NightPainter Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Hi everyone and thanks for your willingness to share your knowledge with us newbies. I have been shooting class C stuff for about 40 years now, of which I have been putting on hand lit pyro musicals for the last 15 years. I'm getting tired of working within the confines for the available consumer stuff so I'm looking to make some pieces for my show. I have made at least one successful mine cake and several other pieces by taking apart consumer fireworks and using the lift charges, stars aand gerbs to create desired effects. So I'm ready to move on .... a little at a time. Here's my plan and I'm open to any and all advice. I want to make 50 preloaded 1" comets using skylighters D1 gold kit and the Pink + Silver formula from there pillbox star page. I'm going to start by making 1" x 1" pillbox stars and dial in the size and lift charge once I get a handle on burn times. Questions.... Do they burn considerably longer than a rolled or cut star?Will the paper tube help to hold the comet/star together? Will the black match do away the need to prime? I also want to make 25 "plasma cutter torches"/ gerbs without any sparking metals, just for color. Last I'm going to make 10 - 3" canister shells using skylighter's rubber stars formulas. I have all the chemicals I need and at this time will not be purchasing a ball mill. Small batches allow me to by Goex from the local gun shop. Also i can make the red gum powder that does not require milling if need be. Thanx in advance.....
ballmill Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 I believe pill box stars have a kraft paper casing to slow down the burn time for a longer duration effect. The composition burns from the ends and not around the entire star slowing burn time as it descends. The blackmatch will continue burning through the star and light it very nicely so I don't think there is a need for priming pill box stars.
NightPainter Posted March 30, 2011 Author Posted March 30, 2011 I believe pill box stars have a kraft paper casing to slow down the burn time for a longer duration effect. The composition burns from the ends and not around the entire star slowing burn time as it descends. The blackmatch will continue burning through the star and light it very nicely so I don't think there is a need for priming pill box stars. Thank you for your reply. I just don't want them to burn to long. I guess I'll have to make a small batch and do some tests.
ballmill Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Gotcha, I'm interested to see your results as I will be starting my first pillbox stars soon. I'm new to pyro but jumping in the deepend.
Updup Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Gotcha, I'm interested to see your results as I will be starting my first pillbox stars soon. I'm new to pyro but jumping in the deepend. Just don't jump do deep you can't get back up...
NightPainter Posted March 31, 2011 Author Posted March 31, 2011 Gotcha, I'm interested to see your results as I will be starting my first pillbox stars soon. I'm new to pyro but jumping in the deepend. I will... and I'm new as well but I'm going to take slow for once in my life. I just rolled some 7/8" paper tubes, a few turns on a 7/8" dowel which fits very nicely in my 1" tubes. Now I have to wait for my order of Al, should be Monday. I'm going to use the rubber star formulas to play around with some different colored comets while I cut my rubber stars for the 3" shells.
Mumbles Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 I think you will probably fine that most color stars burn far to slow to be suitable for comets. I bet they'll burn somewhere on the order of 7-8 seconds.
davis050594 Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 (edited) Skylighter is great for newbies, but super duper uber expensive. Pay $50 for a membership at passfire where you will learn more than you ever though possible. Try hobbychemsupply for chemicals. That is not to degrade at all from this site or skylighter. They are both great things, but it appears you want to get into the hobby for shows and really have good intentions. Through the articles on passfire and people you can meet from your area, you will just learn infinate knowledge. Are you a club member? If so, find some builders and learn hands on. Edited March 31, 2011 by davis050594
Carbon796 Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 (edited) I make alot of 1"x1" comets. Are you trying to avoid pressing or hand ramming because of tooling? You can use 1" schedule 40 pvc pipe and 1" hard wood round dowel,from any hardware store. It's cheap and works well enough. The D1 won't need a prime, the lift charge will lite it just fine. For my 1"x1" glitter comets, I use about 18 grams of comp. One gram of goex FF for lift. Fired from a pyro direct 1.2" HDPE tube. A shorter or looser tube will require more lift. Edited March 31, 2011 by Carbon796
NightPainter Posted March 31, 2011 Author Posted March 31, 2011 I think you will probably fine that most color stars burn far to slow to be suitable for comets. I bet they'll burn somewhere on the order of 7-8 seconds. Thanks that is very helpful. I'll stick with pressing. Skylighter is great for newbies, but super duper uber expensive. Pay $50 for a membership at passfire where you will learn more than you ever though possible. Try hobbychemsupply for chemicals. That is not to degrade at all from this site or skylighter. They are both great things, but it appears you want to get into the hobby for shows and really have good intentions. Through the articles on passfire and people you can meet from your area, you will just learn infinate knowledge. Are you a club member? If so, find some builders and learn hands on. I'm not a club member mainly because I don't have the spare time. I read skylighter while I wait for my order from hobby chem to arrive. I purchased the D1 kit a year or 2 ago before I started lurking in this forum. Thanks for the great advice, I hope to be able to devote more time to my hobby in a few years. A 4th show for friends and family is all I really ever get to do....... But it is a tightly choreographed well planned show which until this year I have had to hand lite. So with wireless 32 cue system and some homemade fireworks I am hoping to take the show to another level. Thanks again.
NightPainter Posted March 31, 2011 Author Posted March 31, 2011 (edited) I make alot of 1"x1" comets. Are you trying to avoid pressing or hand ramming because of tooling? You can use 1" schedule 40 pvc pipe and 1" hard wood round dowel,from any hardware store. It's cheap and works well enough. The D1 won't need a prime, the lift charge will lite it just fine. For my 1"x1" glitter comets, I use about 18 grams of comp. One gram of goex FF for lift. Fired from a pyro direct 1.2" HDPE tube. A shorter or looser tube will require more lift. I'm not trying to avoid pressing ...... but I may have been trying to reinvent the wheel. I have my dowel and pvc pipe ready to go. I'll actually be making 7/8" comets to fire out of 1" cardboard tubes. Does a 9" long tube sound about right? Is the goex FFg or FFa? I have 1 lbs. of FFg I was going to use for lift for the comets and the 3" shells. Thanks for the great info. Edited March 31, 2011 by NightPainter
Carbon796 Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 Yes, I'm using FFg also. I was using about a 9" tube before I bought the HDPE mortars. I was using about 1.4 to 1.6 grams FFg to lift them, depending on the comp. Maybe start at about 1.2 grams FFg . Also depending on the effect that you like. You can lift a BP / glitter type comets fairly hard, and still have them ignite reliably.
ballmill Posted April 1, 2011 Posted April 1, 2011 I don't mean to cut in but will larger comets made with home made pvc tooling require a press or can they be consolidated with a mallet? 2" comets 1/2" tall in particular.
NightPainter Posted June 6, 2011 Author Posted June 6, 2011 Well, I made a bunch of different comets in an unconventional way. I had a heck of time using my homemade comet pump (PVC and wooden dowel) so I ended up using it upside down, so to speak. It was a good learning experience. I used both water and acetone on 11 different star/comet formulas. Anything with enough parlon like Veline's magenta I used acetone. For Ralph's glitter #1 ,D1, fireflies on cocaine, and a silver glitter formula I used plain distilled water and SGRS. I subbed SGRS for any dextrin in the formulas I used. I heeded Mumbles advice when using any star formulas and made shorter 3/8" - 1/2" instead of the 7/8" high using D1 and silver glitter. The silver glitter on Skylighters D1 project page list the silver glitter formula as:Black powder meal 68Titanium 27Dextrin 5 I subbed Goex 4Fg black powder for the meal and SGRS for the dextrin. I'm very happy with the results. They burn very fast which allows me to make 7/8" - 1" high comets with plenty of sparks. The star formulas I used were Majdali Purple, Emerald Green, Ruby red, Brilliant Yellow, Veline's Magenta. Took a little of red green and yellow comps and eyeballed about 10 -15% spherical Titanium 60 - 150 mixed it in and loved the results. I made a small batch of matrix comets adding some ruby red and magenta micro stars to the D1 and silver glitter comets during ramming. Filled the pump 1/2 way with Majdali's purple and then the other 1/2 was filled with silver glitter, did the same with the magenta and silver. It will be interesting to see how the 1/2 and 1/2 comets look. I found the homemade comet pump and pain in the ass to use in the conventional way. So I loaded it upside down pressing it in with my finger until it was full and compacted. Then turned it over and gave it a couple of lite hits with the mallet. A few things I quickly learned.... just dampen your comp lightly with water if using acetone they need to be a little wetter but not much. when I was pressing it in to the pump if moisture was forced to the surface I would dust it with a little dry comp before continuing adding dampened comp.......... using a little dry fencepost or other prime keeps the comet from sticking to the tooling and ramming surface. I'll have to wait until I reach my shooting site to do some tests.... but I have 3 days at the site and a pile of test comets before the show to dial in everything. I plan on videoing everything.
dagabu Posted June 6, 2011 Posted June 6, 2011 I found the homemade comet pump and pain in the ass to use in the conventional way. So I loaded it upside down pressing it in with my finger until it was full and compacted. Then turned it over and gave it a couple of lite hits with the mallet. I think there is a really simple fix for your problem as well as a way to get perfectly consistent comet sizes. PM me and I will take some pictures and write an explanation on their use. It will cost about $.001 for the fix. -dag
dagabu Posted June 6, 2011 Posted June 6, 2011 Well why dont you tell all of us??Steve Cause its more fun to tease you all! It comes down to this: drill a hole slightly larger then a toothpick, skewer or wooden match stick at the same place where you would load the pump and drill a second hole where you want the trimmed length to be. Place a stick in the lower hole and plunge the pump into the dampened mix, remove the stick and ram the comp. Place the stick in the higher hole, push the pump sleeve down over the rammer until it stops at the stick, trim, remove the stick and slide the sleeve down the rammer and remove the comet. I was going to attach pictures later when I got home from work, spoil-sport -dag 1
NightPainter Posted June 6, 2011 Author Posted June 6, 2011 Great tip...thanks .. I'll put it use as I still have about 8 more Emerald Green comets to ram.
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