allrocketspsl Posted January 28, 2012 Posted January 28, 2012 (edited) if theres a thread on this i didnt see it.Just curious on what kind of paper is best for lance work Edited January 28, 2012 by allrocketspsl
Col Posted January 29, 2012 Posted January 29, 2012 I use 2 turns of 40lb virgin kraft on an 8mm former when i hand rolled 300 lance tubes...never again
warthog Posted January 29, 2012 Posted January 29, 2012 I posted a how to "Slideshow" a little bit ago. I used 30# kraft and a 5/16" spindle with a rounded end, Cut the paper into 4"x4" squares and put glue along the bottom and far edge of the square and roll them on the spindle into a tube then slide this down a bit towards the rounded end and push it against a tabletop and roll the end shut. Slide it off the spindle and repeat ad infinitum. I made 300 tubes in a pretty short time using this method and after you get into the swing of it you don't really need to do a lot of watching what you're doing. I watched a few movies and made the tubes at the same time. Next day the tubes were nice and dry and I tested a few of them out with a blue lance formula I had never used before, see "Copal Gum" thread for a video of them in use. They worked great and there was no issue with chimneying or anything else.
allrocketspsl Posted January 29, 2012 Author Posted January 29, 2012 I use 2 turns of 40lb virgin kraft on an 8mm former when i hand rolled 300 lance tubes...never again 300 holy crapola mate thats alot of rolling.lol! Thanks
warthog Posted January 29, 2012 Posted January 29, 2012 Actually, it didn't take me that long to roll my 300 though I realize you aren't speaking to me in your reply. here is a link to the site I found the slideshow that tells how to roll your own lance tubes; WPAG Learning Resources (last link on the page) I would upload my copy but I converted it to Keynote/Mac format and I am not sure if you have a Mac or PC.
warthog Posted January 29, 2012 Posted January 29, 2012 I made a box styled after the article in Selected Pyrotechnic Publications of K.L & B.J. Kosanke Part 3 (1993 & 1994). You can use any container that will hold the tubes upright though. What you do is to figure out what weight of your lance composition will properly fill one tube then multiply that times the number of tube that fit your container. After filling the container with upright tubes, their hungry mouths waiting to be filled with the lance mixture, you dump some of this onto the tops of the empty tube and spread it around. You keep doing this until you have used all of the mixture and now have a nice even layer of comp both in the tubes and covering them and now you begin bumping the container gently against the floor until all of the comp is taken into the tubes. Move the comp around as needed as the tubes fill. Once they have been filled and you have that last mm or so left atop the tubes you then spread the red gum based prime evenly over he filled tubes and give them another bump or two them moisten them with denatured alcohol to activate the red gum. Let the red gum set up ad remove the lances and as you do so dip them into a slurry of NCL & meal-D and allow this to dry in an upright position, I just drilled a bunch of lance sized holes in a piece or two of scrap wood to use as a drying rack. Once the final prime is set up, start lancing the et piece and then fusing it and you're finished! Filling and priming this way makes it go pretty quickly, especially if you have or make a number of the filling containers. I had all 300 lances filled and primed in less than an hour and once the last of them were dry I was ready for them on the set piece as I had been placing the first ones done already since they had time to set up while I finished the others up. The fusing was a bit of a bitch but it was the first time I used Sticky Match. Now that I know how to handle it I believe it to be something that is worth the money and will make fusing go like the wind. I was also pleased with how well the Sticky Match performed, I wound up with 100% ignition on the entire set piece. I am hoping to make a much more ambitious one for Independence Day this year complete with motion. If in fact I do wind up able to make it, I will video it this time and if I remember I will try to vide some of he building process as well. Anyone who is serious about making set pieces I strongly suggest obtaining a copy of the book I mentioned above. While some of the info in it is pretty obvious, much of it isn't so obvious plus there are a bunch of lance formulae designed to burn at around the same rates as a group which is pretty handy.
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