84 replies to this topic

[seymour]

Ok, I am still waiting for this thread to be moved into the Green Room, because it is one of the most interesting and humourous threads seen in this forum for a while. Firstly, now I think most of us have realised that astonishingly, this is ment as a serious thread. I do not mean this as an insult, but the title and contents of this thread are rather contridictory. Onion skins are not cheaper than charcoal, or other common pyrotechnic fuels, unless you buy charcoal as those little one gram five quid drawing sticks. The few (mili)grams of onion peel you get from each costly sack of onions is never going to be able to compete with bought, and of corse not the price of home made charcoal. As for safety, I do not know a more all round compatable and safe fuel to use than charcoal. Though there may be a small chance that onion peel is safer than it, the mere fact that you do not know what exactly is in it makes it more hazardous in my oppinion, though on a different note, good Black powder lights very easily, but your potentialy coarse onion mix may not light when someone drops a ciggie or lit match accidentaly into the jar. I also think that the idea has been discarded by some is because most of us have no use for 1g of a particular comp, one star or a split second of fountain burning seems a rather poor reward for a few hours work. If you wanted to make some comps in useful quantities you might be able to get onion peel in aceptable quantities at an onion packaging factory? I would think the floor would be thick with skin. I suggest a cofee grinder may have more aceptable results than a mortar and pestle as far as grinding goes.

Ha ha, Good luck!

[myinisjap]

i think the whole idea of finding more available resources to use is great and if you need onion peels get them from a grocery store, i work in a grocery store and we throw boxs of peels away everyday

[pyrotechnist]

Well my friends you don't need to grind onion skin now since onion charcoal wroks wonders burns with a bright light like magnesium its great stuff gota try it with some blue to just see.

Edited by pyrotechnist, 25 January 2006 - 12:30 AM.

[Amleth]

Well my friends you don't need to grind onion skin now since onion charcoal wroks wonders burns with a bright light like magnesium its great stuff gota try it with some blue to just see.

If your onion "charcoal" turns light gray, that's a pretty good sign it has a really high ash content. Meaning, there's not all that much that will actually burn in it, and plenty that would retard burning...

If there's an excess of air in your cooking retort, your "wood" will produce a lot of ash - This is why you have to pack them so full. Given the tiny volume and tremendous thinness of onion skin, I suspect even with a very full retort there's still be a very high proportion of air, relatively , and so even under ideal conditions you'd have a lot of oxygen in there reacting with your fuel. And given the tiny amount of comp in that clip, and the relative difficulty in procuring onion skin, I'm guessing you prepared only a very small amount, and so had a lot of empty space in the tin you cooked it in. If you're just adding light gray ash you might as well just scoop a handful of it from the fireplace...

That bright colour you got in the video looks like sulphur burning to me. I strongly suspect if you made your "grey onion powder" again, and simply left out the burned onion, it'd work just as well, if not better. I'd be surprised if "grey onion charcoal" adds anything more than sparks...

What you need to realise is that rejecting a new idea is not the same as being close-minded, nor is rejecting conventional wisdom being open-minded. Being open-minded is to consider a new idea based on its own merits and how they compare to conventional wisdom or your own beliefs, and then either accept or reject it based on how favourable the comparison is. The point is that you actually consider and evaluate new ideas - Whether you subscribe to them or not thereafter is irrellevant. Being close-minded is to reject something out-of-hand simply because it differs from conventional wisdom, or from your own personal beliefs, with no consideration as to the idea's actual merit. This is what you're doing, I'm afraid, when you assert that your 'discovery' is even in the same class as wood charcoal as a basic fuel, and then cling to that position despite numerous well-reasoned, logical arguments by many others to the contrary. It takes only the briefest consideration to reject the idea of onion skin (charcoal or otherwise) as a "cheap alternative" to charcoal; It involves considerably more expense and effort in preparation, lower performance, no immediately obvious difference in safety (save that stemming from its inferior performance) and would be just as messy as wood charcoal when cooked and milled...

Doesn't sound like much of an option to me...

[Creepin_pyro]

"its great stuff gota try it with some blue to just see."

some blue? What do you mean by that?

[pyrotechnist]

If your onion "charcoal" turns light gray, that's a pretty good sign it has a really high ash content. Meaning, there's not all that much that will actually burn in it, and plenty that would retard burning...

If there's an excess of air in your cooking retort, your "wood" will produce a lot of ash - This is why you have to pack them so full. Given the tiny volume and tremendous thinness of onion skin, I suspect even with a very full retort there's still be a very high proportion of air, relatively , and so even under ideal conditions you'd have a lot of oxygen in there reacting with your fuel. And given the tiny amount of comp in that clip, and the relative difficulty in procuring onion skin, I'm guessing you prepared only a very small amount, and so had a lot of empty space in the tin you cooked it in. If you're just adding light gray ash you might as well just scoop a handful of it from the fireplace...

That bright colour you got in the video looks like sulphur burning to me. I strongly suspect if you made your "grey onion powder" again, and simply left out the burned onion, it'd work just as well, if not better. I'd be surprised if "grey onion charcoal" adds anything more than sparks...

What you need to realise is that rejecting a new idea is not the same as being close-minded, nor is rejecting conventional wisdom being open-minded. Being open-minded is to consider a new idea based on its own merits and how they compare to conventional wisdom or your own beliefs, and then either accept or reject it based on how favourable the comparison is. The point is that you actually consider and evaluate new ideas - Whether you subscribe to them or not thereafter is irrellevant. Being close-minded is to reject something out-of-hand simply because it differs from conventional wisdom, or from your own personal beliefs, with no consideration as to the idea's actual merit. This is what you're doing, I'm afraid, when you assert that your 'discovery' is even in the same class as wood charcoal as a basic fuel, and then cling to that position despite numerous well-reasoned, logical arguments by many others to the contrary. It takes only the briefest consideration to reject the idea of onion skin (charcoal or otherwise) as a "cheap alternative" to charcoal; It involves considerably more expense and effort in preparation, lower performance, no immediately obvious difference in safety (save that stemming from its inferior performance) and would be just as messy as wood charcoal when cooked and milled...

Doesn't sound like much of an option to me...

I do agree, i actualy didn't put it into a tin since i only had a small piece of skin left to burn so i just lit it with a lighter and burned it up that way and it works greate but actualy being there it seems alot brighter to be sulphur but it could be i only added an extremely small ammount of sulphur to it so small it wouldn't do much realy and it actualy worked without the sulphure mainly the same . I will try it with a blue colour agent just for fun and see what happens i will post back my results bye for now.

[Amleth]

I do agree, i actualy didn't put it into a tin since i only had a small piece of skin left to burn so i just lit it with a lighter and burned it up that way...

Well, I assumed you'd put it in a tin since you said:
"First you get your dried onion skin and bake it gently in a tin like normal charcoal untill lovely and light grey".

So you just burned it up?!? That's just ash. It's all about as oxidised as it's ever gonna get; you used up pretty much all the fuel potential in it. Why did you say you'd baked it in a tin when you'd just set it on fire? I'm speechless...

and it works greate but actualy being there it seems alot brighter to be sulphur but it could be i only added an extremely small ammount of sulphur to it so small it wouldn't do much realy and it actualy worked without the sulphure mainly the same . I will try it with a blue colour agent just for fun and see what happens i will post back my results bye for now.

Why do I suspect the "blue colouring agent" is blue food colouring...?

[pyrotechnist]

Hahahahahahah no coper based compositions lol. I said burn it in a tin due to that is the correct way to do it but i had to resort to that quick burning due to time.

Edit: this wasn't actualy a replacment for blackpowder but a test so it worked realy well i didn't suspect sparks lol.

Edited by pyrotechnist, 25 January 2006 - 01:33 PM.

[Amleth]

I said burn it in a tin due to that is the correct way to do it but i had to resort to that quick burning due to time.

You do understand that the two give completely different results, right? Time constraints or no, just setting it on fire isn't going to get you the final product you wanted in the first place, so while it might be quicker, it's still pointless.

If you want to experiment with new ideas, at least observe due diligence and don't take a bunch of shortcuts that you don't fully understand the effects of. If you want to be able to actually draw any sort of valid results from your testing you can only change one variable at a time. And worst of all, don't lie about the process you actually followed, 'cos then no-one is going to be able to replicate your results even if they did try.

On the other hand, if you just want to play around burning a bunch of stuff you found in the bottom of your mother's pantry, well, that's fine too. As long as you're not hurting anyone and observe sensible precautions, go for your life. However, don't try and present it as any sort of serious, scientific endeavour...

[Creepin_pyro]

So, let me get this straight; you're going to try combining your onion ash creation with a copper salt to make blue fire? I think that's pretty darn pointless, but good luck to you.... you may even uncover the secret to making a Kno3 oxidised blue star! Just think - all these years the experts have been messing around with Chlorates, Perchlorates, exotic copper salts and toxic chlorine donors, while all they really needed was some onion powder : )

What's next on the list of experiments? curry powder flash? banana skin glitter?

[myinisjap]

some1 has a lot of sarcasm

[damocov]

Not sure if this isn't sliding into a slightly off-hue parody of a certain blackadder sketch concerning alchemical discovery -


Blackadder: Percy... it's green.

Lord Percy: That's right, my lord.

Blackadder: Yes, Percy, I don't want to be pedantic or anything, but the colour of gold is gold. That's why it's *called* gold. What you have discovered, if it has a name, is "green".

Lord Percy: Oh, Edmund, can it be true, that I hold here in my mortal hand a nugget of purest green?

[Amleth]

Not sure if this isn't sliding into a slightly off-hue parody of a certain blackadder sketch concerning alchemical discovery -
Blackadder: Percy... it's green.

Lord Percy: That's right, my lord.

Blackadder: Yes, Percy, I don't want to be pedantic or anything, but the colour of gold is gold. That's why it's *called* gold. What you have discovered, if it has a name, is "green".

Lord Percy: Oh, Edmund, can it be true, that I hold here in my mortal hand a nugget of purest green?

Ah, the good old days when Rowan Atkinson was funny...

[pyrotechnist]

Well dude i don't want any sarcasm here this is my testing if you don't like it then don't reply and also maby scientists have done but other people have come up with things they have tried for ages how is this? because humans are all the same if humans have 3 hands and legs then maby you are different but we arn't so we can all break the rules of what we have and expand into the future creating new things finding out new ways just bare with it.

[Amleth]

Well dude i don't want any sarcasm here this is my testing if you don't like it then don't reply and also maby scientists have done but other people have come up with things they have tried for ages how is this? because humans are all the same if humans have 3 hands and legs then maby you are different but we arn't so we can all break the rules of what we have and expand into the future creating new things finding out new ways just bare with it.

Okay, damocov, you get points for being totally spot-on. At which point did you realise you were clairvoyant?

pyrotechnist: See, the thing about discovering new things is that if you don't know what the "old things" are, how will you know if your discovery is actually new? And if you don't understand the old things, how will you know your "new thing" is better? New does not automatically equal better; It's just new. You determine whether it is or not from comparison, and without a frame of reference for that comparison, you can't tell. Understand the conventional wisdom first, then you can go off on your brave new voyage of pioneering discovery boldy seeking out new formulas (and rare and exotic spices) where no man has tread before. For example, you might understand why no one has tread there before. They quite likely had good reason not to...

Otherwise, y'see, you may think you've discovered some wonderful new alchemical process, when in fact all you hold in your hand is a nugget of purest green...