MrB Posted April 16, 2014 Posted April 16, 2014 It's been something i've been thinking about for a while. I think i saw it newyears eve last year, and again this year. It's a fairly simple looking shell to start with. White / silver stars, Quite high in the air. And then you see them split, and hear the "pops" shortly after. And then a short while after they split again.The basic idea is pretty simple. Create 4 small crossettes, and create a larger one around them, encasing the smaller ones inside the sections of the larger one. But this seams like quite large a workload, for an effect that looks pretty plain in the end. Anyone know of these, and how they are actually made? Could you get away with creating the whole thing as one unit, with 5 "center" holes created from the one end? Put some flash in to all 5 cavities, seal it, and let it burn in to the cavity from the other end, split, and then split again as it eats in to the cavities in the sections? Got to be fairly large things to give it enough strength to survive the first split...B!
psyco_1322 Posted April 16, 2014 Posted April 16, 2014 Are you sure they are not just a shell with two different timings of crossettes?
MrB Posted April 16, 2014 Author Posted April 16, 2014 Yeah. It's the fragments from the first ones that splits the second time around.B!
boule Posted April 16, 2014 Posted April 16, 2014 (edited) There are at least two ways to create these "double crossette" shells - both are cheating but hey, who cares! First idea is just to create a "shell of shells". Each of the inserts holds 4 simple crossettes and has its own colored delay. The insert will look like the first crossette breaking and release your second-stage crossettes, thereby looking like you really have a double stage crossette. The difficulty is, to scale it down small enough and still have an even break on the inserts.The second way to build these is making them with a quad comet pump. Instead of the solid quad segments, they will be hollow and a crossette in its own right, just with a longer-burning delay. The segments are waxed, except for the face and have a relativly long delay. Form the comet from the 4 segments, give it a little bit of burst in the center and a short time fuse. The four burning segment faces will be the first comet and then come apart with the first break thus you got the first splitting crossette. The second break is from the individual segments and a little bit harder to acieve symmetrically... and the timing on the whole thing is really finnicky. There are certainly other ways to build double crossettes, so please chime in if you know about them. Edited April 16, 2014 by boule
psyco_1322 Posted April 17, 2014 Posted April 17, 2014 The idea of shells of crossettes sounds most likely to be the design. It would be nice if we had a video to see these in action, lot's can be figured from seeing things in action. Also curious to know what size of shell these were, ball or cylinder, as I don't see this as something that could fit into "small" shell. Boule, I'd guess that your quad pump idea is just a theory. The work and design into something like that seems like it would be way more trouble than the effect is worth.
MrB Posted April 17, 2014 Author Posted April 17, 2014 The idea of shells of crossettes sounds most likely to be the design. It would be nice if we had a video to see these in action, lot's can be figured from seeing things in action. Also curious to know what size of shell these were, ball or cylinder, as I don't see this as something that could fit into "small" shell.To be honest, i would to. I've been looking at all the major retailers over here trying to find the product, and the demo video for it, but.... nothing. Sadly there is at least 2 regional importers that buy (very) large quantities directly from chine, without really bothering to do much more then have a few demo-shoots right before newyears eve, and then they go nuts. And neither of them is willing to speak about fireworks out of season. But yeah, a shell, with shells containing 4 crossettes, with attached comets on the shells, should replicate it... I think i can come up with a crossett style pump that makes the effect in one go, as well, much based on the same idea as the quad pump above... It's just that the crossett would start out in the neighborhood of "huge" as a result. (Or, use a very slow burning, high light emitting composition)Well, i asked to see if anyone knew anything about these things. Looks like nobody does. Which is a shame, i wanted to know how it's actually done, and see if it's worth replicating. (And if it's reasonably possible)B!
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