kpknd Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 I mixed up the blue smoke mix from firefox (no blame on them) and it is very insipid, transparent, weak, like the black cat blue smoke. I was told by a professional color smoke manufacturer that over the years the blue dye beeing used is cheap and no good.
Mumbles Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 There was a batch of "bad" blue smoke going around several years ago, but I thought it was from Skylighter. It's not actually ruined, but the ratio in the pre-mix is off. If you follow their directions as given it's garbage, but if you correct the ratio it works as it should. I'll see if I can dig up the info on this. It might have actually been Firefox.
kpknd Posted February 3, 2014 Author Posted February 3, 2014 (edited) Thanks Mumbles. I also found sawdust and wood shavings in the two color mixes I got, Firefox said it is suposed to be in there, I never heard of that. Edited February 3, 2014 by kpknd
dave321 Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 sounds like it may have been a copper phthalocyanine blue dye, which gives a transparent blue smoke, nowhere near as good as the anthraquinone dyes
Bobosan Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 Mumbles, was it this blog from Skylighter? http://blog.skylighter.com/fireworks/2009/10/how-to-make-a-smoke-bomb.html
FlaMtnBkr Posted February 5, 2014 Posted February 5, 2014 (edited) Probably skylighter and firefox and Cracker on the forums usually has some. Let me know if you want his email. Dye is expensive but Cracker will have the best prices. Edit: it was Skylighter that had the bad smoke mix. It had or called for not enough chlorate and wouldn't light and if it did, wouldn't stay lit. Just needed some additional chlorate and they had a calculator in case the smoke had been mixed according to the (wrong) directions. Edited February 5, 2014 by FlaMtnBkr
Shadowcat1969 Posted February 6, 2014 Posted February 6, 2014 There actually was a long article about the smoke mix kits that skylighter was sending out at the time, and the conclusion was that it wasn't necessarily a proportion issue, but that the chemicals, when they designed the kits, were working fine, but by the time the customers were attempting to use it some particle adhesion was occurring causing it not to burn correctly. According to Harry's findings at the time, re-milling the chlorate and smoke mix separately just before assembling the kit fixed the issue. http://blog.skylighter.com/fireworks/2009/10/how-to-make-a-smoke-bomb.html
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