using delay comps

[Bcorso85]

Tonight I was reading through the Maltese postings and watched the videos. I'm amazed. I'm inspired. And I have to play around. Color changing stars are new to me and I want to start. When rolling my color changing star, should I

A. Roll my lastly color on the star core,

B. Roll on primer

C. Roll on delay composition, modified chrysanthemum 6 for a charcoal tail in the middle of the star.

D. Roll on my first color

E. Roll on outer primer.

 

 

I know I won't get it on the first shot, but I love a good challenge.

Thanks guys,

Ben

[Xtreme Pyro]

Tonight I was reading through the Maltese postings and watched the videos. I'm amazed. I'm inspired. And I have to play around. Color changing stars are new to me and I want to start. When rolling my color changing star, should I

A. Roll my lastly color on the star core,

B. Roll on primer

C. Roll on delay composition, modified chrysanthemum 6 for a charcoal tail in the middle of the star.

D. Roll on my first color

E. Roll on outer primer.

 

 

I know I won't get it on the first shot, but I love a good challenge.

Thanks guys,

Ben

 

A - Yes, the last color you want your star to be is the first color you roll onto the core.

B - Do you mean dark relay? If so, yes it will give the star a smoother transitional to the next color.

C - Totally up to you.

D - Yes, the last color you roll onto the core will be your first color, as I stated above.

E - ALWAYS roll an outer primer, especially with colored stars. Double step priming is preferred, use a fencepost type prime.

 

Here is the prime I use, i've never had stars blow blind when using this formula.

 

Hot Igniter Star Prime:

Potassium perchlorate: 71%

charcoal (airfloat): 14%

red gum: 9%

mgal: 6%

Credit: Skylighter

 

On top of that I recommend rolling a BP prime with ~5% mgal added.

 

Color changing stars are fun to make, but take some practice. Good luck!

Edited May 23, 2012 by Xtreme Pyro

[Mumbles]

That sounds about right. Most delay compositions are not necessarily meant to make a tail. You want them to be as low light as possible. Some of the premium ball shells almost seem to have the colors blink on and off. Good luck. I look forward to seeing what you can put together.

 

Those ghost shells are quite a feat to do. Even some of the best ball shell builders I know can only pull off at best passable versions.

[fredhappy]

Hi Ben,

 

The problem with chrysanthemum 6 is that it burns really fast. When you look at this upload of mine : http://www.amateurpy...olour-changing/

 

you can see that in the third 4"shell I (inadvertently) use chrysanthemum 8 as a kind of delay. It does produce a somewhat of dark transition, but the downside is you have to roll on quite a thick layer since it burns really fast. This results in larger stars and thus a lower starcount which you can put in your shell , and this then results in a less dense flower.

 

I have experimented with shimizu relay no1, although this works, this gives the same problem with burning rather quickly. So these fast burning relay mixes will only work well in larger calibres (6"and up).

 

I feel the best relay mixes are mixtures with either barium carbonate or antimony trisulfide. Downside is that these two are quite toxic ingredients , and are possible not very well suited to begin with so I'd advice experimenting with other stuff before venturing into this area of relay mixtures

 

It is fun to try and experiment, and it is definitely very nice to see the colours "pop"out with a nice timing.

 

How were you planning on modifying the chrysanthemum 6?

 

fred

Edited May 23, 2012 by fredhappy

[bob]

could he not just use willow #3 it is very slow burning

you should try to get round stars and shells by david bleser it has a lot of info about color changing stars and pastin metheds and a lot more (I got my'n from afn) sorry I can't help you any more then that as I can only make charcoal stremers

bob

[fredhappy]

could he not just use willow #3 it is very slow burning

you should try to get round stars and shells by david bleser it has a lot of info about color changing stars and pastin metheds and a lot more (I got my'n from afn) sorry I can't help you any more then that as I can only make charcoal stremers

bob

 

No, I don't think using willow#3 would serve his purpose of creating a dark relay. Willow has a long lingering charcoal tail, so using it would give him an unwanted lingering charcoal tail instead of a dark relay. A dark relay burns dimly in such a way that it is hard to observe from the ground. That is something different then a slow burning charcoal star in my opinion.

Edited May 23, 2012 by fredhappy

[Bcorso85]

Thanks everyone. The shells I'm looking to replicate were posted by dag on the second page of the Maltese posting. They have this vacuum like illusion. Im still a newbie but if I were to guess its like they're are multiple delay comps with a charcoal in the middle; and the three dimensions of the shell is helping create the illusion as the stars appear to suck back in and then out. ( sorry for the run on sentience). If my guess is off please correct me. I know however , there is little info on Maltese shells.

As a matter of fact round stars and shells came in there yesterday! ( a lot smaller then I thought it would be).

The modified chrysanthemum comp was here on this forum, but I've lost it for now. The oxidizer and fuel were almost identical in weight.

[Mumbles]

I've played around a little bit with using Glusatz as a delay composition. It works fine, but it's easy to over do it as is. The composition burns at about 30sec per inch, so even a thin layer can have a rather substantial delay. If you mill it, the burn rate drops to around 14 sec per inch according to Danny Creagan.

 

Barium nitrate 75.5

Charcoal (AF) 10

Sulfur 10

Meal 3

Cab-O-Sil 1

CMC 0.5

Dist. water +6 (dissolve CMC first then add remaining ingredients)

 

http://www.creagan.net/fireworks/glusatz.html

 

 

When I did it, I dropped the CMC (didn't have any) and bound it with 5 parts Dextrin. This didn't really do anything to the burn rate, and makes it easier to roll onto things. At the time I was trying to find a good slow prime for microstars in gerbs and comets so that they would light after they exited the fountain/comet. I found this composition had the added advantage of making the stars denser so that they dropped out of the comets better and seemed to be more efficiently shot from fountains.

 

The formula as is, is a decent prime. It lit organic and low metal colored stars just fine, but then again they were traveling fairly slow. I never got a chance to try it in practice on real stars, but adding more meal made the formula burn faster. I lost my notes on what proportions burned at what rates. This was only done in spolettes. I figured something with a burn rate around 8-10 seconds per inch would be about right for a dark relay. I don't know how non-sparking it would be at that point though. You could maybe also sub in perchlorate for the barium nitrate to speed things up.

[bob]

what if he used a black powder charcoal insted of a spark charcoal that way it would not have a spark trail it would burn faster but you should be able to up the charcoal to fix this

IMO of coares

bob

[dagabu]

what if he used a black powder charcoal insted of a spark charcoal that way it would not have a spark trail it would burn faster but you should be able to up the charcoal to fix this

IMO of coares

bob

 

Bob,

 

White pine charcoal is one of the best charcoals for making BP and it is also a great spark maker. A more sparky charcoal does not make it slower nor do less sparks make it faster.

 

-dag

[fredhappy]

what if he used a black powder charcoal insted of a spark charcoal that way it would not have a spark trail it would burn faster but you should be able to up the charcoal to fix this

IMO of coares

bob

 

I'd say try it out yourself, film it, and post the clip here. It's always interesting to see these experiments with a clip.

[bob]

what I meant dag is if he used a black powder charcoal and not a spark or both like it is the case with white pine

like if he used poplar which is great for black powder but is not for sparks

but would not using a charcoal like poplar that is fast in black powder make it (willow stars) faster then if you used a slower spark charcoal like spruce

I'll try to do a test

but like I said this is IMO

bob

[fredhappy]

what I meant dag is if he used a black powder charcoal and not a spark or both like it is the case with white pine

like if he used poplar which is great for black powder but is not for sparks

but would not using a charcoal like poplar that is fast in black powder make it (willow stars) faster then if you used a slower spark charcoal like spruce

I'll try to do a test

but like I said this is IMO

bob

 

Ok, I look forward to that test. I did not want to sound negative or belittle you, just try and encourage you to just try it out and see for yourself...and please don't forget to film it.

 

best

 

fred