Black Smoke Stars

[DonD13]

Greetings all,

 

I've been lurking here for awhile, lots of good discussion. I searched and couldn't find anything on this, so point me in the right direction if I missed an existing post.

 

I've been messing around with naphthalene fireballs, and gotten a few good ones, and some not so good smouldering smoke pots out of them. The black smoke got me thinking: has anyone tried making black smoke stars for daytime shells? I would imagine the right mix of KNO3 and Naphthalene, pumped or put in a pillbox with the right priming would probably be a good starting point.

 

I would like to do a early evening/daytime set next 7-4 show, including some fireballs/cremoras, and smoke shells. If they could be made to work, I would like to do a daytime shell something like a lampare, with black tendrils of smoke in all directions.

 

Any ideas?

 

Don

[explomaan]

The point with napthalene is that it sublimates quiete quick. If you try to make smoke stars with it, they are likely to fail because the napthalene has been vanised before you can shoot them. On this page, you can find some black smoke compositions but it aren't star compositions: http://www.thegreenman.me.uk/pfp/smoke.html

Probably you could make some incerts of micro smoke bombs but that sounds like a lot of work. For what I know, smoke shell are very time consuming to make.

[Mumbles]

The time frame that napthalene sublimates is on the order of months not hours. They'd be one of those things you want to make within a few weeks of shooting I would imagine. I used to have some black smoke star compositions, I'll see what I can dig up. I think they used Potassium chlorate, napthalene and antimony trisulfide. Overtime they become more dangerous as you get essentially left with dark flash.

 

There are other ways to make smoke inserts as outlined in shimizu.

[WonderBoy]

A quick search on rec.pyro turned up this thread

My link

Hope that helps.

 

Jeff

[Pyropow3r]

The time frame that napthalene sublimates is on the order of months not hours. They'd be one of those things you want to make within a few weeks of shooting I would imagine. I used to have some black smoke star compositions, I'll see what I can dig up. I think they used Potassium chlorate, napthalene and antimony trisulfide. Overtime they become more dangerous as you get essentially left with dark flash.

 

There are other ways to make smoke inserts as outlined in shimizu.

 

You mentioned "dark flash" i saw a video a while back with a multi report rocket using dark flash here is the link................

 

 

I was astonished with the result a boom with no FLASH how is this possible ??? he did not mention the formula unfortunately but you seem to know something about this "dark flash"

 

anyone on this forum happen to know the composition for dark flash or how it works ? i would really like to know so i can experiment with it.

[explomaan]

There are a few dark flash formulas and they are all Potassium Chlorate and Antimony Trisulfide based. Remember that this is a very sensitive combination so be very carefull.

 

Here are two of them:

 

Dark Flash #1

Used to create a break or report without a visible flash of light.

Potassium Chlorate 50

Antimony Trisulfide 50

 

Dark Flash #2

Dark flash used for breaking crossettes and cavity comets without a bright light flash.

Potassium Chlorate 50

Dark aluminium 31

Antimony Trisulfide 25