dan999ification Posted September 27, 2012 Posted September 27, 2012 can you use a solvent or oil,vaseline to phlegmatise a bp/metal fountain making it safe to ram?Ie, bp/10 percent ti and up to 5 percent oil/vaseline.I know of people who ram bp/ti rocket delay the thought scares me, can you ram a fountain safely?I asked last year and was told by seymor not to ram high percentages of metal especially ti and other sparking metals, i will not question the advice but can it be done safely another way while ramming? Dan.
dagabu Posted September 28, 2012 Posted September 28, 2012 As a rule, ramming metals is not a good idea. That said, I have rammed lots of rockets with a high metal content above the spindle and have even pressed Ti on the spindle (what a mess) but in these cases, I am ready for an ignition and use welding gauntlets plus other PPE. Because of the dangers, I have made a press and only ram 1/2" and smaller rockets with no metals. BTW- Ti is not a high sparking metal nor is Aluminum but they do burn very well in finely divided portons. Ti is a real problem because of friction, not sparks. -dag
dan999ification Posted October 5, 2012 Author Posted October 5, 2012 (edited) thanks dag, how do we feel about star comps with ti ? Maybe veline bound and hand pressed while wet like r candy, wasting my time?Or red gum bp and ti constructed the same way, i wont take chances and cant avoid having to get a press, but there must be some way to make spectacular fountains by hand, i remember a thread where old gerbs were hand pressed but cant find it or the comps, i think it was an english manafacturer.I have hand pressed 1/4 inch id but any bigger and i expect it just burns too fast if it does not blow. Dan. Edited October 5, 2012 by dan999ification
dan999ification Posted October 5, 2012 Author Posted October 5, 2012 found it, john glasswick, cone fountains are an option but tubes would be easier.Ram nozzle ( upside down ) hand press comp in small increments, plug the base with sawdust/pva or paper/pva, fuse , light.Trouble is the comps, bp base will be hard to hand press and burn fast because of density being low, glasswick used to hand press 1.5 inch id with perc comps, anyone got any comps that can be used this way? I suspect veline to be a bit low on thrust for this. Dan.
optimus Posted October 5, 2012 Posted October 5, 2012 For what it's worth, I've hand-pressed many glasswick gerbs (with and without BP-based stages), mostly 1/2" but up to 3/4" with no issues. They are certainly impressive at 3/4" The AP blue steel gerb is another that comes to mind.
dan999ification Posted October 5, 2012 Author Posted October 5, 2012 thanks, the blue steel gerb was posted here a while ago, unfortunately i dont have ap and probably never will, but this is exactly the kind of input i need.I found a couple of hand pressable comps on the green man but cant find much anywhere on construction or any other comps, care to share methods with me? Or even some names of gerb comps so i can search them out, have any video? Thanks again. Dan.
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