1569 replies to this topic

[Pyromaster2003]

Will do cheers.

[maxman]

Have been planning on trying bbq charcoal in place of pine for ages i will buy some next time im at the petrol station nice one for letting me know.
Nice shell maxman those gold glitters look well better than the ones iv made...pine/bbq charcoal or willow???

Pyromaster2003 Thanks for the compliment. It was AF willow that I used in the Winokur20 glitter. I just love them

[Pyromaster2003]

Me too iv just started making glitters their cheap and look briliant in a shell..made some 3/4 inch id rockets one with glitter stars will see how it goes tonight, used flash as the burst in the empty space above the tube so they will get blown blind or shattered i think but its just a test so wel see what happens.

[Bonny]

Al long as the comet is primed properly, there's no need for any passfire. The lift gasses will light the comet just fine.

I glued a tiger tail comet onto a 1" cylinder shell this weekend. Comet ignited perfectly from lift gases.(Dry) comet was rolled in meal powder before gluing just in case. Shell had about 2-3mm gap in mortar.

[karlfoxman]

Tested a new shell a few days back, it was a 5"/125mm Timed flash report shell. The first report was a test of darkflash using Potassium chlorate and Antimony, Im pleased with it but may add a fuel to produce more smoke. This will help to hide the tiny amount of light given off. The shell was made using Gamon parts, all the fuses were made with the 10mm fuse I have.

I am also working on a new Maltese shell, this time a 6" Yellow comets w/ Lavender pistil and bearq. The beraq and main case is finished so now just need to make the rest. I am producing a tutorial on the build of it too if anyone is interested. Also being built is a 5" Beraq shell, this will have 3 timed rings of beraq to make sure my timings can make decent rings. Again most of the Beraq cases are made for this and are now drying away. It will hold around 50 Beraq of various sizes and I will take photos of the construction along with a daytime video.

This is the video of the timed report shell -

[pudi.dk]

Nice shell
I think all sorts of prefire photos and tutorials are welcome. I'd like to see it!

[Mumbles]

Might have just been the camera, but those salutes sounded pretty weak. Someone showed me something from the last WPAG shoot where someone did a seminar on flash, Jim Freeman. He shot some salutes at the ends, one was a dark flash salute, and that thing absolutly destroyed. I was very impressed. One of the loudest he shot. Yours seemed no louder than the lift charge.

[karlfoxman]

There was no more than 3g in each insert, I could easily up it to 15g but that would make on very scary shell to build. Dark flash is also nasty stuff, not as bad as chlorate and sulphur but still pretty nasty. If i really wanted to i could easily build that shell and make it sound insane, but this is the UK and bangs this loud are not good. The loudest stuff I ever heard was in Malta, gas tank salutes! And also Valencia with the Macaletta, making bigger bangs is very easy to do. The bangs were fairly loud, I know why the dark flash was quieter but to be honest its more the artistic effect I was after, this was a composition test for some 3 ring dark flash beraq shells, I have some amazing dark flash formula straight from Malta, they are loud and you can see no light from them. But this formula is very secret and I will never make it public, its also rather dangerous.

[cplmac]

Antimony has a way of sensitizing the hell out of flash. I made a test batch of a new flash mix with a catalyst yesterday, and the 1gram salute inserts I made from it were insane. There is definitely flash formulas that are better suited for small inserts and some that are better for full scale salutes. Back on track here with the timing issue, I made a hummer shell the other day and I was going for a three timed effect but it ended up just being a mess of hummers going off in succession. Not sure what happened but the timing was completely lost. Oh, and the shell turned into a mine, I made the shell casing to weak and the bottom blew out on lift so it was really a hummer mine. Wound up being a pretty cool effect though.

4" hummer mine

[KarlosH]

Hallo. I think that you know this site: http://japan-firewor...ggestshell.html

One of biggest shell(48 inch) is this:
http://www.katakai.org/02/091000.wmv
http://hanabin.gotdn...akai_4_001.html

Edited by KarlosH, 16 May 2007 - 10:29 AM.

[karlfoxman]

Here is a shot of the 5" Beraq shell, inside will be 18 for the first ring, 16 for the second and 14 for the last ring. The rings will get louder as the cases are slightly thicker on each one. They need the delay and prime (apart from 2 of the smallest beraq) then I will fill them and set them in the case. The card ring at the bottom is to give them a solid base to stand on.

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Edited by karlfoxman, 16 May 2007 - 09:06 PM.

[Richard H]

cplmac, great hummers! Where these just a fast black powder type composition or something more energetic? What size casings? They remind me of the ones I heard in Valencia

[Pyromaster2003]

Like that dark flash effect karlfoxman a load of them going off would look pretty good!

And that effect with the hummers turned out briliant for a 'failure' nice one.

Let my test rockets off tonight with flash report and glitter stars just got a rocket with a salute finish was worth a try though. Let of another test shell with a 3inch vitiman bottle for a quick test shell with 4 trial stars in that turned out OK so wasnt too pissed off with the other failed rocket! Video is on the 'rocket with headers' thread if anyones interested and hasnt already seen it..

[paul]

Nice effect there, cplmac, nice shots of your shell, karlfoxman! Looking forward to a good movie with the focus
on the shell

Edited by paul, 16 May 2007 - 10:13 PM.

[cplmac]

The hummers were 50/50 BP meal and whistle with 8% Ti. I'll have to measure the casings but they were something like 3/8" ID and 1" OD X 1.25" long. They had really thick walls. I can't seem to get any duration out of them. Maybe straight BP with a smaller vent would work. Your pics Karl are exactly how I loaded the hummers, I just cut the visco to three different lengths and primed it for the timing. I faced all the fuses inboard though so they would be in direct contact with the break charge.

Edited by cplmac, 17 May 2007 - 06:33 AM.