Blackmatch thread of choice / comments, suggestion

[hst45]

As we all know, blackmatch/quickmatch is an essential element in areal shell leaders and a very basic pyro skill. Over the years that I have been in the hobby I have tried many different types of string as a core for blackmatch. My experience has ranged from butchers twine, hardware store cotton cord, and about every other type of braided/wound/twisted cotton filiament that I happened across. Some work O.K., some are absolute crap. No news here.

 

The best filiament that I have found is a really thin pure-cotton string called carpet warp. It is a rather specific twisted thread that is used, as the name implies, as a thread used in the craft-industry for the manufacture of rugs on home-use looms. It mics out at about 20/1000", soaks-up a slurry of BP very well, and leaves very littly residue upon consumption. It comes in spools that contain what must be about a mile of thread so one spool last forever. I double-up the strands in my quickmatch shell leaders and have been exceptionally pleased with the results. Has anyone else here tried it, and what are your thoughts?

[asilentbob]

I havn't tried that, i havn't put that much effort into finding different string types.

 

Right now im using all cotton yarn, its pretty fluffy. Works ok. I have seen this really fluffy thick rope stuff at some craft stores, its like wool or some kind of fluff that has a few strandes of string holding it into shape by wrapping around it in different directions. I got a meter sample or so. I think it would work well as a slow burning fuse if it was impregnated with a small ammount of potassium nitrate. Or you could mabey use lead nitrate like the super slow rope fuse on cannonfuse.com.

[moonshot]

I use two strands of 1/16 cotton croche twine that I get at the local craft store. It's a fairly light density twine that soaks up a wet BP slurry well. I can't say that I've tried anything else as this seems to burn hot and makes a good general purpose fuse. I followed the United Nuclear tutorial on how to make blackmatch and this turned out good.

[JMA375HH]

Pyromaniac, I agree I go to my local salvation army store they get lots of the crochet 100% cotton yarn. I two have had great success with it as well, I tried two strands wrapped together on one spool each, total of 3 spools and ended up with nice match. This was just for experimenting but it worked well. If you go to a store that specialize in sewing they charge quite abit per roll but if you shop second hand stores you will pay just nickels per roll. Just a few weeks ago I got a hole box of unused white rolls for 3 dollars.

John

[ropyro]

I used to use hemp twine, but after I got to cotton I realised that hemp is a thing of the past regarding to blackmatch making. I got a roll of cotton string about 0.25 mm thick of which I use 4 strands for a 1.5 mm thick blackmatch; combined with a very fine black powder, this cotton yarn produces what I consider to be the closest that I can get to commercial black match. I did a comparison between two pieces of blackmatch, 15 cm long each, one being home made and one coming from a piece of commercial quickmatch: the burn times were exactly the same, however my fuse had a little more sparks (I thought this might be a problem, so I tested the fuses hanging to avoid sparks jumping lenghts of fuse) and also left more cotton "ambers" burning than the commercial one did. The cotton yarn came from a candlemaker(who also used 4 strings of it for making the candle fuse) who gave the roll, and so I now have a lot of cotton string to use.

[xetap]

I'm sure everyone has their favorite string to use for black match. After trying several, I've used WalMart “Creative World DMC Traditions” 100% Crochet Cotton, Size #10 with much success.

 

One strand has 3 individual strands of single filament cotton twisted together. 400 yards was a couple dollars.

 

When I make up a batch, I will make some single, some I will twist a couple together before drying. These twisted pieces will readily pass fire through small, tight openings that a single piece might not.

[h0lx]

I used to use some knitting yarn from my mum usually, when I made blackmatch, it was not woolen, felt like cotton, burnt like cotton, and was really nice. Try to find something like knitting cotton, it works really well.

[dagabu]

For cross match I use Peaches and Cream 100% cotton yarn from Wall-Mart, 1% CMC, 4% Dex, 75:15:10 BP ballmilled to fine powder.

 

For black match strands its 6- #20 (about 1/4 mm) cotton single ply string pulled singly and wound in ribbons six strands wide and dusted with 7FA when wet.

 

I have two three kilo spools of the single ply cotton string so I could theoretically make about 10 miles of 6 strand match

 

Dhttp://www.pyrobin.com/files/dsc_9922-1.jpg

[Mumbles]

Do the strands stay together well when pulling as a ribbon? I'd imagine using a die/sizing hole to squeeze the strands together would be enough to make a ribbon vs. separate strands.

[dagabu]

I will have to post the pictures but there is plenty of BP binding all of the strings together. I tried several times to pull a ribbon but they always twist and you get single strands crossing over etc. Its a mess!

 

I need about 40 hours shop time, an end mill and I would have a six channel ribbon die, motorized, indexable drying rack and tone of the special match for timed reports.

 

I have a picture of a foot long piece that is tied in a knot, untied and lit in a pipe, worked perfect. My shop is always open, anyone that is in Minneapolis MN can contact me and I can show you the system and let you go home with some sweet match to boot!

 

The secret to good match is the BP, I *boil it until all of the KNO3 is dissolved and cool it in a SST bowl in an ice bed to room temp. The KNO3 cant recrystallize in that short time and the constant stirring makes it very smooth.

 

* Keep the mix met, don't let the sides dry, pull it back into the slurry. Never make it inside. I had a kilo burn off in my old fry pan last summer (bad bp, old pan, it was an experiment) and it created an immense amount of flame and smoke but didnt detonate or hurt the pan. Indoors, the copious ammount of smoke would certainly kill you if you stayed and breathed it.