Some of my 3" shells

[qba200]

Hello guys, I'd like to show you some of my 3" shells, and I hope, some future ones too, I must say i don't want to start 4", simply because cost of shell like that grows dramatically (amount of chemicals consumed), and i inavability of >4" mortars.

Gotta say I'm pretty proud of them, two of them came out perfectly, and the antimony one, due to some changes in burst charge, was, let's say, experimental.

 

Cheers

 

Edited September 29, 2013 by qba200

[qba200]

Dunno why, it won't let me push all of videos in one post.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B27qfdPVpIk

[pyrokid]

I liked the scramble effect on the bow tie shell! What was the silver composition?

[qba200]

I achieved that effect totally randomly, frankly speaking. The cores are Shimizu brilliant cores, they produce that "go getters" effect (It really visible in that C6 shell - same cores). I don't like it in that bow tie shell, as Emerald Green were rolled on Yankiee Flashers cores, which are less energetic, and don't make "floating" effect: shell was half-go-getters, half-nothing.

 

I don't remember the composition, I'm sure it's in PyroGuide.

[Mumbles]

That effect, normally called swimming, is caused by not lighting the cores evenly. Try a hotter prime or thicker layer to get it to stop.

[Seymour]

The bursts on the bowtie and the C6 to silver are rather good. Some improvement on the third as you say, but you're on track. I think you have good reason to feel proud

 

I have to say, although you used C6 well, especially in smaller shells, it's a bit too fast burning for my preferences. By switching to Tigertail or C8 you'll get similar effects, but with a slower burn rate, so weather longer burning, or more smaller stars.

 

What glitter composition was that? While it was a nice enough effect, and the camera may be responsible for part of this, but it was hard to see any actual glittering.

 

Keep up your work

Edited September 30, 2013 by Seymour

[qba200]

I must say I'm not big fan of slow-burning charcoal streamer stars. I love the C6 effect, altho it vanishes pretty quickly, but leaves the most "Dense" trail behind.

 

It was No-antimony white glitter. I made few mistakes while making this stars, firstly, it is said to use 12micron Al sph, while i used 63micron, and they were the worst mix I have ever rolled. Stars were coming out with huge variety of sizes, i had to sieve them all the time to keep at least comparable size. Mix wouldn't stick to stars, It would just form a trail of granulate after the stars. Used way too much water as for the glitter stars, to keep them rolling, spent almost 6x more time to roll them then any previous stars. Still newbie to rolling, gotta learn, I have quite a lot of trouble with rolling C6 stars, they do roll nice, yet they all are in raspberry form. All this mistakes for sure killed whole glitter effect, that's why we see none. They are quite effective anyway.

 

That effect, normally called swimming, is caused by not lighting the cores evenly. Try a hotter prime or thicker layer to get it to stop.

 

Thats the reason, but it would involve additional priming between star composition and core. IMO, simpler idea is just to not use such an energetic star, yankie flasher's are perfect (What's funny, i can't make them to flash rapidly, they would just burn as silver streamer if used as cores. I believe that's because they should be partially ignited, to let the flame burn though composition with it's own speed. This theory is based on simple lighting the stars with lighter. They did flash pretty nice, yet if used as cores, nothing like that happens.

Edited September 30, 2013 by qba200

[Mumbles]

That also works. A lot of the compositions are for "flash cores", which are essentially supposed to operate like a one time strobe. They burn extremely fast. They have their place, but I'm actually more of a fan of slower burning compositions that leave a little bit of a tail. I see them all the time in Japanese shell videos, but don't actually have any compositions. I suspect some of the nice silver star or sliver flitter type compositions would work with some minor modifications.

 

Some of these compositions are fairly difficult to light, so I just sort of assumed you were using some sort of prime. As a hint, using a prime or "dark relay" really help to make the color transition look crisp. They look good already, but it's something to keep in mind for the long run. Something like fence-post prime made with hot charcoal should flash over the surface pretty quick and will light just about anything.

[qba200]

Here comes the same No-antimony white glitter shell, but pasted with addition layer of paper. Break is perfect. Watch from 0:10. It was filmed with different phone, that's why there's a difference in pitch.

 

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