fredhappy Posted November 16, 2010 Posted November 16, 2010 (edited) Here's a 5 incher I've shot and made recently. As you all can see there was no glitter effect, but more some sort of a weird white fallout star.It was a cool yet unintended effect. I tried making a pistil, but made the error of only sprinkling the bottom hemisphere with flash. I used a thin tissue wrap to close my shell. The pistil was made with 8 mm kepley streamer stars, I think I have turned most into stardust. I m always having issues with glitters. I pump/press with very little water, so far so good. But I do need to prime heavily due to my preference to boost quite a bit. I just use dextrine, which means I spraybottle my stars with 50/50 water alcohol. I think this process over wets them, and turns them into these cool yet unwanted white shimmering stars. I've got a little test batch of winokur 20 with 80 mesh Mg/al, and will try to use phenolic resin instead of water when I prime. I hope this works, because I love a nice glitter. Comments are highly appreciated. rg1 12 mm 8 mm pistil kepley stars.mpg Edited November 16, 2010 by fredhappy
Xtreme Pyro Posted November 16, 2010 Posted November 16, 2010 Here's a 5 incher I've shot and made recently. As you all can see there was no glitter effect, but more some sort of a weird white fallout star.It was a cool yet unintended effect. I tried making a pistil, but made the error of only sprinkling the bottom hemisphere with flash. I used a thin tissue wrap to close my shell. The pistil was made with 8 mm kepley streamer stars, I think I have turned most into stardust. I m always having issues with glitters. I pump/press with very little water, so far so good. But I do need to prime heavily due to my preference to boost quite a bit. I just use dextrine, which means I spraybottle my stars with 50/50 water alcohol. I think this process over wets them, and turns them into these cool yet unwanted white shimmering stars. I've got a little test batch of winokur 20 with 80 mesh Mg/al, and will try to use phenolic resin instead of water when I prime. I hope this works, because I love a nice glitter. Comments are highly appreciated. Very nice shell fred! It broke really big and was a nice effect. Did you mill the glitter stars? If you did that's why you didn't get any glitter effect, these stars turn into silver streamers if you mill them. Also try using a 75/25 water/alcohol solution to dampen the composition. Keep up the good work!
fredhappy Posted November 17, 2010 Author Posted November 17, 2010 Very nice shell fred! It broke really big and was a nice effect. Did you mill the glitter stars? If you did that's why you didn't get any glitter effect, these stars turn into silver streamers if you mill them. Also try using a 75/25 water/alcohol solution to dampen the composition. Keep up the good work! No , no milling, just screening. I pump my stars with a press, and use little water. All pretty basic stuff, I know how to make gliters, but I screw up with the priming. I need to work on non water based binders , otherwise I wet the stars too much during priming which results in the effect observed in the clip.
Mumbles Posted November 17, 2010 Posted November 17, 2010 You may also want to try slurry priming if you want to stick with water. It seems to keep the inner layer relatively dry, and dries pretty quick. I've done the same with alcohol and pinball prime (heavy in red gum), and it dries in a few hours in a drying box or on a warm breezy day.
fredhappy Posted November 17, 2010 Author Posted November 17, 2010 You may also want to try slurry priming if you want to stick with water. It seems to keep the inner layer relatively dry, and dries pretty quick. I've done the same with alcohol and pinball prime (heavy in red gum), and it dries in a few hours in a drying box or on a warm breezy day. Mmmm, ok, I'll look into slurry. I will order me some phenolic resin, I ve been wanting to try that out. It should be very usable as a binder instead of dextrine in glitter compositions. It is also a smart thing to try some prime high in redgum and try to consolidate that with alcohol. There are lots of options out there, I ve only tried the water/dex route, and it just doesn't work for me with glitters.It justs over wets them everytime. For many formulaes it is specified that priming is not necessary, but I'll put on a thick layer just to be sure. Thanks for your input.
Mumbles Posted November 17, 2010 Posted November 17, 2010 Are you planning to try the phenolic resin in the glitter stars or the prime? I can't speak from experience, but certain things are known to kill the glitter effect. Chlorine and chlorine donors are one thing for certain that does. Maybe some others more familiar with phenolics can chime in with any experience.
Mumbles Posted November 17, 2010 Posted November 17, 2010 I found an answer for you completely by accident while looking up something else. http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/5123-gold-strobe/page__view__findpost__p__67357
fredhappy Posted November 17, 2010 Author Posted November 17, 2010 (edited) Are you planning to try the phenolic resin in the glitter stars or the prime? I can't speak from experience, but certain things are known to kill the glitter effect. Chlorine and chlorine donors are one thing for certain that does. Maybe some others more familiar with phenolics can chime in with any experience. Well, just for priming I guess. It is also being used to roll magnesium /amon perc based stars as far as I understood. My idea is to drop the dex/water based prime for glitters, and to come up with an alternative. So now I want to try and use my regular meal/ mg/al /silicon prime and just swap the dextrine for some powdered phenolic resin. No idea if it works, I sure like the whole red gum idea you suggested. I've got some redgum , so that's worth a try. I have never worked with anything else but dextrine as a binder, and have no experience with red gum/phenolic resin. It didn't cross my mind that the phenolic would interfere with the glitter effect, I just assumed since it wasn't waterbased I could experiment with it. I would be interested to hear opinions with regard to this matter. I need to prime, since I boost quite heavily, no going around that I suppose. No priming results in blown blind stars with my shells. Blown blind stars result in me being very unhappy, and I like being happy from those nice big 'ole round and full flowers high above.. edit: thanks for that link Mumbles, I am reading it at the moment. Lot of useful info in that one. Still would be interesting to hear how my fellow pyros handle their glitter comps. Edited November 17, 2010 by fredhappy
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