44 replies to this topic

[LadyKate]

I looked around and didn't see this topic - let me know if I messed up and I'll withdraw this.

I've tried lots of star recipes and I've been pretty disappointed with many of them. Some simply won't light - they blow blind nearly all the time. I'm searching for some basic star formulas that are noted for easy ignition, reasonable looks, low cost, easy-to-find chemicals.

As normal, the Chinese have this down pat. They make cheap stars that are colorful and ignite with no problems. I have robbed stars from cheap fireworks and I'm always amazed at how they can get good reds, blues, greens, and yellows in small stars.

I'll include one formula to start things. D1 glitter is easy to make and it lights every time.



Source: Tom Rebenclau/Jack Drews

Composition:
58 Potassium Nitrate (EDIT: this should probably be 53 - see follow-on posts in this thread - specifically the one by Maineiac)
18 Sulfur
11 Charcoal (airfloat)
7 Aluminium (-325 mesh, spherical)
7 Sodium Bicarbonate
4 Dextrin

Edited by LadyKate, 19 July 2005 - 02:40 AM.

[Yugen-biki]

Hello LadyKate!

Stars containing charcoal are generally easier to light. About 2% C helps the ignition, but less have little impact.
Stars that contain any kind of metall are generally harder to light. This does mostly not hold true for twinkle/glitter stars.

The japanese color stars often contain some C. But not allways to help ignition. But to give a caracteristic tail to the star, as a true warimono shell must have.
Good formulas are found in "Pyrotechnics" by A.P.Hardt for purple, blue, red, yellow and green stars.
But all of them contains potassium chlorate, wich is strongly advised to never be used in pyrotechnics due to chemical incompability with many other chemicals.

I would reccommend you to start with some charcoal based stars as twinkle, chrysantemum and similar.
And when you are looking for color stars, look for ones using potassium perchlorate and not patassium chlorate. To help ignition use a prime.
For green stars Ba(NO3)2 is used in combination with the perchlorate.

Good and safe recepies are found in Shimuzu for all colors, some comets and twinkle.

The bottom line is to use a prime. Either using one, or useing two different kinds in layers to help ignition. Prime have been disgussed in this forum before.

A red star is good to begin with. They often conatin C. Plus KClO4, SrCO3 and a binder like red gum and/or dextrin. A BP like prime should be sufficient to give 100% ignition. If it does not, ad about 2-5% fine Al like the one in your D1 glitter to the BP-prime.

Low cost and easy to find chemicals often leads to dangerous compositions.

Edited by Yugen-biki, 23 June 2005 - 09:25 PM.

[LadyKate]

Hello LadyKate!

Low cost and easy to find chemicals often leads to dangerous compositions.

Hi,

Thanks for your general information. While I have read most of it from the other discussions and have also studied the books and references that also explain the color compositions, I was really looking for concrete examples of formulas that users have verified. Using the general descriptions, one can make stars that won't light at all - I certainly have.

I'm not quite sure I follow your implication that a search for low cost and easy to find chemicals is inherently dangerous. I'm looking for the formulas that aren't any more dangerous than the pricey ones. For instance, I can't get Barium Nitrate without paying a Hazmat fee (a common problem). So, formulas that use Barium Carbonate (and that work, are easy to light, have good color, etc) would be an alternative.

LK

Edited by LadyKate, 23 June 2005 - 09:45 PM.

[Yugen-biki]

I'm not quite sure I follow your implication that a search for low cost and easy to find chemicals is inherently dangerous. I'm looking for the formulas that aren't any more dangerous than the pricey ones.

Stars based on potassium perchlorate are harder to light then ones based on potassium chlorate or ammonium perchlorate. But the last two chemicals have chemical incampabilities. It is possible to use them safely, but they can never be as safe as perchlorate.
The problem is that easy to light stars are rare among ones based on potassium perchlorate, and needs a prime.

What kind of stars and prime have you used? Maby I can find a prime for you, or help you to find any problems. What chemcals can you get?

Stars useing barium carbonate mostly contain ammonium perchlorate. And often in combination with barium nitrate. I have done a lot of searching and BaCO3 based green stars are very rare. BaCO3 does not give a good color and Ba(NO3)2 is almost a must for green stars. BaCO3 has a strong chemical bond and needs a lot of heat energy to free the Ba. BaCO3 is there fore used as a "fire retardant" in some twinkle stars.

It is possible to make good color stars that light easy. Chose one color to begin with and we will find a way to get it work. Red is a good...

[LadyKate]

It is possible to make good color stars that light easy. Chose one color to begin with and we will find a way to get it work. Red is a good...?

While I'm not an expert in pyro, I think you might have misinterpreted my posting as being a complete newbie post (or perhaps not - misinterpretations happen both ways! ) However, I'll preface this post by saying that it is true that I'm a newbie to this forum but I have a reasonable beginner's understanding of the area. I've read the books and I have a fair library of reference - and I probably should have said that in the first post (sorry!)

I was looking for a discussion and possible basis for a 'beginning' composition database for everyone. My experience to this point is that it takes a long time to work through some of the chemical concoctions that folks post as being great star mixes.

For red stars, I'll give two examples to help explain where I'm coming from. Bleser #1 is a perchlorate mixture that is relatively easy to light. I prime it with two (or three) layers of Veline's Prime and it works great. Here is a Bleser derived formula:


Color - Red Organic (Bleser KP #1)
Source: David Bleser with comments

Composition:
70 Potassium Perchlorate
15 Strontium Carbonate
10 Red Gum
4 Dextrin
1 Charcoal (airfloat)

Preparation:
Screen together well using a 60 mesh screen.

Dampen with water and cut or pump

This seems to light every time and it is a fairly nice red - good enough to make it to my list of recommendations for easy lighting, good enough looks, ease of finding chemicals, and relative low cost. Note that some of the readers in this forum have a hard time finding Perchlorates so I would be interested in any similar category red that they have found that doesn't use Perchlorates.

Conversely, here is a red star mixture that is very cantankerous and is so difficult to light that I don't recommend it for anyone but the most experienced (I don't recommend it for me!):


Lifted from Skylighter newsletter at: http://www.skylighte...cle.asp?Item=8)

Parlon Red Star

Strontium nitrate 50
Potassium perchlorate 8
Parlon 18
Magnesium/aluminum* 12
Charcoal, airfloat 5
Sulfur 5
Red gum 2

Total (parts by weight) 100

Dextrin +5


I think you would need an airborne gremlin with a blow torch to get 100% ignition out of a load of the above stars!

So, the first example seems to meet my idea of a great beginning star and the second example is one that shouldn't be on the 'easy' list.

So, given the criteria I've mumbled through so far, what is your best red (or green, or blue, or white, or yellow, or strobe, etc) star composition?

That's it!

Edited by LadyKate, 24 June 2005 - 01:32 PM.

[Andrew]

Just a few quick pointers.

Avoid Barium Carbonate, if you can get hold of it use Barium Nitrate. Adding Carbonates as colourants gets results but it does make the comp a little less reactive.

Charcoal/Tiger tail stars and blues are the easiest to light, and blow out less, in my experience, reds are also quite good to start with.

Greens and strobes are particularly difficult to get right, especially if you do not have Barium Nitrate (for the green). Try to avoid these until you master the easier ones.

Try to get hold of Potassium Perchlorate. It really does help, not only to give more reliable stars, but it also opens up 70% of the existing tried and tested star comps, as most of them are based on it.

Hope this helps. We had some very good charcoal, blues and reds last fireworks night, I'll try and dig up the formulae.

[LadyKate]

Just a few quick pointers.

Avoid Barium Carbonate, if you can get hold of it use Barium Nitrate. Adding Carbonates as colourants gets results but it does make the comp a little less reactive.

Hope this helps. We had some very good charcoal, blues and reds last fireworks night, I'll try and dig up the formulae.

Ok.. That's what I was thinking about (the charcoal blues and reds formula). If you can find something like that, I think it would really help.

BTW: I have access to perchlorate and barium nitrate (it just takes money!) but, as stated before, I'm trying to find simple solutions - 'simple' as explained in the previous posts. I've done Barium Nitrate strobes, etc and had good luck. This thread is just about the more modest mixes (as described earlier). I think your input on the charcoal reds and blues would be superb.

[Yugen-biki]

I don't really have any compositions on stars that light easy, that I have tested enough to recommend.

I think that you can replace the perc with chlorate in the red organic star with no problem.

But stay away from stars containing metal of any kind. Parlon may make the stars harder to light. The blue stars in shimuzu are hard to ignite (perchlorate, Cu(II)O, Red gum, PVC, dextrin).
Stars containg C are easier to light.

I am testing out stars this year to use on new year. I have some problems with ignition on some new stars, but I am also testing primes. And Velines is one of them and seems to work very good. Shimizu has one more or less identical that that I plan to use instead.
Start with Velines prime and finish with a prime without metal (BP like). I think that will light most stars.

[LadyKate]

I don't really have any compositions on stars that light easy, that I have tested enough to recommend.
....
Start with Velines prime and finish with a prime without metal (BP like). I think that will light most stars.

The Red Parlon star that I mentioned a few posts back will not ignite with Veline alone. Nor with a layer of 50/50 and pure Veline (and then BP). That's why I wouldn't put it in the 'easy' category. I finally solved the ignition problem by making a loose sandwich in my star plate. I dusted with BP, then with Veline, then 75/25, 50/50, 25/75 and then pure composition. Between each dusting I misted the board with 35% alcohol. After punching them out, I rolled them in Veline and let them dry thoroughly. It was important NOT to press them in-between dustings. They are really quite beautiful stars - it's just that they are so hard to get going.

Another star that I consider in the 'easy' category is a modification to the Bleser Red #1 - removing the strontium carbonate and replacing with sodium bicarbonate (now that's an easy chemical to find!). It makes a nice yellow star. The drawbacks to the Bleser series are that the stars are just a bit pale, shorter lived, and use perchlorate. But they are still functional and, as long as you don't mix them with the more brilliant stars, they look fine.

Edited by LadyKate, 26 June 2005 - 05:03 PM.

[LadyKate]

Ok.. another example. This one is probably cheating a bit (ok .. cheating a lot) but it still works.

Buy a 96 ft roll of green or red Falling Leaves fuse from Skylighter. Cut the fuse in 1 inch pieces, prime one end and stuff in a shell. It looks pretty good (much like a red or green star); the colors are good and it lasts several seconds. You can get over 1000 stars that way for $18.95 plus shipping - that is, if your location allows fuse to be shipped to you. The green is a great alternative to pricey Barium Nitrate stars (pricey because of shipping costs for Barium Nitrate).

[LadyKate]

A final post to this thread (which may soon die due to lack of interest)

If you make a star that won't ignite because of inadequate prime, is there a way to save it or do you just dispose of it? For instance, could adding a sparkler steel or hot aluminum prime on top of a hard-to-light star give the prime enough ooomph to work or would the first prime just stand in the way?

[Yugen-biki]

Prime the primeing... untill it works.

I allways prime a few stars to test, before I prime the whole batch.

[BurlHorse]

While I'm not an expert in pyro, I think you might have misinterpreted my posting as being a complete newbie post (or perhaps not - misinterpretations happen both ways!  )  However, I'll preface this post by saying that it is true that I'm a newbie to this forum but I have a reasonable beginner's understanding of the area. I've read the books and I have a fair library of reference - and I probably should have said that in the first post (sorry!) 

I was looking for a discussion and possible basis for a 'beginning' composition database for everyone. My experience to this point is that it takes a long time to work through some of the chemical concoctions that folks post as being great star mixes. 

For red stars, I'll give  two examples to help explain where I'm coming from. Bleser #1 is a perchlorate mixture that is relatively easy to light. I prime it with two (or three) layers of Veline's Prime and it works great.  Here is a Bleser derived formula:
Color - Red Organic (Bleser KP #1) 
Source: David Bleser with comments

Composition:
70 Potassium Perchlorate
15 Strontium Carbonate
10 Red Gum
4 Dextrin
1 Charcoal (airfloat)

Preparation:
Screen together well using a 60 mesh screen.

Dampen with water and cut or pump

This seems to light every time and it is a fairly nice red - good enough to make it to my list of recommendations for easy lighting, good enough looks, ease of finding chemicals, and relative low cost. Note that some of the readers in this forum have a hard time finding Perchlorates so I would be interested in any similar category red that they have found that doesn't use Perchlorates.

Conversely, here is a red star mixture that is very cantankerous and is so difficult to light that I don't recommend it for anyone but the most experienced (I don't recommend it for me!):
Lifted from Skylighter newsletter at: http://www.skylighte...cle.asp?Item=8)

Parlon Red Star                             

Strontium nitrate                      50
Potassium perchlorate              8
Parlon                                        18
Magnesium/aluminum*          12
Charcoal, airfloat                        5
Sulfur                                          5
Red gum                                      2

Total (parts by weight)        100

Dextrin                                      +5
I think you would need an airborne gremlin with a blow torch to get 100% ignition out of a load of the above stars!

So, the first example seems to meet my idea of a great beginning star and the second example is one that shouldn't be on the 'easy' list.

So, given the criteria I've mumbled through so far,  what is your best red (or green, or blue, or white, or yellow, or strobe, etc) star composition?

That's it!

This Star is a Nice red, listed above from the skylighter newsletter, However, A 2 stage Prime is a Must, 50/50% Comp/Velines Prime, then another layer 100%Velines Prime, You can Even ensure 100% Ignition by Spraying the finished Stars with 5% NC Laquer and Good Hot Willow Meal, If They won't Light After that, You have too Strong a Burst, Probably a Flash Bag. Which blows them blind because the flame front cant catch up with the stars. Just my humble 2 Cents.

Best Regards, Stay Green,

Bear

[LadyKate]

This Star is a Nice red, listed above from the skylighter newsletter, However, A 2 stage Prime is a Must, 50/50% Comp/Velines Prime, then another layer 100%Velines Prime, You can Even ensure 100% Ignition by Spraying the finished Stars with 5% NC Laquer and Good Hot Willow Meal, If They won't Light After that, You have too Strong a Burst, Probably a Flash Bag. Which blows them blind because the flame front cant catch up with the stars. Just my humble 2 Cents.

Best Regards, Stay Green,

Bear

I couldn't get it lit with two stages - I did four when rolling and three when pressing. You are right, it is a very nice red. You can get a similar red that is much easier to light and much easier to prime by making Bleser #1 and then adding +10 PVC. It slows the normally fast Bleser down and it deepens the red. The color is similar to the skylighter formula but a bit easier to manage (and a bit quicker).

I have not tried spraying with NC - I'll definitely give it a go the next time I'm testing things.

[BurlHorse]

I don't really have any compositions on stars that light easy, that I have tested enough to recommend.

I think that you can replace the perc with chlorate in the red organic star with no problem.

But stay away from stars containing metal of any kind. Parlon may make the stars harder to light. The blue stars in shimuzu are hard to ignite (perchlorate, Cu(II)O, Red gum, PVC, dextrin).
Stars containg C are easier to light.

I am testing out stars this year to use on new year. I have some problems with ignition on some new stars, but I am also testing primes. And Velines is one of them and seems to work very good. Shimizu has one more or less identical that that I plan to use instead.
Start with Velines prime and finish with a prime without metal (BP like). I think that will light most stars.

Velines works so well in part to the wood meal adding texture to the star, when you are rolling and inevitably have a bit of comp build up on the rolling bowl, scrape it of and screen it through a kitchen sieve, 10 mesh or so, add these crumbs to your last layer of prime when rolling, it will give a much more ignitable star as it will increase the surface area for the flame to light and stay lit.

Best Regards,

Stay Green,

Bear