Lactose Blue or Conkling Blue?

[madmax247]

Im making a large batch of blue today and i was wondering whether from anyones experience if the lactose blue formula was better than the supposedly legendary conkling blue formula?

 

Here are the forumlas:

 

Lactose Blue:

 

KP: 58

Lactose: 15

Parlon: 9

CuO: 8

Red Gum: 4

Sulphur: 3

Magnalium: 3

 

Conkling Blue:

 

Potassium perchlorate 65

Black copper oxide 14

Parlon 9

Red gum 7

Dextrin 5

Edited June 30, 2010 by madmax247

[Goofy]

Im making a large batch of blue today and i was wondering whether from anyones experience if the lactose blue formula was better than the supposedly legendary conkling blue formula?

 

Here are the forumlas:

 

Lactose Blue:

 

KP: 58

Lactose: 15

Parlon: 9

CuO: 8

Red Gum: 4

Sulphur: 3

Magnalium: 3

 

Conkling Blue:

 

Potassium perchlorate 65

Black copper oxide 14

Parlon 9

Red gum 7

Dextrin 5

 

The lactose blue formula is kinda "washed out" IMO. I'm sure the Mg/Al is to blame. I never tried it without the mg/al. The IIRC the Conkling blue is okay for a KP blue. It's been awhile since I made it .

 

Goofy

Edited June 30, 2010 by Goofy

[Gunzway]

Pihko Blue is also a good blue if you're willing to try it. Looks pretty similar to Conkling.

 

Pihko KP #2 - Blue

 

Potassium perchlorate 63

Black copper oxide 13

Parlon 14

Red gum 10

 

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/Gunzway/kp_blue.jpg

[Peret]

Oooh, I like that blue. I believe I'll try making some.

[Cookieman]

Pihko Blue is also a good blue if you're willing to try it. Looks pretty similar to Conkling.

 

Pihko KP #2 - Blue

 

Potassium perchlorate 63

Black copper oxide 13

Parlon 14

Red gum 10

 

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/Gunzway/kp_blue.jpg

 

 

Gunzway, thats a nice blue. Ive tried the veline and Conkling, but thats really nice!!! Was this a starmine?

Edited July 2, 2010 by Cookieman

[Mumbles]

I used to use a formula very similar to the Phiko blue. That formula is essentially a rounded off version of Shimizu blue #70, another known very nice blue. I really like it, though I use another but very similar formula.

[TheEskimo]

Mind sharing, or is it Top Secret?

[Mumbles]

Pyro Science Blue:

Potassium Perchlorate 66.1

Copper Oxide 13.4

Parlon 10.7

Red Gum 9.8

Dextrin 5

 

Total 105

[Gunzway]

Gunzway, thats a nice blue. Ive tried the veline and Conkling, but thats really nice!!! Was this a starmine?

 

Cookieman,

 

Much to my dismay, that was a flowerpot of a 2" ball shell. I had some friends helping me construct them for NYE and the hot gluing and pasting jobs were quite mediocre. But they told me they would rather quantity over quality, so that's what we got for some of them .

[Weirdo]

So phiko is the best choise for KP based blue? Because in my opinion its not bright enough. I did think of a MgAl based or Al based blue. But then you will get whitespots in the star. Anyone have any suggestions?

[AdmiralDonSnider]

Are you sure the camera did catch the true color? I´ve tried quite a few perc/CuO blues and they were nowhere near this. Cameras are known to "tune and push" blues...

 

Edit: Just realized that´s quite an old topic, sorry.

 

@Weirdo: Your post shows that it depends on what you want from a "good" blue. Try Velines or some of Baechles formulas (which are really good!), e.g. System 6.

Edited October 11, 2010 by AdmiralDonSnider

[Dr Boom]

Before I went to CuBenz blues I was using:

 

KClO4: 62

Parlon: 15

CuO: 13

Hexamine: 10

 

Total: 100

 

Not sure I remember whos this was or if it was a spin off but it had good saturation, burn speed and needed slight BP priming when hand pressed (body weight) into 1/2" pellets.

 

Now that I can do the synthesis on CuBenz, that's all I use- amazing Cop-light blue.

[AdmiralDonSnider]

 

 

Now that I can do the synthesis on CuBenz, that's all I use- amazing Cop-light blue.

 

Would you share the formula you use? AP based (that would be a snag)?

[Dr Boom]

Just went back and reviewed the thread on the CuBenz-

 

DonS, you were part of that:

 

CuBenz Blue

 

Didn't mean to hyjack this blue discussion, yes it is the AP/CuBenz/NC composition. I'm guessing some folks don't have access to the AP hence the alternate topic?

[AdmiralDonSnider]

It´s not only about the availability (or elevated prize), but also about chemical incompatibility.

[Updup]

Pihko Blue is also a good blue if you're willing to try it. Looks pretty similar to Conkling.

 

Pihko KP #2 - Blue

 

Potassium perchlorate 63

Black copper oxide 13

Parlon 14

Red gum 10

 

That looks like a great blue! Being such a simple comp, can anyone tell if the camara is playing tricks on us?

[Ralph]

That looks like a great blue! Being such a simple comp, can anyone tell if the camara is playing tricks on us?

 

Pihko is one of the best out there thats pretty much what it looks like

[Gunzway]

Yes, the photo is a relatively accurate representation of its colour. Sadly, I had other images/videos of the composition but I lost them. Watching them further back always yielded a nice colour.

[Rogue Chemist]

Somewhere in the compositions section there is a NH4ClO4/hexamine/Cu blue, which is my favorite.

[Mumbles]

The Phiko blue is very close to what I use, and the color is pretty accurate. I think they all look a little washed out up close, but in the air they're very blue.

[50AE]

Gonna try the pyro science blue, but modified a little bit. Replacing KClO4 with KClO3, red gum with shellac, binding with gum arabic and 1% K2Cr2O7 solution. Why the dichromate?

 

From passfire:

Jim Freeman - Freeman's blue

The formula bound with regular water is a typical perchlorate blue. However, when potassium dichromate is dissolved in the water used to bind the stars, the blue becomes deeper with a brighter flame envelope compareable to a chlorate blue. The idea is to catalyze the KClO4 with the dichromate ion.

 

The amount of dichromate to dissolve should be calculated such that the amount of water used deliveres 1% dichromate by weight. Making the dichromate concentration stronger will not effect the performance, so you don't have to be exact.

 

I'm curious if it will affect the KClO3.

[Mumbles]

My experiences with formulas you're describing is that you can use FAR less parlon than a perchlorate counter part. The chlorate blue I like uses around half the parlon.

 

I would maybe take Jim's formula with a grain of salt. He does include a rather substantial amount of potassium nitrate, a chemical known to wash out stars and colors of all sorts.

[50AE]

Yes Mumbles, the formula you're talking about is:

 

66,5 KClO3

13,4 CuO

5,4 Parlon

9,9 Red gum

4,8 SGRS or dextrin

 

This is still a very good and cheap formula I used some time ago, but I wanted to find out if adding more parlon will improve it.

 

About the stars with dichromate solutions. Well, it seems that Cr does some job, but I have to test the stars in air to confirm it. The flame envelope seems larger.

Edited October 19, 2010 by 50AE

[jerronimo]

If you want a really, really simple very good looking blue with large flame envelope and you don't mind working with chlorate's I recommend this one:

 

KClO3 60

Lactose 20

CuO 10

Parlon 10

 

For a good purple replace 4 parts of the CuO with Srco3.

 

Bind with acetone, or replace 25% of the lactose with dextrin.

[Dr Boom]

Jer-

 

Did you make those in cut stars or pumped? I seem to remember a formula like that being used in box stars but took longer to dry out...