1569 replies to this topic

[karlfoxman]

Yeah put a bit of whistle in there, its really good stuff to use. I always use it to burst my shells, i am still not sure which is best to coat on the burst and carrier or to put in as a powder? The problem i see with the last option is that the powder will be shocked into the bottom hemi on lift and create an uneven burst. I think i will coat it onto the burst and carrier to stop this problem. I am testing my willow stars tonight in a fan cake and if they are ok i will start on lining my 5 inch with them. Oh i get so excited and feel funny before trying a device!!!!

Edited by karlfoxman, 18 September 2005 - 02:03 PM.

[LadyKate]

As my first 6 incher I'm pretty happy, but there is still some things to take care of to make it perfect.

Awesome! Well done. I like the stars and the effect. Pat yourself on the back.

[italteen3]

Yugen AMAZING! The sound of the lift thump, burst, and then the good timing of the stars made an excellent first 6" shell! Only hope my first 6" to be as good!

[sasman]

Yugen-Biki Fantastic shell ...

How far away was the camera?.Did you Fuse the shell for 2 seconds? or was there a malfunction 2 seconds is a bit low for a 6" shell?..

Also you mention you used H3 4:1 .. I would have thought that amount of H3 in a 6" shell would have created a massive break... How many layers did you paste?

cheers

[Yugen-biki]

italteen3
Thanks! I hope so to.

sasman
Thanks!
I'm not sure how far away I was but I would gess at least 500m.
The 2 seconds were not a misstake. It was my guess on how much I would need. This is how I work. I make a edjucated guess based on my experience + knowlidge, and test it. This time I found that it was to short. Edjucated guess huh?! Yes. I used to have 1,5 seconds on my 4" shell, but thay went WAY up. Reducing lift resulted in a shell starting to fall. But I found that a 6":er travels slower and thus needs more time to get to it?s apex.
I also thought that H3 would be very strong. I can tell you there is nothing wrong with my H3, and I was prepared on a much stronger blast. The results were interesting and I will make a 6" with KP instead in a distant future, to se if this will have a different effect. I pasted 20 layers of craft. That is about 1,2 square meters. I used Shimizu?s formula to calculate the number of layers needed with the paper I'm using. It came out that I needed 24. But I had to stop pasteing because the shell would not have fitted the mortar with 24 layers.

[karlfoxman]

Had a day off work today so made some larger willow stars for the 5 inch shell, i used Shimizu willow formula as follows:

kno3 - 35
sulpur - 12
pine charcoal - 45
dextrin - 8

In the mill i put 70g kno3, 24g sulphur and 45g pine charcoal then added a misting of 70/30 water/alc and milled for 1 hour. Then i added another 45g of pinecharcoal and 16g of dexrin, milled for another 10 mins. The comp was moistened in 50g increments and 15mm pumped stars were made. I ended up with 87 stars after using the comp up. These are now drying and are going to be put into my 5 inch shell. I have a picture of one hemi loaded with the stars here and also the fuse hemi next to the loaded hemi here

As i said i will be putting a inner pistil of blue stars for this shell and also the lift bag will contain small 8mm pumped willow stars for a low level effect. Burst as always will be bp/whistle on corncob.

[Mumbles]

Ok, I need some advice. I have been making shells for about 4 years now, and have become fairly good I would say. My favorite shell of all time is the shell of shells. I want to make one for this new years. I am thinking it will be spherical. I will be using a silver tailed star in my inserts. My friend created the formula, and it is beautiful. (vid: http://www.infernola...ilvershell.AVI) I need three main points of advice. I am contemplating a pistil of charcoal tailed star. Perhaps a few with charcoal spollettes

1 What size of shell do you think I should make it? I am thinking 5"
2 What size of insert do you think I should make? I am thinking 1 1/2"
3 What break is best for the size you suggested. If possible mention break for shell and insert.

Edited by Mumbles, 24 September 2005 - 06:04 AM.

[karlfoxman]

Just got hold of some nice hemispheres from spain, loaded a 4inch one today. Willow with blue pistil. The hemis are really high quality, the top leader support can be removed for filling. This feature is going to be very useful for filling my 5inch saturn shell (red peony with gold brockade ring) beacause i can construct the center peony 3.5" shell and fill the bottom half up, when it comes to filling the other half up i can do it through the open hole!! They come with neat lift charge holders too! Anyway i will be taking more pics of the saturn shell build soon.

4 inch loaded HERE

5 inch unloaded HERE

Karl

Edited by karlfoxman, 12 October 2005 - 05:45 PM.

[Mumbles]

That top filling hole sure is a neat feature. I wish I had it when I was making my saturn shells last summer. It really is a pain when you don't line up the two halves. For some reason on my first saturn shell, I decided not to have a full(read pasted) shell inside. Due to the size this produced a less than preferable result. There were other problems, but the ring was way to far away from the center. I got things figured out though, and produced some nice shells. I'm still not 100% satisfied, but I will be making a few for new years.

While I'm posting here, anyone have any advice about the shell of shells I posted about a few weeks ago?

Edited by Mumbles, 12 October 2005 - 06:43 PM.

[karlfoxman]

I would love to see some of your saturn shells, i think they will be my focus for the next few months. What stars did you use for the peony and for the ring?? Obviously the ring has to leave a tail of some sort. In the ring of my shell i will be able to get 17 15mm pumped stars in.

[italteen3]

Ok, I need some advice. I have been making shells for about 4 years now, and have become fairly good I would say. My favorite shell of all time is the shell of shells. I want to make one for this new years. I am thinking it will be spherical. I will be using a silver tailed star in my inserts. My friend created the formula, and it is beautiful. (vid: http://www.infernola...ilvershell.AVI) I need three main points of advice. I am contemplating a pistil of charcoal tailed star. Perhaps a few with charcoal spollettes

1 What size of shell do you think I should make it? I am thinking 5"
2 What size of insert do you think I should make? I am thinking 1 1/2"
3 What break is best for the size you suggested. If possible mention break for shell and insert.

1 - If you can make a 6" why not go for it and get a couple more inserts in there.
2 - 1 1/2" I believe is the recommended insert size for alot of shells. It is what Passfire uses.
3 - I cant help you there as I have extremely little experience with spherical shells.

Let me see if I read this right. Still a little early for me in NY. You are going to have a charcoal spollette act as the tail for your insert shells?

Just figured I would throw my 2 cents in.

[Mumbles]

Sorry, no videos. I only have one, and it only picked up the ring because it was so much brighter. This also happened to be the first one, which was the worst one by far. I used a fairly bright red star as the planet. I had these white stars laying about so I used them for the ring. It left a small tal, so I felt it would look decent. They were fairly fast burning on the ground. Something happened over the next few days. Whether they absorbed water from the air, or what I don't know. They went from about 1 - 1.5 second burn times to something on the order of 4-5 seconds. They burned all the way to the ground, and then some.

Since then I have been using a different white comp, or a silver comp with red, or blue or green planets, and they look good. I sometimes add a small percentage granular Al or Ti to the white stars to leave a little tail.

I can make a 6" shell, and have 6" plastic hemis on the way actually. The thing is that I don't have a 6" mortar. The only 6" piping I have around is PVC, and I refuse to use it for a mortar. It would be easy to get an HDPE or Fiberglass one, but I already have a 5" one on hand. The size differenence between 5" and 6" is not great. I will test the fit of inserts with the 5" shells, and see if I need to go up to 6". I may make a few differrent types to test. There will definatly be a few sphericals, and at least one canister shell. I know for a fact that 7 1 1/2" cylindrical inserts will fit into a 5" canister.

I bought a small supply of several different sizes of small shells to test as inserts. I have 1", 1 1/2" and 2" spherical coming. I will make some 1 1/2" canister inserts. I may test them as headers on rockets. It would be the best way to test what they would look like up in the air.

For the break, I have decided on black powder granules for the cylinder shells, and probably KP for the spherical shells. I tell you guys what, being at college sucks. I am going through pyrotechnic withdrawl. All this planning is making my mouth water, and my fingers itch to be covered in BP and wheat paste.

[karlfoxman]

Hey guys, well just finished another 5 inch shell yesterday...well nearly, it now requires leader, lift charge, lift cup and labels. It is a multicoulour Kaleidoscope (Amber, Green, Blue and Red) all the stars have been modified to give a slightly pale 'washed out' colour to them. Here are some pics.

Stars inside one hemi with filler

Tissue to stop filler migration

Burst charge

Finished hemi and filler

Arrows for lining up the halfs

7 layers

15 Layers and done

The shell weighs in at 680g, it uses twin time fuses to ensure better chance of ignition. It will be filmed when set loose!!

Karl

[paul]

Very nice pics! Nice to look at them and to see how others build their shells. How much break-charge do you use?

And is the filler CornCobMix?!

Cant wait to see how it worked. And one last question if you don?t mind: Why did you use stars with a "washed out color" ?


With best regards,

paul

Edited by paul, 17 October 2005 - 08:39 AM.

[karlfoxman]

I know it may seem a bit mad, i am sure many have seen the kimbolton rainbow z cake! Well i am trying to copy their pastel colours. This will be the first device i tested them in, so i hope they work ok. I did not weigh the bursting charge, i should think it is in the region of 150g. It is 16hr ball milled bp with benzoate whistle 4:1 bp:whistle and 2:1 burst corncob. The next 5inch will be the saturn shell, i will photo the build and vid the launch. I agree its sometimes nice to take a step back from building and take a picture of the heart of the shell.

Cheers for your comment

EDIT: Yes the filler is corncob mix

Has anyone used fillers in their shells?

Edited by karlfoxman, 17 October 2005 - 02:14 PM.