Spoulette

[spitfire]

After some searching on this forum i could not find any topics about spoulettes. I was wondering if many of you make them. Next to that, what type of tubes do you use, what composition and how do you standardize your constructing method to get an accurate delay? Any info would be highly appreciated!

[Mumbles]

I've been using the spolette tubes from hobby horse. They really spoil you for anything else though. http://www.hobbyhorse.com/pyro_tubes.shtml

 

I use meal as my composition. This is really the most critical part. It's best to either purchase commercial meal D, or make up a large batch of homemade powder specifically for spolettes. That way you only have to time and dial them in once. Otherwise you need to redial everything in on every batch, as they do not burn precisely the same no matter how good you think you are at making BP.

 

As far as construction of the devices, it's fairly simple. I use a 5/16" brass rod, and press an increment approximately 1xID tall into the tube. You'll need to play a bit to figure out this size. I made a small scoop to help. This will get you in the ball park of where you want to be for a delay. It will probably be close enough for delay elements on single shells or simple multibreak shells. If you want to get into timed inserts and the like, you'll need to start drilling the powder train back. One presses more BP than needed into the spolette, and using a small bit, you drill it back to the exact desired length you want.

[dagabu]

I've been using the spolette tubes from hobby horse. They really spoil you for anything else though. http://www.hobbyhors...yro_tubes.shtml

 

I use meal as my composition. This is really the most critical part. It's best to either purchase commercial meal D, or make up a large batch of homemade powder specifically for spolettes. That way you only have to time and dial them in once. Otherwise you need to redial everything in on every batch, as they do not burn precisely the same no matter how good you think you are at making BP.

 

As far as construction of the devices, it's fairly simple. I use a 5/16" brass rod, and press an increment approximately 1xID tall into the tube. You'll need to play a bit to figure out this size. I made a small scoop to help. This will get you in the ball park of where you want to be for a delay. It will probably be close enough for delay elements on single shells or simple multibreak shells. If you want to get into timed inserts and the like, you'll need to start drilling the powder train back. One presses more BP than needed into the spolette, and using a small bit, you drill it back to the exact desired length you want.

 

I use several different tubes depending on the use, Mum's NETP are indeed the gold standard but a serviceable tube can be hand rolled from pasted kraft or even water activated kraft tape. I have even used spiral wound 1.4" ID tubes for spolettes in small shells and reports.

 

I use 116 Fuse powder for most of my spolettes since I am only making 5" and smaller cylinder shells so a 1.5" column drilled back to the correct timing works well for me.

 

I like the set I got last year at PGI, it has a stainless steel rod that is notched at 1/4" increments and has a nice large knurled knob on top. There is also a base to hold the end of the spolette. I also press all of mine, I do not trust my hammering.

 

-dag

[bob]

I've made a lot of them but only one that I weighed the black powder but I"ll start doing that more often

I use black poplar poulveron which is milled wetted and put through a screen, I don't use dextrin sins it's for spoulets

if you use a rubber headed malet then make sure you count the number of hits

one thing that is a good idea is to do some thing like this

weigh out a amount of bp like .3 grams and ram it with at least 6 hits then meseur how much volume it made and then if it's say

1/4 inch (not saying that's what it should be) and mark on your rammer every 1/4 inch so then you can ram it the same every time

rolling the tubes is quite easy

bob

Edited June 25, 2012 by bob

[Bcorso85]

I just started making Spolettes. I bought a spolette kit from california pyro and i love it. I really do. I buy my 2 inch tubes, .25 i.d. from rolling thunder pyro supply. I usually take my granulated b.p. and chop it down some carefully and add some -325 mesh titanium sponge powder to it. Usually a quarter inch burns 1 second. But as Mumbles said you will have to dial that in and do some tests on the ground. The drift that comes in spolette kit has 1/4 inch marks so you can keep track of how much you have added, and where your timing is. Using a rubber mallet just requires a few hits. Too many and you will start to crush the tube at it's base. I no longer use time fuse and have started making whistle spoolettes that burn roughly the same time as my b.p. spolettes. It makes a great crowd pleaser as it ascends, and as inserts is a 3 inch shell or larger. Edited June 26, 2012 by Bcorso85

[Mumbles]

When using those spiral tubes I found I had to use a reinforcing sleeve in order to properly use them. I just took one to the store and found a piece of steel pipe that fit well. I used to be able to get away without this, but when I got a new batch of tubes they seemed to split. I got my original batch from a now defunct company ran by a member here. The subsequent batches just were not quite as strong.

 

bob, I'd be careful trying to do stuff by weight. It sounds like you only have a 0.1g resolution scale. For the amount of mass we're talking about in a spolette, the error in the scale is easily 5-10%.

 

If you really intend to ram anything, you may want to look into a deadblow hammer eventually as opposed to a rubber mallet. You'll be able to get away with a rubber mallet for small things like this, but you'll notice a difference in larger things like rockets.

 

Also, for what it's worth, polverone is unmilled granulated BP which is used as a flammable filler in cylindrical shells.

[spitfire]

Mumbles, i used to make them the same way as bob describes except i use different BP. I even made them for Maltese multibreak cylinder shells and never had a problem with the timing. Those multibreaks ask for very consistent spoulettes, as every break should go right after another. Do you suggest that a more accurate scale will make a big difference? I want to perfect and standardize my building process, so all tips are useful for me. In the past i had problems with some spoulettes that wouldn't ignite probably because the surface was too flat and they catched fire difficult. Now i use a rammer with a rough end, like there is some ''grid'' carved in it.

[dagabu]

 

If you really intend to ram anything, you may want to look into a deadblow hammer eventually as opposed to a rubber mallet. You'll be able to get away with a rubber mallet for small things like this, but you'll notice a difference in larger things like rockets.

 

 

 

Now i use a rammer with a rough end, like there is some ''grid'' carved in it.

 

I like rawhide and Delrin faced hammers, they give a nice shock to the powder and seem to consolidate it better but a simple arbor press is easier yet and a whole lot more consistent.

 

Mum, the spiral wound tubes I use do have to be pressed in a support as well but perform very well in timed reports when drilled back for timing.

 

-dag

[bob]

first of my scale is in grains so I have to convert to grams it is accurate to 0.1 grain or 0.006479 grams which is a lot more accurate then most people have (it's for reloading so it's good)

what do you call milled wetted and put through a screen then (I'm on a few other forums and they all call it polveron) but it obviously isn't what you call it do you just call it riced?

I'll look into a new hammer

bob

[bob]

another thing I do is sines I roll my one tubes I make them thick like .25 inch wall and I have a few other tricks to make them a lot stronger so I can ram that thing as hard as I want

I even tryed giving it 20 REALLY good hits once and it did fine

bob

Edited June 26, 2012 by bob

[Mumbles]

A more accurate scale could help, especially if you have commercial tubes. I don't know if I'd trust the variance from homemade tubes. It seems more tedious to do it that way as opposed to just drilling back the core to get it exactly where you want. As far as multibreaks go, the main shell fuses really do not need to be extremely accurate. Using roughly the correct height will generally be good enough, and is easily measured with a graduated rammer. You can easily eyeball it within about 0.1 to 0.2 seconds. If you over do it, twisting a drill the ID of the tube into the powder grain is a good way to remove a little bit.

 

I've seen people with maybe a dozen drill bits the ID of the tube with a wad of tape or wooden dowels at different lengths on them to act as a stopper. They just over fill, and use the appropriate stop to get the length they desire. This seems faster to me, and if I were in commerce, this is probably how I'd do it. One issue I've seen with this is that it controls timing based on the size of the empty cavity in the spolette. Normal back drilling controls the timing based on the actual length of the powder train. I press the NEPT tubes without a sleeve, and they do occasionally crinkle and seem to sometimes shrink a bit. This would make me think that there could be slight variations in the length if you used the stopper method.

 

For me personally, I build shells for my own personal enjoyment and accomplishment. Time and money are not driving factors, not that any of the other methods mentioned would tip the balance anyway. When I decide to make a shell, I want it to function as well as reasonably possible. For me, pressing spolettes and drilling them back gives me the best precision within reasonable means. That said, I only really do this for intricately timed inserts or when things need to go off in cadence. For typical shell fuses when such high precision is not required, I just rely on a graduated rammer. I do take great pains to prime the spolettes as well. There is no use in going through the trouble just for them not to light. I can send you a pictorial someone made on the traditional (and highly thorough) method of priming spolettes if you'd like. It seems very complicated, but it's actually pretty quick, and essentially foolproof.

 

As an aside, drilling back spolettes also allows you to make very short timings. If the train of powder is too short, it can be blown through by a burst or lift. If you really want to have a timing starting at 1/4", you almost have to press to a thicker layer and drill it back.

[Mumbles]

This whole terminology thing of the various processed and unprocessed forms of blackpowder get rather confusing at times. The books such as Hardt, Fulcanelli, typically refer to granulated unmilled BP as polverone or rough powder. Some people have taken to calling granulated milled powder polverone, possibly erroneously. Polverone literally means "large powder" or "coarse powder", and does not literally specify milled or unmilled. I try to stick to what the books say and personally refer to the unmilled version as rough powder or polverone, and the milled version as black powder. Before they're granulated they'd be green meal or scratch mix and meal powder respectively to me. Some people will get picky and differentiate black powder which is riced compared to that which is pressed and corned, but I do not really go there as the two products are more or less interchangeably used in practice.

[bob]

I don't see how a home made tube will change the timing of it

I use home made ones for almost every thing and although I have had some things go wrong I don't think that they had any thing to do with the tubes

besids it's a good way to save some money which is a big thing for me

bob

[spitfire]

Thanks for all your replies guys, definitely some good tips to start working with! I never thought of simply over-fill them and drill back to the desired length

[Mumbles]

bob, what I was trying to say is that combining the variances in a homemade tube with producing spolettes by mass is going to yield relatively inconsistent results.

 

Lets say you are rolling 5/16" spolette tubes, and are using enough mass to get to a 1" column of BP. This will contain around 2.14g of BP. Lets say you're a little sloppy and the inner diameter turns out to be 0.33" instead of 0.3125". That same mass of powder is going to make a column of BP that is only 0.89" long. If it shrinks a little more on one tube than another, lets say you end up with a tube with an ID of 0.30". That same mass of powder is going to be 1.09" long. When additionally taking into account the error introduced by a scale, I wouldn't trust this method.

[bob]

ok now I under stand

but you can be very good when rolling your one tubes if you know what you are doing and take your time you can make some really nice ones one trick is to let it dry on the stick and not to let it dry some and then take the stick out which although it does dry faster when you do this it can get deformed .

I think that you don't get what I'm doing with my spoulettes when I use a weigh scale, I don't just weigh out say 2 grams and then ram that in 6 increments and call it good

what I do is weigh out .333 grams six times and using six pieces of paper put .333 grams on each then take my tube put some tape on the one end and put the bp from one piece of paper into it so that's .333 grams (not that I do put .333 grams that's just a number I'm using for this example) then put my rammer in and ram it until it is in a 1/4 inch thick (again this is just a number for this example) then take the second piece of paper with .333 grams on it and ram it until it is 1/2 inch thick do the same with the second one so know the tube filled with bp is 3/4 of a inch

by doing it this way I have it at a known density like when you make corned black powder (as in when you take meal wet it and press it to 1.7 or 1.75 grams per cc) I think that this would give more consistent results then just ramming a ruff amount of meal until it is 1/4 inch thick

bob

[dagabu]

ok now I under stand

but you can be very good when rolling your one tubes if you know what you are doing and take your time you can make some really nice ones one trick is to let it dry on the stick and not to let it dry some and then take the stick out which although it does dry faster when you do this it can get deformed .

I think that you don't get what I'm doing with my spoulettes when I use a weigh scale, I don't just weigh out say 2 grams and then ram that in 6 increments and call it good

what I do is weigh out .333 grams six times and using six pieces of paper put .333 grams on each then take my tube put some tape on the one end and put the bp from one piece of paper into it so that's .333 grams (not that I do put .333 grams that's just a number I'm using for this example) then put my rammer in and ram it until it is in a 1/4 inch thick (again this is just a number for this example) then take the second piece of paper with .333 grams on it and ram it until it is 1/2 inch thick do the same with the second one so know the tube filled with bp is 3/4 of a inch

by doing it this way I have it at a known density like when you make corned black powder (as in when you take meal wet it and press it to 1.7 or 1.75 grams per cc) I think that this would give more consistent results then just ramming a ruff amount of meal until it is 1/4 inch thick

bob

 

Bob,

 

What I think Mum is saying is that the tube will and does distort when you ram the BP, because of that, the tube swells slightly and causes the increment of .333g to become shorter. There is no way to make an exact copy of each spollette with this method, no matter how careful you are.

 

-dag

[bob]

thanks for the info dag

ok so would using a sleeve make much of a diffrens?

I don't see how the normal methed is any better though is there some thing I'm missing?

sorry about taking so long to get some thing into my head

bob

[dagabu]

thanks for the info dag

ok so would using a sleeve make much of a diffrens?

I don't see how the normal methed is any better though is there some thing I'm missing?

sorry about taking so long to get some thing into my head

bob

 

LOL! Yes, a sleeve will help a little but every drop of the hammer imparts a different amount of compaction to the BP, your first increment will not be the same as the second and so on.

 

Now, for a shell, who cares? It will all work out but how about a timed report shell? That could be a mess with timings off by *1/4 second because of a few light blows.

 

Drilling back is the best way to time spollettes that we have come up with so far.

 

*Extreme case, your mileage may vary...