jasontaylor Posted June 22, 2009 Posted June 22, 2009 MY first attempt at cut stars has me puzzeled. Tiger tails were made by the book, pressed and cut to about 1/8" thick by 1/4" square. Shot from a morter tube as a mine they made a beautiful 20' high spray. But then they rained thousans of tiny burning embers back to the ground. Then I tried zinc stars. Not as bad as the tiger tails but similar. Any advice as to what I have done wrong?
Aneantis Posted June 22, 2009 Posted June 22, 2009 How long did you mill the tiger tail, and what kind of C did you use? Do you have a vid?
jasontaylor Posted June 22, 2009 Author Posted June 22, 2009 Sorry no vid. The instructions called for screening and mixing in a tub, no milling. The charcoal was airfloat from skylighter.
Aneantis Posted June 22, 2009 Posted June 22, 2009 Ball mill well to integrate. http://www.vk2zay.net/composition/55 Charcoal effects, like tigertail, C6, C8,... need some milling. I mill my C8 for about 4-5 hours.This is the cause of your sparks that fall to the ground.
firetech Posted June 22, 2009 Posted June 22, 2009 Skylighter airfloat is made from mixed hardwoods which aren't very reactive compared to softwoods like pine, balsa, paulownia, alder and willow. Hardwoods tend to leave the longer-hanging tail of sparks. I suggest you make your own charcoal from a softwood. It will not only get you the effect you are looking for but it will greatly increase the speed of your bp.
Arthur Posted June 22, 2009 Posted June 22, 2009 Charcoal is all! Classically willow is great pine is fine too. Hardwoods are harder to mill and never become as fast as willow. In the UK willow is for fast BP hardwood is for slower BP. We usually use pine for nice charcoal spark effects, but it takes very little milling. Pine charcoal is from a pallet! Cut the free spars into fine sticks for the charcoal oven, use the nailed lumpy bits as fuel on the fire! Squeezed by hand and you have 80 mesh almost instantly. milled for an hour and you have dust. Hardwood charoal is used in rockets as it almost never catos, but it can be too slow to lift well.
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