9 replies to this topic

[novacat14]

Hey all, i was just filtering through my pyro links when i found that dan williams page has expired, at least the link i have. I am sure many of you know at least something about his page, or have been to it. I was wondering if anyone knows if there was another link or if the site is gone for good, which is sad. Good pyro pages are few and far between, and i liked the info in dan's. Just thought i would ask the group if they know whats up..

Dan's page is good, but there is no place like home! lol

cheers!

[Mumbles]

http://www.pyrotechn...lliams/top.html

We contacted him and got permission to host it. He is currently completing his master's degree or something. After he finishes up, I think he is going to come and help us and be a guest content editor. In case you haven't noticed from my speaking, I am involved in the site.

[fishy1]

That's good to hear Mumbles, someone else told me they thought he'd been hurt, it's good to know that's not the case.

[Themolehole_9876]

He looks funny.. Great guy though! Knows his stuff aye

[novacat14]

many many thanks, i really liked the page and am glad it is still going

[Steve]

I loved Dan's page, it really got me into pyro tooling. Which I shall forever be grateful for. That first batch of ball milled bp really was something.

I really want to make a clarks giant steel fountain! Has anyone had any experiance with building a replica, or any other giant fountian?

[Valec]

I loved Dan's page, it really got me into pyro tooling. Which I shall forever be grateful for. That first batch of ball milled bp really was something.

I really want to make a clarks giant steel fountain! Has anyone had any experiance with building a replica, or any other giant fountian?

I tried to make a CGSF, which was quite a bit of improvisation as I could not find paper tubes that strong. So I used a tube with less wall thickness, dug a hole at the test site, filled it with concrete and placed the fountain, wrapped in plastic, in the concrete .
The test went quite well for some seconds and the effect reached a height of 10 to 15m. Well, then the nozzle shoot out, and the composition went along, so it was raining chunks of burning Red Gum/Fe/KNO3.

Seems like the nozzle needs to be much stronger (I used a strong bentonite nozzle, rammed with a sledgehammer and an additional wood nozzle which was hold in place by some screws).

[minalth]

It seems a possibility that the nozzle was strong enough but the tube let it down.

Could it have helped if you left the screws sticking out into the concrete to better hold the end plug in place

[alany]

I'd say try to key the nozzle into the case. Try adding some grog to the nozzle mix, and ram it very hard until it expands a little into the case wall and locks itself in.

You could cautiously experiment with cast nozzles, using expanding cement and/or holes drilled into the case, or even dowels/nails/screws into the nozzle mix to lock it in. That does worry me a bit of course, a case failure could be bad and holes in the case are stress inducers. Fortunately it will mostly blow straight up if buried, cratering will absorb most of the energy from a hoop-failure which is the way the case will likely fail if it does. You should probably bury it a few inches below ground level to afford the best protection.

A casing hoop failure inside a concrete block could throw large chunks of concrete, even if buried, so I'd be careful. Tamped sand might be almost as effective, but I've seen large gerb failures split sand buckets, not especially violently and the sand just flys, but it is a sobering experence.

[Valec]

Yes, minalth, I thought about that, too.
Upon examination of the fountain the next morning, it seemed like exactly that happened.
I I'd ever try a CGSF again, I'm going to fix the nozzle in the concrete.
Maybe I'll try to make the nozzle out of concrete, so there is a complete concrete case around the fountain without gaps, all of one piece.

The fountain was placed at the bottom of a hole, so the top of the fountain was about half a meter below the ground level, alany. Concrete pieces flying around are not what I like . Additionaly, I was about a hundred meters away. Nonetheless, until nozzle ejection, the effect was really impressing.