color changing star problem

[chrisman]

Hi All I recently got into fireworks and I made about 25 aerial shells the size of a tennis ball .All of them had simple stars mostly charcoal stars firefly, glitters,chrysanthemum and few red .The problem I am having is when I tried for a red core it dident work the stars light up nicely but no red color at the end .If I put just the red core stars in a shell they light up with no problems . I tried rolling the final star on the red core in one go ,drying the core and then roll another composition over it drying priming the core and the story goes on. I also mix the red composition with meal powder 50-50% with a nice pinkish-red color but still did not light as a core .When I burn the star on the ground I still don't get the red color and the core is just white ash. I tried diferent size cores but still nothing . Any ideas ??

[dynomike1]

I haven't tried it yet, but i had the same problem with green cores. Try putting a relay between them. I am going to try fencepost when i get some rolled. Maybe tomorrow.

[LTUPyro]

I had this problem also, you just need more skills. IMO your second layer of comp isn't dry enough to pass fire to core, or you need hotter prime. After you rolled a cores, let it fully dry. Then prime your cores, let it dry again. Then roll your next comp on cores, lets say Tigertail. I recommend not to roll more than 5 mm of comp at once. After you rolled Tigertail, let it fully dry again for 3 or more days in shadow. Don't dry any charcoal streamer in direct sun because they are most likely to get Drive-in. Edited August 23, 2013 by LTUPyro

[chrisman]

Thanks for your advice One thing for certain is that I have to get more experience and build up my skills. Since I cant get any chemicals here I have to do everything my self so I am only working with P nitrate, sulphur, different kinds of charcoal, dextrin and aluminium flakes from mesh 10 down to mesh -400. I can do P perchlorate but the effort to make it is too much so I am trying to keep things simple. Instead of having a relay in between the core and the final star composition I will try drying them well and use bp for relay probably with some silicon just to make it a bit hotter I an happy with my homemade aluminium flakes since my firefly and glitter stars work very well . I will let you know how I did when my new double colored stars are dry enough to test them

[chrisman]

ok here are the results so far .Red core stars 4mm in diameter left to dry for 4 days (3 days in drying chamber and 1 day outdoors .Then prime the cores with BP to 5-6 mm diameter and min amount of solvent . Let it dry again for 2 days (note that the solvent for BP prime for half of the stars was 25-75% alcohol-water and for the other have was nitrocellulose-BP) Then I rolled the star composition on the red cores until the diameter of the stars was about 10-11mm .The final star composition was winokur 23 without the magnesium (only aluminium flakes bright) and firefly stars After 2 days of drying outdoors and although not completely dry I test on the ground 4 stars .2 firefly and 2 winokur 23 and finally the red core did light up but it was more red for the cores with nc-bp .I am happy with the results and whats left to do now is dry the stars completely at the final diameter . prime them and test them again with my test gun and finally inside the shell

 

[chrisman]

Today I finally tested some stars with red core with my test gun. The composition over the core was winokur 26, winokur 23-20 modified ,and firefly stars . The winokur 23 and 20 had red core composition mixed with bp and they work nicely with a nice pinkish color at the end .Winokur 26 had red core ,not mixed with bp and it was much nicer with a crackling noise as the core began to burn . Now for the firefly stars the red core dident work so more testing needs to be done Maybe high charcoal stars compositions absorb more moisture and that in turn affects the strondium ? what do you people thing about ?

[chrisman]

]Here is a photo of the unprimed stars cut in half and they where rock hard all the way to the core the black one is firefly and the grey is a winokur

[chrisman]

I finally got to test my stars in aerial shells and the red core worked only with winokur composition . I made a video and although the quality is crap I ll post the link anyway I will try and fix the quality in the next few days and repost  

Today I test some zinc granite stars that where drying for a few days and they work like a dream I will use them as a core and also as zinc stars Edited September 10, 2013 by Mumbles

[chrisman]

the link for youtube doesn't seem to work so here it is again