What got you started in pyro?

[flinters17]

Just trying to get to know people on APC. I know everyone comes from different backgrounds so I'm wondering what got everyone started in pyro. I actually used to be scared shitless of fireworks as a child, but grew to love them as an adult. I'm pursuing a degree in chemical engineering so pyro relates closely to that and I like to get to know the inner workings and chemical reactions taking place. I also like building things with my hands so pyro seems like a good fit.

 

 

How about you guys?

[TYRONEEZEKIEL]

I started college as a Chem E major and quickly dropped it as there was nothing pyro related as far as the course content was concerned, so I switched to mechanical engineering. I got started when I was in 7th grade and I played paintball pretty frequently. I wanted to have smokebombs, but didnt want to pay 5 a pop for em, so I checked the web if there was a way to make em. I found pyroguide, which I dont think is around anymore, and it taught me all about smokebombs then introduced me to pyro. I suppose the rest is history after that.

[dagabu]

I was a rocket kid, ESTES every weekend with my dad and moved to HP in the 1990s, the ATF changed rules on APCP rockets and I got out of them and into pyro so I could still make motors.

[pyroman2498]

I grew up around fireworks , I use to play with my dad's personal fire one systems when he left them on the table , before you ask no we no longer have his fire one systems , they were seized by the FBI when he went to prison for child molestation .When we moved down here my mom bought some fountains from a stand while we were down here and I've had a love for fireworks and how they worked ever since. Anything that blows up had always interested me since I was a small kid and I use to research how all these different explosives were made and worked , by the 5th grade I did a show and tell project on how fireworks were made and brought a small rack I made for the presentation. In 5th grade I made my first 2" shell and fountains, in science my teacher brought out glassware and from that day I fell In love with chemistry , I got started in chemistry by making kno3 for pyro reasons . This is a very short version of how I got started in pyro and chemistry

 

Stay safe and Stay Green

 

~Steven

Edited August 2, 2014 by pyroman2498

[carbonhalo]

When I was in primary school in the late 60s, any kid could walk into the corner store and get fireworks for weeks before several fireworks dates on the calendar. we'd blow up model aircraft and drink bottles with penny and ha'penny bangers, assassinate our toy soldiers with tom thumbs, loose rockets and play with catherine wheels and roman candles.

I can't remember when the lid was put on it, but in high school we had to wait for someone to be going interstate to get fireworks for us. So we started rolling our own, usually just Zn + S.

In university we graduated to more sophisticated recipes, but the use was pretty rare.

It wasn't until I had a tree change and got my own isolated property that I rekindled my old interest in pyro.

[alpinecb]

Rocket club in junior high with Estes rockets, and the good ole days when you were allowed to hurt yourself with cherry bombs and M-80s.

[Bobosan]

Rocket club in junior high with Estes rockets, and the good ole days when you were allowed to hurt yourself with cherry bombs and M-80s.

 

Yup. No rocket club but did have a fun time with Estes along with the legal to buy big boomers; cherries, silver salutes, M80's, 2" Black Cats...list goes on. Melted many plastic army men and tanks at the ammo dump when small baggies of gasoline went up from the firecracker artillery was lobbed into the "war zone" layout. I'm surprised I'm alive today with all my original parts.

 

Things were much different back in the day. My avatar is a first place winner in an eighth grade free form art contest. Do that today and the kid would be suspended from school for life, put on the "no fly" list and labeled a terrorist.

[alpinecb]

You know an old gasoline powered soldering iron (the kind with a tank and handle you pumped up) in the 60s made a great flame thrower. Those army men sure were brave!

[marks265]

beer

booze

bangers

brandy

bic lighter

bon fires

ballistics

black powder muskets

brisance

big bertha

[OblivionFall]

I used to shoot off ESTES model rocket engines all the time with my dad. One day we crunched one up with pliers and poured the innards out. We found that lighting it created a big woooOOOOSH. Since then I had been making little cubes of paper with atomic pictures on it and filling it with the black powder from ESTES model rockets.

 

It wasn't until much later that I learned about compression. I tried putting the black powder in polumnas, hot-dog shaped pieces of tape etc. I didn't think to use anything but a thin piece of paper as a fuse. I was obviously not very intelligent about all of this at a young age.

 

High school rolls around, and I tried taking weak cardboard tubes, putting bottle caps in them and plastering them with rolls and rolls of electrical tape. I ended up using sparklers as fuses which were very unreliable and broke all the time. When these very low grade explosives didn't pop out the hole the sparkler was in due to there being too much tape, they made a fairly loud BANG and filled the entire area with smoke and burning pieces of electrical tape.

 

I was not very popular at the start of high school, and I need a way to make friends. I asked my Dad how to make friends in high school and he said the best thing to do was find something that everyone liked. Of course, being young and stupid I figured that making these explosives and blasting them off with friends was a good way to establish some friendships. It went like this:

 

Social life before manufacturing terrible black powder salutes: N/A

 

Social life after manufacturing terrible black powder salutes: The most popular grade 8 at school

 

Even though it cost roughly $3.50 to make just one of what I called "M-100's", I thought it would be a great idea to start selling these for $5.00 each. I made a whole list of my models, including "M-200's" which held twice as much black powder as "M-100's" etc.

Within a month I had sold at least twenty "M-100s", "M-200s", etc. and made a profit of $5. I was not a smart teenager. It took a good 30 minutes just to make one of my "M-100's"

 

 

After a couple years of learning and collecting the necessary supplies to start making salutes like these for much cheaper, I finally hit the sweet spot two years ago. I ordered tubes, fuse and all the necessary powders to make Kn03 flash powder. Let me tell you, that halloween was the most dangerous and the most explosive halloween of my life. I figured I should have one crazy "kewl bomberz" halloween of my life and that was the one.

 

Jump to the present, and I am now making aerial shells for this halloween, BP ground salutes that are more for the effect than the boom and some FP firecrackers/small ground salutes.

Edited August 10, 2014 by OblivionFall

[PyrotechnicEngineering]

I got interested about 7-8 years ago whilst using pyrotechnics on military training exercises and maneuvers when I wanted to be in the military. I loved the shock and awe of things going bang and having a desired effect and subsequently went on to learn more. Since leaving, I have carried the passion with me into the normal realms of pyrotechnics and now focus my interests in making nice fireworks and effects.

 

I am now a fire protection engineer by trade and some of my jobs involve base chemicals or even protecting firework and explosive manufacturing plants so it seemed like a natural progression for me to keep the knowledge alive and continue with the passion I have for pyrotechnic chemistry.

 

I am now hoping to also get my hand in with a professional firework display company and broaden my professional firework knowledge further.

Edited September 8, 2014 by PyrotechnicEngineering

[makeshiftmaniac]

I'm not a pyro, because I never really use my creations. I have a marker bomb, a jar full of napalm, but I never will use them.

I'm a makeshift "artist"

I make not use.