Round Star Test

[VikingPyrotechnics]

I recently built myself a new starroller, and I have a few stars

rolled. (Willow comp). But, I get different sizes of stars.

Any tips and tricks how to get all the stars relatively the same size in one go?

Here are the results of my stars :

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc3uI7wdYc4

 

Sorry for the bad focus

 

Greets

VP

[leedrill]

am relatively new to rolling vp but my two cents is adding comp slower really small amounts and sprinkling very slowly. the longer it takes the more they come out uniform in size letting them pick up comp at the same rate and letting them roll to actually grind off excess comp for the others to share in the powdery goodness. over wetting makes it hard to add comp to them evenly ive found cores for me to take about 3 hours to get them to 5mm and only when i get impatient do i have to size them i can get them to 5mm in 20mins if i want but end up with raspberries of different sizes and then spend the next session of rolling trying to bring them back to a nice round star.

ive come to realise if i go up to the container just to roll stars i always rush it and am unhappy with the stars if i find something else to do while im rolling {letting them roll for 5 to 10mins each time i add comp and wet them } i seem to get really good results

 

when i first tried rolling {not long ago at all} i was quite surprised how time consuming it is so now i try to multi task while rolling

 

i found some of the things old mate says from the footage at little big shots really helpful to me just to realise i wasnt getting the stars i wanted because i was trying to control the stars with comp and wetting instead of just letting them do it them selves

 

im not a big fan of display fireworks but he does have some good vids that have helped me along my way

 

p.s. very nice shell pity about about the focus

Edited August 4, 2013 by leedrill

[PyroCube]

I make a small batch of 10mm rolled stars in about half an hour. Not all of my stars are of

the same size. You can solve this problem by simply sorting the stars out which have reached the perfect

size and roll the smaller ones until their big enough. The fastest way to do this is with a screen.

To do things slowly certainly helps to get round and equal sized stars, but 3 hours of rolling for only

5mm stars is just too long in my opinion.

 

Greets

[leedrill]

it is too long for me but i get a few other comps screened cut some tubes weigh out, and load the ball mill ect ect so really am getting them done in half an hour roughly. but most of the time is spent wandering around doing other things and is worth it cause i dont have to focus on rolling, and get other things done and screen size them at the end any way and having them in the roller for so long between adding comp really pays off in making them uniform i usually have like 10 stars that i have to throw back in out of the 100 or so in there and are only .'s of a mm off

[PyroCube]

That sounds good. How big is your star roller and your batches?

I only have a tiny roller, 200g of stars is just about the limit for my roller...

 

Greets

[leedrill]

i manage 600g with room to spare id say 800g would be about my limit

[LambentPyro]

Just be patient and use the correct solvent with small cores. Start off with cheap comps. Go little by little, just throw like about 1-3 grams as your stars roll to about 3/16" diameter and then you can go a little higher, 5 grams, and then at 1/4" or 5/16", you can put about 7-8 grams and you'll get very nice consistency.

 

Also, screen your stars through a 4 mesh screen, you can get a deep fryer collander from a kitchen store and it's stainless still too, only $8 for me.