15 replies to this topic

[sasman]

Hi i thought i would just tell you about something that happend yesterday .. A few days a go i made 3 shells with Flash covered rice crispies each shell had 4 g, 6g and 8 g of flash , I had made a 20 g batch of 70:30 flash so i had 2g of flash left.. well yesterday i thought the best way to get rid of it was to burn it ..

Not having any blackmatch or Visco i used Newspaper to ignite it ..All i did was fold the Newspaper in half the flash was in the Crease of the Fold ,Now the newspaper was not even folded flat more like a V shape so the Confinement was minimal..

..I lit the corner of the paper and waited for the flash....!!! BANG!!! not a little bang im talking a massive Big BANG!! earinging BANG!! my mate was on the other side of the garage and he felt the shock wave..... I cant belive that such little confinement and only 2 g would create such a loud report.. Very Very scary... I have read about how powerfull flash is but now that i have seen/heard it in action i can see why you should treat it with great caution..

[pritch]

jesus. What mix is this? I am thinking about looking into flash for my rocket payloads.

[pritch]

and those shells are gonna be scary.. Lets hope you dont get no flowerpots

[Rhodri]

Hi Sasman

Sounds like you've discovered the 'power' of flash - quite awesome is it not?

Dare I ask - Dark Al? Any cab-o-sil?

Take care Sasman.....

[italteen3]

Be very careful with it, dangerous stuff. When other chemicals are added to normal 70/30 flash they can make it even more potent. For example adding Titanium to it makes it more powerful I believe the word is. It also lowers the critical mass of Flash. I had a similar incident except I didnt know what the effects of titanium were and I jumped a bit...

Already knowing how powerful flash sounds I tried a test with a 2g flash salute in a shoe just to see how powerful it was. All I can say is be very careful. If you would like to see what happened to the shoe I can send you a vid if you PM me.

[Phoenix]

Perhaps the flash ignited from the bottom of the pile, rather than the first point the flame touched (as would be the case with a hotter burning igniter such as black match), and that resulted in a bit more of a "blast" rather than a "burn through."

I have had a similar "near miss," and I know that it makes you a lot more conscious of what could go wrong, and a lot less likely to do things that you know you shouldn't. Only a very reckless person gets away with something like that, then does it again! Stay green, but don't let it scare you off - your shells totally rock!

[chim-chim]

My respect for flash, like many other people, also came from a bit of a surprise. 2g's must have been scary, I was using maybe .2-.3g of 70/30 left over from doing a few .5g rocket reports. I rolled it quite loosely in about a 3" piece of rice paper expecting a bright burning quick match effect. You guessed it, BANG! Not much more than a firecracker, but a lot more than fuse for sure. I wouldn't have considered two loose wraps of rice paper containment for a weakened housefly, but that flash sure snapped.

Be careful everyone.

[BigG]

Sasman, without wising to offend ? you have done something stupid behind belief. I will warn again ? flash is an extremely dangerous composition, and should not be attempted before you really mastered anything else. With flash, it?s enough to have something go wrong once to never be able to try it again ? it you tried to ignite 20g using the same method, you will not have fingers left.

FLASH explodes without confidment ? it falls under the category of HE, and I would advice to stay completely away from it. Words like AWSOME should not be used to describe the incident. I fail to understand why after the USA accident and what sas just described, members are go eager about it.

Even the largest items in the market do not use more then 6g of flash, and most don't go pass the 0.5g ? so your doing are just not understood to me. 6 inch can be busrt powderfully with BP alone - and even 4 inch does not require flash.

I do appriciate you were honest enough to tell us about it - and hope this will set example to other members.

Edited by BigG, 21 September 2004 - 10:15 AM.

[Loci]

Hmm, igniting 20grams of 70/30 flash witha burning sheet of news paper, is anyone that silly around here? I made a 20gram salute with a 20cm piece of PIC blue as the ignitor, just to be safe! Kinda glad aswell... Yeah, anyway, just be careful, it could kill you ina flash... (pun intended)

Fraser

[robfir]

if i did anything that dangerous id use brown parcel string soaked in petrol to light the fuse, so that i could be meters away before touching matches.

[broadsword]

but that as a fuse would bur about a metre a second! IF you wer to do that use parrafin!

[RegimentalPyro]

but that as a fuse would bur about a metre a second! IF you wer to do that use parrafin!

And what's wrong with blackmatch? Haven't you made any yet?

Really guys - string soaked in petrol/paraffin is very unsubtle and does not constitute part of the true pyrotechnists toolset.

Working on getting fuses right is very worthwhile practice, but you should consider first just what qualities makes a good fuse.

There is of course plenty of info on fuses elsewhere on the forum. Discuss the various fuses there please.

Edited by RegimentalPyro, 04 December 2004 - 06:14 PM.

[lord_dranack]

if i did anything that dangerous id use brown parcel string soaked in petrol to light the fuse, so that i could be meters away before touching matches.

And if you were going to use string with petrol to light the proper fuse from, to give some distance in case the proper fuse flashes or something, it would be much safer to use a few meters of quickmatch - much safer and more reliable- to give the extra distance but the same delay.

[adamw]

Oh god this topic is sounding like it is straight from T O T S E (don't go there!!)

You dont use string soaked in petrol to light any pyro device, especially not flash!


Who votes that we close this topic now?

[italteen3]

Oh god this topic is sounding like it is straight from T O T S E (don't go there!!)

You dont use string soaked in petrol to light any pyro device, especially not flash!
Who votes that we close this topic now?

If you were being serious on the vote I say no, but rather some editing as there is some useful information in here on safety.