with the blackmatch, it was just not burning reliably. 2/6 3" failed due to fuse. 2 worked fine. The other 2 i shoved a section of visco down into the tube and lit that to try to ensure ignition, they worked. I did a 3" sodium BP/Al based starmine that i didn't think would work very well, but it ended up being incredibly beautiful. The 2 other 1-3/4" starmines were okay. The 1-3/4" canister i tried was pretty tight in the mortor, but slid in on its own weight, when it went it blew the mortor, went maybe 20ft up, then back down to the ground and blew up throwing stars everywhere. I got rid of all my old AP based salutes at once by piling them all together and have vowed to not make another this year.
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Does anyone have any hard to light stars? I got a few primes I want to try out from the latest AFN newsletter. The only thing is it has to be non-chlorate based, and nitrate compatable. Basically nitrate or perchlorate based.
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I had some difficult to ignite chlorate stars and I ended up using this to prime the stars after finding out I lacked K dichromate and Fe2O3 to make velnines(sp) super prime..

 

60% KClO3

20% Activated Charcoal

10% Sulfur

5% Sb2S3

5% CuO

 

Works like a charm and it also glitters a bit too (burned a small pile on the ground). The glitter color is a pinkish/blue color. I would assume the chlorate could be subsituted for Perchlorate but I haven't bothered trying.

 

 

What kind of primes did you have in mind mumbles??

 

The only primes I know of are meal powder, velnines, flash w/ binder, silicon + oxidizer, and this dangerous as hell one I made. I hear the silicon + oxidizer is pretty good because the silicon forms hot glass slag which helps ignite your compistion. If you don't have silicon you could try something that forms slag.

 

 

By the way has anyone tried making black powder out of charcoal bugers? Every time I grind up my charcoal I lose a little bit as it floats away into my nostrils. Just a random thought on recycling...

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Silicon is actually what I am planning to try out. The mix is essentially green meal with 3-10% silicon added. That doesn't seem like a very safe mix with chlorate and sulfur. The friction addition from the Sb2S3 doesn't seem like a great idea either.

 

I have some reds and greens which are high it metals I am going to try out though to see how those work. I might also try it on some other high metal comps.

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Well, Mumbles, you should give my "Time Delay Stars" a try! :D

 

Remember them from last year?

 

Burst... delay.... NO blue stars...... then all of them lit ON THE GROUND in a circle around the mortar. Pretty, but not something I want to do again....

 

M

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I sent in my PGI application!
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Mumbles a silver wave 65/35 al(16-18mesh/atom.)/kclo4 is almost unigniteable.

i needed slury with grained bp to ignite.

not even a layer of hotprime(0,75mm) followed by a layer velines prime(1mm) ignitet them!

I find that using a Mg strip or a little bit of Mg powder really helps the ignitablility of Oxidizer/Big ass Al particles. This is of course assuming you ignite from the strip other wise the Mg won't do shit...

 

O yeah I just pumped ~100g of D1 glitter and ~60g of Winkour#6. I will be pumping 50-100g of some blue stars but I think I will do a little arts and crafts first(making shells/tubes/cutting/gluing/other tedious shit).

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Is paulownia charcoal any good for BP? I recalled hearing something good about paulownia charcoal as I found a supplier for paulownia wood.
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Is paulownia charcoal any good for BP? I recalled hearing something good about paulownia charcoal as I found a supplier for paulownia wood.

It's one of THE best woods for BP.

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Mumbles, I have a hard time igniting Euters blue in shells. In a candle they give a great blue color, but they blow about 75% blind in my 2-1/2" shells. In candles they actually seem like a delay star; they don't seem to light until they're out-bound, which sound like Sidewinders experience. I've tried priming them with KNO3/C and KNO3/C/Al prime, but they still don't light consistantly. I've avoided sulfur in the prime due to the amonium perchlorate in the comp. Any ideas, Mister Wizard?

 

DeAdFX, I'll try your Sb2S3 prime too. You specify activated charcoal, but would charcoal boogers be sufficiently "activated?" :lol:

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Mumbles, I have a hard time igniting Euters blue in shells. In a candle they give a great blue color, but they blow about 75% blind in my 2-1/2" shells. In candles they actually seem like a delay star; they don't seem to light until they're out-bound, which sound like Sidewinders experience. I've tried priming them with KNO3/C and KNO3/C/Al prime, but they still don't light consistantly. I've avoided sulfur in the prime due to the amonium perchlorate in the comp. Any ideas, Mister Wizard?

 

DeAdFX, I'll try your Sb2S3 prime too. You specify activated charcoal, but would charcoal boogers be sufficiently "activated?" :lol:

Could the KNO3 containing prime be forming hygroscopic Ammonium Nitrate on contact with the Ammonium Perchlorate ? Maybe try a hot perc type prime and see if works better.

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Mumbles, I have a hard time igniting Euters blue in shells. In a candle they give a great blue color, but they blow about 75% blind in my 2-1/2" shells. In candles they actually seem like a delay star; they don't seem to light until they're out-bound, which sound like Sidewinders experience. I've tried priming them with KNO3/C and KNO3/C/Al prime, but they still don't light consistantly. I've avoided sulfur in the prime due to the amonium perchlorate in the comp. Any ideas, Mister Wizard?

 

DeAdFX, I'll try your Sb2S3 prime too. You specify activated charcoal, but would charcoal boogers be sufficiently "activated?" :lol:

Well I have a minor cold so I would assume all the dead cells and what not would be sufficent subsitute for the organic volitiles that BP grade charcoal contains. <_<

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Silicon is actually what I am planning to try out.  The mix is essentially green meal with 3-10% silicon added.  That doesn't seem like a very safe mix with chlorate and sulfur.  The friction addition from the Sb2S3 doesn't seem like a great idea either. 

 

I have some reds and greens which are high it metals I am going to try out though to see how those work.  I might also try it on some other high metal comps.

Hey Mumbles,

 

I tried to make an Uber-prime for some batches of Ruby Red and organic violet stars that were not lighting well:

 

50g ball milled meal

50g green mix

10g -350 mesh Al flake

5g -325 mesh Si

5g dextrin

 

I wasn't impressed...the stars didn't really take fire that much more readily, IMO. Maybe the prime needs a dusting of straight BP as a second coat? Or perhaps, I should ditch the green mix / Al altogether?

 

If you reach any conclusions on the best use of Si in primes, please share. I only have some because I needed to drive to Skylighter to pick up some un-shippable metals and bought it on a whim.

 

Thanks!

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I don’t think it would be any good for flash seeing that its atomized Al and if it the mesh the clam it is, I was on another on of there pages and the claim that 1µ is 7000mesh but I worked it out to be 5000mesh. There postage is pretty step as well I think it would be around $50USD.
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Hey guys, I don’t want to start a new topic so I thought I’d ask here. I'm going to buy some aluminum powder off eBay because it’s the only place that ships to New Zealand, I was wondering if this looks good http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...85612&rd=1&rd=1

I'll probably use it for flash or white stars.

I bought some of their 1000mesh(14u) stuff awhile back. ITs not to bad. 5kgs 1kmesh for ~80 USD (if I remember correctly). If this is your only source of Al powder then I recommend acquiring some ofit.

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If atomized is all you can get, don't forget that you can always mill it into flakes yourself.
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