Star cores

[madmax247]

So how do you use star cores? Ive been using lead shot for a while and can understand how it works as they are perfectly spherical...

 

My question is, how do you use cores to roll stars? Are they meant to be like granules? Or do u make them round in some way?

[dagabu]

I am not sure of the question but I will offer my opinion anyway.

 

Lead shot is a star core, millet seed is as well as are little bits that dont get taken up when rolling stars. I like to moisten my comp and run it through a 12 mesh screen and then throw a handful into my roller and let it ball up. No cores to buy, just the comp.

 

I stole this from passfire and wont roll stars any other way from now on.

[madmax247]

Oh ok! If i rephrase, i meant how do you use cores made from composition, rather than seed or shot.

[dagabu]

Oh ok! If i rephrase, i meant how do you use cores made from composition, rather than seed or shot.

 

Same answer:

 

"I like to moisten my comp and run it through a 12 mesh screen and then throw a handful into my roller and let it ball up. No cores to buy, just the comp."

 

If you get your comp moist enough so that it will stick together...but...not so sticky that it all clumps together and screen it then roll the little clumps, you will get cores. Just keep adding moistened comp little by little (through a gravy strainer) into the roller to build it up.

[Arthur]

I was with Ron Lancaster in his factory and there was a roller just letting powder roll into it's own cores. These were dried and used as cores for stars. Just the right amount of water (mix) sprayed onto a powder rolling in a big star roller, quite quickly the flowing powder clumps into micro stars then these roll round and grow if you feed them. Screen the powder off keeping whatever sits on about 10 mesh, and re rolling any powder that falls through.

 

Some comps will need a core to start rolling others will not need any help.

 

Sometimes people use tiny bits of cut or broken stars as cores (especially dragons eggs!) these are first cut, then rolled dry to wear the corners down, then fed with comp so that they grow, they get rounder as they grow even if the core had corners.

[Arte valdo]

I am personally most like to use as a core pumped 6 mm core, it is very easy to roll, you can pass the most difficult stage rolling. Incidentally pumped stars ignites easily. I Roll only at the cores the flash or glitter I used millet seeds, but it is important not to wet by the easy roll. For beginners I propose to roll cores on lead shot probably the easiest to roll after pumped cores. Only necessary to remove the graphite and go

[Cookieman]

What do you guys thing about using these for cores?external link

[dagabu]

HELL NO!!

 

SST ball bearings? They are 2.38mm, about #4 shot and would hold the heat from burning the star comp, they will not deteriorate. I dont like to see lead being used since birds eat it for gullet stones.

 

Cookie, just use some 2FA, seeds, moist comp, anything but steel.

[BJV]

What do you guys thing about using these for cores?external link

 

I have used #8 lead shot for cores for years and never had any kinda of fallout problem at all.

The lead melts and most is burnt up. The stars in the photo below were all rolled on lead shot and will be shot

on the 4th.

BJVhttp://barry.dcwisp.net/stars.jpg

[dagabu]

Man, I hope you have such a nice shop that you can afford a nice kitchen table and aren't drying trays of stars in your kitchen.

[BJV]

Man, I hope you have such a nice shop that you can afford a nice kitchen table and aren't drying trays of stars in your kitchen.

 

Not drying the stars in the kitchen, just there for the photo. But here are a couple of photo of my messy shop.

BJV

http://barry.dcwisp.net/shop.jpg

http://barry.dcwisp.net/shop2.jpg

[Ventsi]

Oh ok! If i rephrase, i meant how do you use cores made from composition, rather than seed or shot.

 

If you aren't going for precision this is a very good method.

http://www.wichitabuggywhip.com/fireworks/mouseturds.html

 

 

When I want stars that change color uniformly I always cut my cores.

[Cookieman]

Not drying the stars in the kitchen, just there for the photo. But here are a couple of photo of my messy shop.

BJV

http://barry.dcwisp.net/shop.jpg

http://barry.dcwisp.net/shop2.jpg

 

 

BJV,

 

That's a nice supply of chems. you have there!

[Arthur]

Choose an inner comp that will actually roll from powder, then you don't need a core. OR use grains of BP/Pulverone as cores. Both ways the comp actually burns completely and doesn't deposit lead shot all over the fallout zone.

 

If the final star is to be big enough then you can pump the inner comp and cut it to length, then roll the outer comp onto that pumped star.

[AdmiralDonSnider]

I´m taking this thread as an opportunity to once again ask for help concerning my "cracked stars" problem.

 

I roll small stars (4mm) for use as cores in color changing stars. I use rape seed and an absolute minimum (!) of 75/25 alc water. Most of them crack due to swelling seeds. (Note that this is NOT a problem when rolling larger stars using rape cores!)

 

Instead of going into the issue, I´d rather like to hear what other pyros here use as cores when they roll color changing star cores?!

 

Lloyd Sponenburgh recommended millet, others use tiny bits of comp harvested by the method described above. The latter is hard without a star roller. Rape just doesn´t seem to work...

Edited July 4, 2010 by AdmiralDonSnider

[ExplosiveCoek]

Seeds are really prone to swelling. I got the same results like you, if you roll the stars up to 10 mm they won't crack. But if you make some small cores for colorchange, they will crack. THIS is what I use right know. But I'm definitely going to try the 'wet screen' method for making cores like Dagabu mentioned.

[Mumbles]

Having tried the method Arthur mentioned, I can tell you that it takes some practice. There is a VERY fine line between powdery and big clumps. Time, weather, climate, and drop size all play a role.

[Arthur]

Starting stars rolling from a drum of powder is a skill, it depends on the powder, the conditions, and the sprayer that you use. The guy in Kimbolton's Factory was picking up different sprayers just to get the process rolling just as he wanted. (But he probably made 50kilos of stars from powder in the few minutes I watched. Yes their roller is a huge ball shaped drum (imported from Japan I think) very like the star rollers that one sees on Chinese star making Youtube vids.

[dagabu]

I´m taking this thread as an opportunity to once again ask for help concerning my "cracked stars" problem.

 

I roll small stars (4mm) for use as cores in color changing stars. I use rape seed and an absolute minimum (!) of 75/25 alc water. Most of them crack due to swelling seeds. (Note that this is NOT a problem when rolling larger stars using rape cores!)

 

Instead of going into the issue, I´d rather like to hear what other pyros here use as cores when they roll color changing star cores?!

 

Lloyd Sponenburgh recommended millet, others use tiny bits of comp harvested by the method described above. The latter is hard without a star roller. Rape just doesn´t seem to work...

 

After a long conversation with Lloyd late last year, I went with millet seed as well. I just had the devil of a time getting them to pick up comp by themselves and not sticking together. I had a bunch of blue stars that I rolled (beautiful stars) but would not light no matter what so I crushed them and used the crushed pieces to roll more stars on (it worked!)

 

Since then I have taken to doing the screen cut method with 8-20 mesh screen (what ever I feel like at the time) to get the cores going and the roll then to get them rounder while they are still somewhat wet. Then I use dampened comp and add it to the roller. No spraying, no dry comp, it picks it up, no spikes, really clean.

[ExplosiveCoek]

How much moisture do you use to 'wet' the comp that you put on your cores? I saw someone on passfire mentioning this method to.

 

Do you have to screen your stars often after you made the cores with the 'screen & slice' method?

[dagabu]

Sounds like you are talking about two different styles of making stars here. There is screen pressed stars where the the stars are cut by pressing then through a screen and another style where you pack the star comp into a lined box and slice the comp loaf into slices and then into strips and then into stars.

 

The method I am speaking of uses the screen but perfect cuts are not important since you will be using the same comp over the cores and you will roll these cores to the same size, screening out the small ones and return them back to the roller for more comp.

 

As far as how much "whet" (whetting is the use of any fluid used to saturate the comp, wetting signifies the use of water to saturate the comp) to use depends on the comp, such as one containing carbon black, you will definitely need to use 20% alcohol with water to bind it where a D-1 comp using bright flake may take 30% alcohol.

 

If you can use straight water to dampen your comp, use a spray bottle while the comp is on a piece of kraft and lightly spray a few (depending on how much comp you are using, I am thinking a 1 kilo batch) squirts and then run it through a 20 mesh screen, spray and repeat until you have a comp that will clump when you grab a handful but will not show any water when pressed.

 

Form up a ball the size of a golf ball and flatten it on a small sheet of kraft to the size of your screen openings and press the comp through the screen. Now let the screen sliced stars dry a bit while covering the rest of the dampened comp. Once the stars are starting to dry (about 1/2 hour) throw them into the roller and let them roll until they lose their sharp corners.

 

Add small amounts of comp at a time until you have stars the size you want them. Stop at 9mm or smaller so they don' have drying problems.

[AdmiralDonSnider]

I was with Ron Lancaster in his factory and there was a roller just letting powder roll into it's own cores. These were dried and used as cores for stars. Just the right amount of water (mix) sprayed onto a powder rolling in a big star roller, quite quickly the flowing powder clumps into micro stars then these roll round and grow if you feed them. Screen the powder off keeping whatever sits on about 10 mesh, and re rolling any powder that falls through.

 

 

 

Thanks Arthur for pointing me towards this approach.

 

I gave it a try using about 50 grams of leftover Veline green, a mister and a bowl. I made up about 5000 cores in less than half an hour. To my surprise this even works in a hand roller given you carefully adjust the mister.

 

I screened the outcome and used what passed 10 mesh and was retained on 18. A bit smaller than you suggested. The pieces were quite irregular, some round, most not. However they grew very round as I fed them; you can´t tell if the round rape or the coreless droplets were used as the core.

 

After so many rape based batches that cracked due to swelling seeds, this method is promising. I can´t wait till they´re dry. For me this seems like the first viable path to color changing shells...

 

 

 

[KruseMissile]

Sounds like you are talking about two different styles of making stars here. There is screen pressed stars where the the stars are cut by pressing then through a screen and another style where you pack the star comp into a lined box and slice the comp loaf into slices and then into strips and then into stars.

 

The method I am speaking of uses the screen but perfect cuts are not important since you will be using the same comp over the cores and you will roll these cores to the same size, screening out the small ones and return them back to the roller for more comp.

 

As far as how much "whet" (whetting is the use of any fluid used to saturate the comp, wetting signifies the use of water to saturate the comp) to use depends on the comp, such as one containing carbon black, you will definitely need to use 20% alcohol with water to bind it where a D-1 comp using bright flake may take 30% alcohol.

 

If you can use straight water to dampen your comp, use a spray bottle while the comp is on a piece of kraft and lightly spray a few (depending on how much comp you are using, I am thinking a 1 kilo batch) squirts and then run it through a 20 mesh screen, spray and repeat until you have a comp that will clump when you grab a handful but will not show any water when pressed.

 

Form up a ball the size of a golf ball and flatten it on a small sheet of kraft to the size of your screen openings and press the comp through the screen. Now let the screen sliced stars dry a bit while covering the rest of the dampened comp. Once the stars are starting to dry (about 1/2 hour) throw them into the roller and let them roll until they lose their sharp corners.

 

Add small amounts of comp at a time until you have stars the size you want them. Stop at 9mm or smaller so they don' have drying problems.

 

I have done this to make micro stars before, and they came out very uniform, but only if you take your time. With my roller i found out I have to add comp every 3-4 mins and sometimes would have to soak them almost to the point of clumping to get very hard and uniform stars. I can take a picture of them if you want or if I have the time I could make a video.

 

I have also used rape seed with great success, but only if I had them in a small container and began to roll them in that, just to get the first layer going. After that it was very easy.

Brian

[AdmiralDonSnider]

 

I have also used rape seed with great success, but only if I had them in a small container and began to roll them in that, just to get the first layer going. After that it was very easy.

Brian

 

Don´t get me wrong. I also use rape given I need stars larger than 5mm final size - they come out really well and the rape is a good round core; but if you roll them to any size smaller than 5mm and dry them, they (at least most of them) will crack. I´d be really surprised if you do this and they come out intact.

[KruseMissile]

Don´t get me wrong. I also use rape given I need stars larger than 5mm final size - they come out really well and the rape is a good round core; but if you roll them to any size smaller than 5mm and dry them, they (at least most of them) will crack. I´d be really surprised if you do this and they come out intact.

 

 

Next time I roll, I will try this and see how it comes out and if it does crack, I'll make some crossettes and comets lol.