bigj43454 Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 Okay first off my chems that i have to work with are potassium nitrate, aluminum powder (1650 mesh), sulfur. I have all my Chems to almost airfloat quality. I have been using a 5,3,2 ratio and has not been working it takes a while to ignite and is barely effective. Can someone please help me with the best al, kno3 mix and hopefully a scalable one? I will be grateful, thank you in advance.
Zumber Posted January 20, 2013 Posted January 20, 2013 try out these.KNO3-70aluminium,dark flake-30.Or just a mixture of 50/50 KNO3/flake aluminium.All safety precautions for flash powder are applied.
Mumbles Posted January 20, 2013 Posted January 20, 2013 The way you list the aluminum powder, it sounds spherical. Once you get finer than 300 mesh or so, most people switch to microns. Trying to use a theoretical mesh size is just a marketing technique used primarily by people on ebay to make their product seem ultra-fine when in reality it's really not all that special. Spherical aluminum is well known to be very hard to initiate with even potassium perchlorate. Using nitrate will just make this even worse. You may notice that the last poster specified dark flake, which you almost certainly don't have. There is a lot of other things to do in pyro. If someone can't make something as simple as flash powder work, it's a pretty good sign that you should not be messing with it. It's the easiest thing to make, but also one of the most dangerous, and the thing that brings the biggest black eye to our hobby.
bigj43454 Posted January 22, 2013 Author Posted January 22, 2013 I will agree that it is one of the most dangerous and the one that alas puts a black mark on our hobby. So Grandmaster, i understand what your saying and I am an amatuer that's true. But you saying that, as it was said. Isn't that the exact opposite of what this forum is made for? FYI: I have made flash powder before, I must say its scary how something can be that easy to make but at the same time even more dangerous. I'm here to learn new things and to lend a hand.
laserkoi Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 (edited) if you go get some BBQ lump wood charcoal from your local hardware store ,you would be able to make some nice saxons, /fountains , with the chemicals you have . Edited January 23, 2013 by laserkoi
Seymour Posted January 24, 2013 Posted January 24, 2013 (edited) Mumbles, along with the bulk of the members here is an amateur too. That's not to say that you cannot be amateur and expert. Pretty much, it's standard practice here to advise people only to make the more dangerous mixes once they have covered all the basics and then some. Things like surface area of Aluminium is considered to be in the basics area. Your Aluminium is fine enough to have microscopic particles, but that applies to all flash capable Aluminium as well as the bulk of Aluminium that is not suitable too. Put it this way, the finest Aluminium we use for flash is flakes that are thinner than the wavelength of red light. The fact that it 'looks fine' and is a finer mesh than most other pyro materials does not mean that it is of a surface area comparable to the traditionally used flash Aluminiums. Isn't that the exact opposite of what this forum is made for? The forum is here for you to ask questions definitely and we appreciate you asking. You are just getting the appropriate answer. We're not going to tell you to get lost or anything like that. However ideally you would have read enough before you made flash to know the answer to your question (which really is a very beginner level question, and one that gets repeated on this forum very frequently). Edited January 25, 2013 by Seymour
Bcorso85 Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 I too have had problems with slow flash. Maybe it was my aluminum, and I grabbed the wrong kind by mistake. My nitrate flash always came out like very weak b.p. with titanium in it. Both on its own and coated rice hulls. The coated rice hulls were even weaker coated then on their own. I'm guessing the two compositions kind of married together in that case.
WonderBoy Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 I have never had an issue with slow flash, although it does need more confinement than other compositions. Though I think, as has already been said, the initial poster's Al is most likely the issue. This is a 3" color to report; the bottom shot was made using a traditional hand rolled core, and filled with 2:1:1 slow flash using bright flake Al. WB
psyco_1322 Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 You are not supposed to coat the slow flash onto rice hulls in the wet fashion you do with bp. Slow flash is not fast, it doesn't go "poof" like KP flash. It merely flares up and burns away like a really fast burning comp, about like bp. If you wet it and bind it, all you will have it a silver star. Add it dry and powdered to your break, it might take a good helping to work well. If you confine it well, and use a larger quantity, it can be decent for noise making, like WB's bottom shot.
Bcorso85 Posted February 5, 2013 Posted February 5, 2013 Thanks. I did not test it when confined. That may also be the problem with my H3. I don't want to get off topic,but wil the unconfined ignition of H3 look very weak as well?
mathiasxx94 Posted February 5, 2013 Posted February 5, 2013 H3 should burn quite rapidly although not confined, KP on the other hand does burn two times as slow as BP in open air and does need strong confinement to work properly.
mracerboy Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 Hello ...! new to the forum..I have a question..and I am also new in this hobby so please forgive my ignorance.. Question is is there a safe mix with ammonium nitrate, aluminium , and potassium perchlorate that will give a good loud report..?? I have used the two without the perchlorate... was not very good.. but did work. lots of left over too.
LTUPyro Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 Hello ...! new to the forum..I have a question..and I am also new in this hobby so please forgive my ignorance.. Question is is there a safe mix with ammonium nitrate, aluminium , and potassium perchlorate that will give a good loud report..?? I have used the two without the perchlorate... was not very good.. but did work. lots of left over too.Ammonium Nitrate and Aluminium mix is called Ammonal. If you make right ratios it becomes very powerful and can self detonate. Maybe adding Kclo4 will make it more powerful, but it will become more unstable. If you have acces to Kclo4 and Al I recommend to make Flashpowder. Its just simply 70/30 Kclo4/Al mix. Flashpowder is more powerful and more stable than Ammonal.
Mumbles Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 LTUPyro, do you really think it's wise suggesting to inexperienced people to make flash powder? mracerboy. This is generally one of these situations where if you have to ask, you shouldn't really be trying it. These sorts of mixes are not something to play with, and really are not where one should start in the hobby. If all you're interested in is blowing things up or making loud salutes, you may want to go elsewhere. That is not what we're about here. The hobby can be very rewarding when you get into it.
mracerboy Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 I have made flash before at 15 grams aluminum powder and 35 grams perchlorate worked well ..used it on the outside of the al and nitrate mix.. I just wanted 1 mix ..and to be safe while doing it. thought you guys might be able to help..
LTUPyro Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 Mubles, I definetly agree that is not very good to suggest it for inexperienced peoples, but I dont think that your warning will stop him from making Ammonal wich is very unstable and strong explosive, so I just recommend to use little more stable stuff. Hope you understood what I meant.
LTUPyro Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 (edited) I have made flash before at 15 grams aluminum powder and 35 grams perchlorate worked well ..used it on the outside of the al and nitrate mix.. I just wanted 1 mix ..and to be safe while doing it. thought you guys might be able to help..Making flashpowder is not safe, cause even static electricity can set it on fire. If you have acces to Kno3, Sulfur, willow or other good charcoal I recommend to make Blackpowder. Blackpowder is not strong as FP, but its very safe and if you contain it in thick walled tube you can get pertty nice bang. However, before making FP, Blackpowder or any other pyro composition do a lot of reading and learning about it.Be safe! Edited March 5, 2013 by LTUPyro
mracerboy Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 I agree. .was just trying to get a good Tannerite mix for shooting and just want to be safe. .have read a lot on this forum and you folks seem like you really know you stuff... thats why im here. Just want to do it right.
flying fish Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 Mubles, I definetly agree that is not very good to suggest it for inexperienced peoples, but I dont think that your warning will stop him from making Ammonal wich is very unstable and strong explosive, so I just recommend to use little more stable stuff. Hope you understood what I meant. Al/AN is far safer than flash powder as it takes substantial impact (like a rifle bullet) to go boom. All flash needs is a spark...
Mumbles Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 It's going to depend what sort of round you're looking to use of course. We have a couple of threads on impact sensitive targets you might want to take a look at to see if they'd be of any help. http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/1326-binary-impact-sensitive-explosives/ http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/2489-binary-reactive-targets http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/5110-exploding-targets/ The search also gives me this page, though perhaps not directly useful, may have some more info: http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/4703-flash-powder-safety/
mracerboy Posted March 5, 2013 Posted March 5, 2013 Is there a safe amount of potassium perchlorate to add to the other two to make it completely detonate. ?
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