Color Lampare

[flying fish]

I have a hypothetical design for a color lampare shell and wonder if anyone has an opinion... I would try to wet roll a "hard casing" around a 2L pop bottle, which would later be filled with ghost mine fuel. From there it would be built like a normal lampare but may use whistle instead of flash so that the effect isn't washed out.

 

I've heard stories about color lampares but have yet to see one. Ghost stories!

Edited November 21, 2012 by flying fish

[AirCowPeacock]

Hahaha, ghost stories. I've thought about color lampares. You should do one and post a video so I can see.

[JFeve81]

Sorry I can't help with your post but I just wanted to say that I like your little avatar picture.

[dagabu]

I have a hypothetical design for a color lampare shell and wonder if anyone has an opinion... I would try to wet roll a "hard casing" around a 2L pop bottle, which would later be filled with ghost mine fuel. From there it would be built like a normal lampare but may use whistle instead of flash so that the effect isn't washed out.

 

I've heard stories about color lampares but have yet to see one. Ghost stories!

 

Pure methanol and your coloring agent of choice. It works but every one I have seen was dripping by the time it was fired. Its so hard to get an internal flash bag in one of those and they just don't seem to work with and end burst.

 

-dag

[flying fish]

Thanks Dag,

 

Is the end burst problem specific to methanol lampares?

 

What about a design like this? It requires cylindrical bottles of the right size with matching diameter lids, which aren't exactly a grocery store item but could probably be sourced from a lab supply place.

 

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b330/WhyAreAllUserNamesTaken/lamparedesign.jpg

[gregkdc1]

I was thinking of different types of lampare shells today and was wondering if anyone has ever tried using silicone oil? I know it is pretty hard to ignite but when it burns it has a bright white flame with a thick white smoke. It looks a lot like a liquid burning metal versus a typical fuel. Anyway I figured maybe if it is too hard to ignite you could add another more volatile fuel like alcohol or gasoline, what ever it mixes with. I know some break fluids are almost pure silicone oil, dot 5 I think so it is easy to find. Just a thought

[psyco_1322]

I think that might be something to look into to. If I get around to trying it, I'll make a post about it.

[fredjr]

I have made colored or ghost lampare. I used a 3" plastic ball shell with a barium chlorate green flash. The 3" shell was centered inside an 8" plastic ball shell that was filled with alcohol saturated with copper chloride. The shells were used as headers on 1.5" whistle rockets. These were done at Nelson's fall festival a few years ago. Wrote a article for the BPG newsletter on the construction of the shells.

[schroedinger]

Maybe you should use an different way to construct them.

 

Take your cylinder and fill the canule with you bursting charge, from bottom to top.

I would try to use a flash in the color you whole lampare should be, or dark flash.

The colored one`s would give you a stronger color. The dark one won`t wash out the color or disturb it (probably most needed at blue one`s). Most whistles burn with a yellow flame, that could mess up many colors.

 

Now i would take the methanol and seal it inside of hdpe bags (like the ones used for vacuum sealing foods). Make the bags as high as the shell is on the inside, thick that they fit between the canule and the outer wall and wide that u will need around 6 packs for a 3" shell.

 

Now put the bags around the canule and finish of the shell like normal.

Also i think it would be best to top fuse the shell and put a couple wall paper disks under the shell, so that you don`t rupture the bags during lift.

 

The main problem would be to seal the bags proper, for this you would need a sealing machine witch makes a double or very broad seam. Maybe using a knot to seal them of would be ok to.

 

For the first tries i would recommend using boric acid and methanol.

[Wiley]

I'm interested in fredjr's method, since I asked a question regarding that method of construction a while back. I'd like to see how that method holds up if shot from a mortar, since the liquid does nothing to support the outer shell casing. It'd probably require lots of pasting. fredjr, how did you fill the shells? Did you drill a hole through the casing where the leader hook is supposed to go, fill with fuel, and then use PVC cement or something similar to glue a caplug over it?

 

With a setup where you have the break charge actually inside the fuel compartment, it might be interesting to see how some hot BP would break these.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Wiley

[fredjr]

The write up was for a gasoline lampare that was fired from mortar. The ghost ones used same basic construction just no time fuse or lift cup since I fired them as rocket headers. Anyways here's that article http://www.pyrobin.com/files/8%20Lampare.pdf. I have made a lot canister style lampare using 2 plastic bottles (similar to above sketch). But I melt the 2 caps together. Was told somebody copyrighted a double plastic cap specifically for lampare but have never seen them for sale anywhere. I really like having the breaking charge disperse the fuel, defintely makes a bigger fire ball.

Oh and for a quick lampare rocket header I use a 20oz soda bottle and a piece of 3/8 plastic tubing, Melt one end of tubing closed. Drill hole in bottle cap insert tubing (need tight fit) & hot glue. Fill tubing with flash, fill bottle with fuel. Obviously these are not meant to be stored.

[Wiley]

Thanks fredjr, that's almost exactly what I'd envisioned, but I didn't think of centering the salute, since the cylindrical ones are broken from one end of the bottle.

Are the bands of fiberglass tape on the shell applied before the lift cup is added in order to give a bit more strength, or are they just there to hold the lift cup on? The instructions didn't mention that specifically.

 

I had thought of taking the 8" hemi, and drilling the fuse hole out large enough for the 3" salute's fuse "protrusion" to snugly fit through. You could then PVC cement the salute and the 8" hemi together, and on the outside of the 8" hemi, glue on the fuse washer with plently of hot glue as normal. Once assembled, it might be a little more secure to drilll a fill hole that you can cram a capplug into. I'd love to see somebody do this with an unboosted black powder burst charge; after all, it works great in ground-based fireballs. If you'd like to know what I mean by the "fuse protrusion" jut take a look at the attached photo.

 

As for the fuel, I know some folks have made lampares with diesel, and I know diesel is a lot less hard on plastic. It's also a lot harder to disperse and ignite. Maybe a 50:50 mix of diesel, which I know is still easy to light, would attack the plastic a bit less than straight gas. I wouldn't think that methanol (which relates to the topic of this thread, sorry for the tangent) would dissolve the plastic nearly as well as gas. It'd be interesting to see how long one of these can sit without being fired. If it flowerpots, and you're using a BP burst charge, the mortar might even survive.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Wiley

[psyco_1322]

If it flowerpots, it should just turn into a nice ground fireball. I have had some improvised lamps do that. They were made the way fredjr describes his header lamps, but I was shooting them from mortars. Issue ended up being I was using fast visco for the leader and it was damaging the bottle as it burned past, causing it to collapse on lift.

 

I've made some lamp headers were I just place a flash charge on top of the rocket, under the bottle. I had made some headers that used a bottle that was spiral wrapped in vinyl tube filled with flash. It seemed as if that made a good sized fireball for the amount of liquid.

[Wiley]

Psycho, I think I remember you posting pictures somewhere of one of those improvised lampares. If I recall correctly, I think they were just a plastic bottle with a burst charge inside and a lift charge under the bottle. Did using quickmatch leaders allow these to work, or was the bottle just to weak to take the strain?

 

Edit: Found the pics on pyrobin. I don't belive the first one is yours, though. If not, it's interesting to see that someone else was trying the same concept.

Edited December 19, 2013 by Wiley

[Mumbles]

You can use a BP salute or a normal shell in the center the way Fredjr describes, it'd just probably have to be bigger. This is actually a really neat effect giving a lampare pistil with a normal star "outer petal". One of my friends in the WPAG has been making them the same way Fred described for a little while. I believe he was using a 4" shell inside of a 6" shell. He breaks the 4" shell pretty hard (flash based). This might be more to give the illusion that it really is a 6" shell than to just disperse the fuel.

[psyco_1322]

That first pic is not mine. The idea to use the tubing inside was from another guy on Passfire, which I think might be where that pic is from. Me and another guy had come up with our own idea before I had heard of this tube idea. If you scroll down on this page, you will see.

 

http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/102-aerial-shells/page-63

 

That shell in the pic you posted was one that failed, but I don't think it was from a fuse issue like the rest. That shell was actually pasted, but I think it was kinda a tight fit in an overly long gun with plenty of lift under it. I did a whole bunch of test shots with water filled bottles to try and figure out the issue, and that's when I realized that the fast visco was melting holes in the bare bottles. The bottles will most certainly hold up to the lift.

[Wiley]

So, if a bare plastic bottle full of liquid can survive being shot out of a mortar, why are lampares commonly made with a cardboard core? Is it just just to increase the amount of flash (and the appeal to an audience) that the design can hold?

[dan999ification]

They are normally end broken and constructed like that for added assurance and strength.

The extra flash is always a plus .

 

Dan.

[Wiley]

I see. I just never thought that a plastic bottle, especially full of liquid could take that kind of abuse. Did you use 2FA for lift, or something finer?

[psyco_1322]

It would have probably been home made BP, using pine charcoal, around 2Fa.

 

Yeah the effect is not really the same, you don't get that salute boom with just a tube with 10g of flash. Plus the hard tube method is proven reliable.

Edited December 20, 2013 by psyco_1322