Advice

[welder1074]

I was wondering what the community thought of people starting with rockets and shells? I always loved those the most, like the ones with a wide burst of colorful stars with a report or the rockets that whistle all the way up. Is that something that isnt too hard, or is it really reserved for the more experinced people. Thank you for all your posts and putting up with my endless questions.

[dagabu]

Teeee, heeee!

 

Rockets, yes, very good rockets, come to the dark side, come.

 

We have cookies!

 

Nothing is easy, the easy stuff is for sale in plastic wrapped packages, hand made pyro takes time and patience, pick one item and ask about it, we will help you through your first one and help with tweaking them after that.

[Gunzway]

Shells and rockets are fine to start of with. Personally, I find them the most rewarding aspect of pyrotechnics. Coloured stars are do-able, but you'll need to get more chemicals and they do require a bit more work (more priming etc). Glitters, streamers and the like are good to start with an are relatively inexpensive compared to colours when dealing with shells. I would stay clear of reports for now as they are rather dangerous in both manufacture and when manufactured, so that's something you can deal with later. The rockets that whistle all the way up are known as whistle rockets, and the fuel for them (whistle mix) is rather dangerous and best to be left for later (you would need a press too).

 

But shells and rockets are fine and you don't need to be an expert or anything to make them. Start off small and predominately with compositions similar to that of black powder (charcoal streamers, glitters; you get the idea) and you can progress from there.

[Mumbles]

I would tend to agree with gunzway. While you can jump right in, you'll may want to toss mines and fountains in there in the intermediate time. I like to think of them as baby steps to shells and rockets. Mines will allow you to test your lift, stars, and priming in a relatively controlled manner. You know what is going to happen without the worry of a projectile or potentially unexploded device being present. With fountains you can get an idea of how to make nozzles and compaction again without the projectiles. I'm not saying you have to master either of them, but they serve as nice intermediates to help ensure you have all of the fundamentals down.

[jwitt]

Mumbles makes a good point. From my experience starting with shells, a couple mines would have been a good way to test things and also get a pyro fix as well as some piece of mind. I ended up making a couple stars that burned too long, etc.

 

Of course, you could jump past comparatively little mines and go right to bag mines that fit your mortar...a 3" mine is one hell of an impressive device, but doesn't require some of the more complex aspects of shell building. In addition to the testing Mumbles mentioned, you'd also get to see how matchpipe works, fusing, and the little "tricks of the trade" of making pyro devices like working clean, safe storage of components while building, tricks to fuse cutting......lots of different stuff. You're kind of looking to bring your operation up to speed, both in safety and efficiency.