"Meal Puffs"?

[Pyrophoric]

Just a quick thought. When I made my first TT star around 2006 I had much less patience than I do now and wanted to force dry my stars so I could use them in my first shells sooner. I used what I would almost call a solar oven to attempt this. After a couple hours of what I felt was well below ignition temperature I noticed all my stars puffed up like little loaves of bread. They felt kind of light and burned much quicker than I thought a star should. This inspired a thought 7 years later: Why not make these out of meal powder and use them as break?

Any thoughts?

[NightHawkInLight]

Consistency might be a problem, but give it a try.

[Pyrophoric]

Good point. I will have develop a standardized method to produce them, then a standard way to test them. Perhaps the best way to test their performance would be to use a sample portion of them as lift for a dummy shell to "QA" each batch.

[Oinikis]

i think your solvent evaporated so quickly, and couldn't escape, and made bubbles, like foam, an trought these spaces, flame travels, and ignites it much faster, pretty same like granulated BP does, just instead space between granules, it has spaces inside. i don't think it will be faster than granulated BP. give it a try and let us know anyway! Edited February 13, 2013 by Oinikis

[Pyrophoric]

That's what I thought happened as well. I'm just thinking of the situations where I need some filler. These black powder puffs(hahah) would take up a fair bit of airspace inside a shell and you wouldn't have the mess of having to coat hulls,seeds, or cereal.

[AirCowPeacock]

Coating hulls is really easy, and clean.

[Pyrophoric]

Lmao. Not saying coating hulls is like running PE sx's. Just saying if there's an easier way I'll take it.

[AirCowPeacock]

Coating hulls is going to be way easier that any sort of 'puffed meal' opperation. I think it's an interesting idea, but it's not going to be any easier than coating rice hulls.

[Pyrophoric]

Do you sell rice hulls? Lol. It may work, it may not. It'l be an interesting experiment for me. If nothing else they might have a specialty purpose. If they are a waste of time and powder so be it. Ultimately it's all about keeping the mind busy.

[Pyrophoric]

Do you sell rice hulls? Lol. It may work, it may not. It'l be an interesting experiment for me. If nothing else they might have a specialty purpose. If they are a waste of time and powder so be it. Ultimately it's all about keeping the mind busy.

[Mumbles]

Are you just going to granulate and try to "puff" it from there? Surely cutting BP into little stars is not going to be worth the effort.

 

I've experienced the same issue as you describe, though usually with colored stars. Ones containing magnalium and a basic chemical seemed to be the worst (Imagine that). I cut a few open. They had a void in the center of the star, while the "shell" was pretty much as dense as a normal cut star. They have kind of a weird flight pattern if the star is violent burning enough. Sort of mini go-getters.

[Blackthumb]

When I use tapiocca for cores and get them too wet, as the tapiocca swells, they fracture on drying and give me the same effect...take fire well but are not consistent.

[Pyrophoric]

No, I'm definitaly not going to cut stars out of meal then puff them. It would be more of a large grain screening, then I'll purposely puff them. Making stars would be too much work for the reward.