HDPE MORTARS

[keepkool78]

Hello, I know we all hear that mortars made of HDPE do not fragment. I always use HDPE and over the weekend I had a 4 inch lampari with over 350 grams of flash blow in the mortar. I did find a couple of small pieces that broke off but all in all, it did a good job staying together. Here is the pic.

[Mumbles]

I'm going to move this to the safety section. I think it would fit a lot better there. THank you very much for sharing though.

[ActionTekJackson]

Wow, bummer for your tube, but I'm still impressed... Glad nobody got hurt.

[justanotherpyro]

3/4 of a pound of flash and safety section don't seem to mix well . A good example of why metal mortars are still frowned upon versus HDPE.

[cplmac]

I attended a class a few years ago where they did a demonstration of the HDPE mortars ability to stay together after a catastrophic failure. They loaded a 3" salute upside down into a rack and lit it from a safe distance. The rack was destroyed, a couple of mortars in either direction were badly damaged and the detonated mortar was destroyed, but they all basically stayed in one piece. It was an impressive display of both the power of flash powder and the resiliancy of HDPE. On a similar note, a friend of mine was popping up shells for the crowd before our annual show when disaster struck. He had a rack with a 4,5, and 6" mortar in it. He loaded a 5 pound 6" salute in the rack, lit the fuse and walked away. He did not get very far and the rack went up. It is nothing short of a miracle that he was not hurt and four months later when I walk around out there I still find pieces of that fiberglass mortar here and there.HDPE is the ONLY way to go. And if you have a trailer you can most likely find a place to pick some up HDPE stock. This summer we picked up enough HDPE to make 750 3" guns and 185 4" guns. It cost us less than half what it would have if we purchased the guns premade.

[joker5]

i have one in my garage that looks exactly like that. hdpe or paper is the ONLY way to go. on the fourth of july we blew the bottoms out of two steel eight inch mortars, not on purpose, scary as hell though.

[noel]

At the PGI convention this year an 8" 4 foot tall canister shell went of inside of a steel mortar:

 

http://www.pyrogear.net/video/pgi/Thursday/IMG_1342.JPG

 

http://www.pyrogear.net/video/pgi/Thursday/IMG_1344.JPG

[Boomer]

Looks like the remains of the oxygen bottle we filled with the (in)famous weedkiller/sugar mix around 1980. This was the only 'experiment' of that size btw. we ever dared to do. (Sometimes I wonder how some of us survived their teens.)

 

What break was used in that 8" shell? I would expect BP or BP on rice etc to NOT fragment the steel since it's open on one end. Whistle and flash are a different story though....

[Mumbles]

I suspect it wasn't the break that did the mortar in, but the bottom shot. A 10" shell went off in a mortar and destroyed it too. Split down the side. Looks like a banana.

[Wyvern]

Just built the first of the racks to accomodate my mortars

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/wyvernp/rack.jpg

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/wyvernp/rack2.jpg

 

Note the holes so that a pole can be inserted into each side to keep it upright and steady can anyone suggest any other safty featurs to add to it?

[ewest]

Pyrogear.net did some destructive tests and posted their results, it might give you some pointers:

 

Pyrogear HDPE Rack Design

[Wyvern]

Yeah i used that site extensivly when designing it and used most if not all of the recommendations they gave