irazboubi Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 My question: Are you a determination to make a fountain with black powder? Fountains I made usually had no precise dosage but I will have an electronic scale. I would also add very fine particles of aluminum in the BP for greater impact Thanks
Bananaphone69 Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 What???I think your asking for fountain formulas using only KNO3, sulfur, and charcoal?If thats the case, try a Tiger Tail fountain (44,6,44 from chems above).They usually gave some pretty respectable sparks, and added aluminum would just be icing.
Swede Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 Adding metal flake or spheres in layers will give differing effects. Try aluminum between 100-200 mesh, iron, copper, titanium, they'll all look a little different. You might want to make the very top free of added metal to get easy ignition, or just prime it well. Watch out for slag from metal choking the nozzle. Also please realize a fountain incorrectly made can explode at any moment, with little warning. Have fun and be safe.
irazboubi Posted July 23, 2009 Author Posted July 23, 2009 Response swede: Thank you for your advice, but I just in my aluminum fountains. ==> Other ingredients mentioned are harder to built a fine powder! Response Bananaphone69: I do not understand the strengths that you mention? 44,6,44 comply with the doses of sulfur, and charcoal? Can you give me the correspondence of your figures? Thank you
inonickname Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 44 parts potassium nitrate, 6 parts sulfur and 44 parts fine charcoal by weight. I don't believe that was too difficult to interpret. By the way, if you completely fill a fountain with black powder (75,15,10) it will explode, unless you either have: A) One mother of a container (which I bet you don't) A large nozzle
TYRONEEZEKIEL Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 I dont know about that inonickname. Ive seen solid black powder fountains work very well. Except they point downward, and are called rockets.
Seymour Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 I do not want to add confusion by giving conflicting advice. However, I suggest not using tigertail. It's a lovely star, but it burns far too slow for a fountain. Instead a good charcoal based fountain would be more like 60% Potassium nitrate, 35% Charcoal and 5% Sulfur. A nice Aluminium fountain can be made with 80% Black powder and 20% Aluminium powder. The size and shape of the particles of your Aluminium will determine what effect you get.
Gunzway Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 I've achieved a nice fountain with using black powder as a base mix and adding some more charcoal in to slow the burn rate in and adding some aluminum in. No particular ratios, just eyeballing the mixture and having a rough indication of how much I'm putting in. Excuse the picture quality, here's a snapshot of a fountain I made recently with the above procedure and I achieved some nice purplish blue sparks from the aluminum also (real life they looked obviously better).
irazboubi Posted July 23, 2009 Author Posted July 23, 2009 Thanks for all your answer ! For made fountian with BP, i prefers use : 60,35,5 (potassium nitrate,charcoal,sulfur ) becuase i thinks the recipe with 44 potassium nitrate/charcoal and 6 sulfur burn so slowly (there's less oxidizer ) and there will be more aluminum that will slow the combustion. Do you think I am right ? Thanks ! The colors of the fountain are beautiful on the photo !! ( nice fountian ^^ )
pyrogeorge Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 I've achieved a nice fountain with using black powder as a base mix and adding some more charcoal in to slow the burn rate in and adding some aluminum in. No particular ratios, just eyeballing the mixture and having a rough indication of how much I'm putting in. Excuse the picture quality, here's a snapshot of a fountain I made recently with the above procedure and I achieved some nice purplish blue sparks from the aluminum also (real life they looked obviously better).How did you press the fountain?With your hand?If i press with my 6t press is it dangerous??
Weasel Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 I do not want to add confusion by giving conflicting advice. However, I suggest not using tigertail. It's a lovely star, but it burns far too slow for a fountain. Instead a good charcoal based fountain would be more like 60% Potassium nitrate, 35% Charcoal and 5% Sulfur. I have used Tigertail for a fountain, and it looks really nice. I have a video of it, but the video just kinda makes it look like a flame, when in real life you can see each little fleck of charcoal float around and swirl. It looks amazing, although the effect be different with a different charcoal. I use pine personally.
Gunzway Posted July 24, 2009 Posted July 24, 2009 How did you press the fountain?With your hand?If i press with my 6t press is it dangerous??I pressed the fountain by hand with using small increments of composition at a time and using the majority of my body weight. I obviously rammed the nozzle as there's no danger there. I would assume pressing with your press wouldn't be dangerous as that's generally the safest way of making fountains/rockets. But you wouldn't be needing 6tons, I suggest using less.
inonickname Posted July 24, 2009 Posted July 24, 2009 I dont know about that inonickname. Ive seen solid black powder fountains work very well. Except they point downward, and are called rockets. Alright. It's purely dependent on wall strength and nozzle diameter. Also, voids or a core will also greatly change the burn rate.
irazboubi Posted July 24, 2009 Author Posted July 24, 2009 QUESTION ON THE DESIGN OF THE FOUNTAIN Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8kG2g8BMJs Do you think I can make my fountain in the same way ? (Replacing the mixture in the video by my mixture BP + aluminum) I could build with the release tape to prevent the top from being ejected and going out with a drill bit larger (to avoid the explosion) Do you think that this method is a good idea ? PS: Important details: The cardboard tube(5 mm thick) that I will use is on the photo and aluminum too. My BP is very fine, so fine as flour.
Gunzway Posted July 24, 2009 Posted July 24, 2009 Well, the guy in the video uses a few methods which increases the level of danger without needed to. First of all, I would be grinding the bentonite clay and not just large grains which are in a kitty litter bag. You don't need to have the stuff like talcum powder, but in some sort of rough powder state. In experience using kitty litter straight out of the bag doesn't work as well and when it comes to the nozzle it might be a problem. Do you think I can make my fountain in the same way ? (Replacing the mixture in the video by my mixture BP + aluminum) I would NOT be using a metal rammer and ramming it. If you're going to make a fountain with a metal in it I highly recommend you press it and as I posted before it can be easily done with just your body weight. Though I've rammed fountains with Al (not with a metal rammer though) in it before with no problems, there's no real point and you might as well just press it. I could build with the release tape to prevent the top from being ejected and going out with a drill bit larger (to avoid the explosion) I've managed to have quite thin nozzles and never had the top being 'ejected' so I don't think the release tape is necessary. Having the nozzle larger does reduce the fountain's pressure but having it too large would reduce it's power which ultimately affects it's quality. Which brings me to the next problem with the video, he's drilling in a live composition with a power drill. Using KNO3/Sugar is safer than most compositions but I don't recommend the use of any power tools in pyrotechnics. But with a mixture of black powder and aluminum there's no exceptions and you don't go drilling into it with a drill. Hand drill it. Your cardboard tube looks very good and there's no problems I can see there. The aluminum your using is quite large(from the looks of it) and I've never dealt with metal that large. I'm not sure on it's efficiency in fountains but just make sure the aluminum can come out of the nozzle without it being clogged up. And your black powder sounds good. Though the fineness of it isn't really much of an issue as I've even made fountains with green mix pulverone.
irazboubi Posted July 25, 2009 Author Posted July 25, 2009 Hi, Response Gunzway: As for the pressing hammer, I think this may increase the pressure of the jets because the powder is much more compact. For my grain of aluminum, have done the tests, even with a less fine powder and they passed smoothly through the hole! (Previously, my grains were even larger than those shown in photo) -For dosing: do you think the mixture 60,35,5 (potassium nitrate, charcoal, sulfur) is OK, or is he too fast that my powder is very fine? Give me your opinion! Thanks
Gunzway Posted July 25, 2009 Posted July 25, 2009 -For dosing: do you think the mixture 60,35,5 (potassium nitrate, charcoal, sulfur) is OK, or is he too fast that my powder is very fine? There's a lot of variables such as what charcoal you use, the amount of time you ball milled the composition and even the climate you're in to tell me the correct answer if whether it will suit your fountain. Personally that mixture would perhaps be a little too slow for me as I'm using a hardwood charcoal and my ball mill isn't as efficient as most. But for majority of people using willow or another wood which most people use and have a efficient mill it would be fine. 'Instead a good charcoal based fountain would be more like 60% Potassium nitrate, 35% Charcoal and 5% Sulfur.' - Seymour. Seymour knows what he is talking about and if your black powder matches up to most burn tests you've seen I would recommend what he said. I would begin with this formula and then make adjustments if needed. If it's too slow, then increase the amount of KNO3 and lower the charcoal and so forth. If it's too fast, then do vice-versa. Record this in a notebook and 'play' around with it and eventually you'll get the idealistic composition you like and is optimal for your conditions.
irazboubi Posted July 25, 2009 Author Posted July 25, 2009 Thank you very much ! In summary I have to make with my BP is testing if it is too fast to increase the quantity of charcoal and if it is too slow increase the amount of KNO3. To mix my ingredients (charcoal/KNO3/sulfur is already very late!) I do not mill but the bottom of a jar, I crushed the product on a sheet of paper with bottom of my jar. ==> The powder is very fine! (As much as flour) Precaution that I take is to mix the ingredients separately. I saw on youtube a method for the manufacture of granulated BP: BP mix fine with a little alcohol and sieve the paste with a sieve. Then we had to wait until the dry granu for the granulated BP. Do you know if the mix (78/10/12 ==> KNO3, sulfur, charcoal = mixture of powder hunting) would make a good granulated BP? Thanks !
Mumbles Posted July 25, 2009 Posted July 25, 2009 Crushing chemicals with the bottom of a jar will never approach the fineness you get by ball milling. It will probably work for fountains and rockets, but you will have some serious difficulty in creating a strong lift or burst powder with this method. Just stick with the normal 75/15/10 KNO3/C/S for now. From what I have read, the hunting and some military versions are not quite as powerful, but help to reduce fouling of the barrel. They rely on heavy compression to get the preformance, instead of raw power. We cannot approach the same level of compression in most cases. Alcohol granulation with nothing else added will create very weak grains. Water and some dextrin would be better suited.
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