mabuse00 Posted December 13, 2012 Posted December 13, 2012 Hi there. I did a some little experiments with chlorate stars, both organic and metallic ones and came up with the desire to slow down the burnrate a little. I like slow burning stuff very much.Fuel has always been redgum. Shellac is often quoted as superior for colours, and it burns much slower.Since shellac is also not much more expensive then redgum (here in europe) I'd like to get some to expand my means a little. To cut a long story short, can you tell me #The choice is between bright yellow, yellow, orange and ruby red stuff.And then one has the choice between stuff that contains wax and stuff that does not.What is the best for our needs? #It comes in flakes. I would like not to dissolve it in alcohol but rather cool it down to make it brittle and put it in the coffee grinder.Is this recommandable? How do you do you process yours? Is there something else I should regard?
Potassiumchlorate Posted December 13, 2012 Posted December 13, 2012 (edited) Check your inbox. I have never seen metallic chlorate compositions with magnesium, although I have tried some myself. I think Mumbles has said that metallic chlorate compositions are very dangerous without performing better than their perchlorate counterparts, but I'm not sure of performance. I have found out that if you take a perchlorate composition and use chorate instead and invert the ratio resin fuel/parlon (or PVC) you get a very fast burning composition with a flame that seems to be larger. Like Buell Red, for instance: Potassium perchlorate 35Strontium carbonate 25Magnalium -200 mesh 14Parlon 13Red gum 7Dextrin 5 Change it to: Potassium chlorate 35Strontium carbonate 25Magnalium -200 mesh 14Red gum 13Parlon 7Dextrin 5 and you get a much faster burning composition. Edited December 13, 2012 by Potassiumchlorate
mabuse00 Posted December 13, 2012 Author Posted December 13, 2012 I have never seen metallic chlorate compositions with magnesium, although I have tried some myself.I did not say magnesium. I would rather use magnalium. To prevent it beeing attacked by the chlorate I use PVB as the binder. Buell Red goes in the right direction, I had something like the "Rainbow of Rubber Stars" on my mind.The idea behind using chlorate is that I envision to make it myself to avoid buying oxidizers on the internet any more (A specific european problem). Perchlorate is not realistic to do imho, and even if I could do it, I would rather save it for whistle rockets. and you get a much faster burning composition.That is my experience to. Now imagine some shellac instead of redgum in there. Mumbles has said that metallic chlorate compositions are very dangerous without performing better than their perchlorate counterpartsPerforming better is not the issue here, saving perchlorate is. Dery dangerous - How? Auto ignition? Shock?I dont find such stars very sensitive, the metal makes much harder to ignite. The typical chlorate advantage in priming is lost to a great part. Once they are bound they ignite not much better then their perchlorate counterparts.I'm aware of the fact that chlorate and metal combinations are seldom used and I'm very careful.On the other hand I guess most (american-) Pyros have never bothered using chlorate, because they never had trouble getting perchlorate. But Idid not mean metallic stuff only but also organic stars like Chlorate/shellac/carbonate/binder.
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