7 replies to this topic

[lew]

Ive recently got stuck into making shells, and im looking for a general purpose star formula. Let me explain more...

What ive found is that there is nothing worse than spending hours building the perfect shell, and then, when it is fired, the bloody thing either-

dosent burst correctly,
bursts too well (vaporises!),
dosent ignite,
or some other random problem.

Now, you may well say that practice makes perfect, and this is true, but it is kind of frustrating when you spend ages making perfect rolled coloured stars and then they just blow out/disentergrate/dont ignite. And as this is probably the most time consuming part of shell making, I was looking for an easy recipie/method for making general purpose, easy ignition stars.

It needs to be like this so I can mass produce them in thier thousands and load them into shells. Then, when I have the shell dimensions, burst charge, burst pattern, delay etc correct, I can then replace them with more advanced bright coloured, rolled primed stars that I have spent ages making.

Colour is not not important, just ease of making and easy ignition properties. Im guessing somthing probably black powder based.

I have searched the star formula thread, and looked at many formulas, but I haven't found any that fill the above requirements exactly.

Any advice would be appriciated

Edited by lew, 10 July 2006 - 06:37 PM.

[pyromaniac303]

Ive recently got stuck into making shells, and im looking for a general purpose star formula. Let me explain more...

What ive found is that there is nothing worse than spending hours building the perfect shell, and then, when it is fired, the bloody thing either-

dosent burst correctly,
bursts too well (vaporises!),
dosent ignite,
or some other random problem.

Now, you may well say that practice makes perfect, and this is true, but it is kind of frustrating when you spend ages making perfect rolled coloured stars and then they just blow out/disentergrate/dont ignite. And as this is probably the most time consuming part of shell making, I was looking for an easy recipie/method for making general purpose, easy ignition stars.

It needs to be like this so I can mass produce them in thier thousands and load them into shells. Then, when I have the shell dimensions, burst charge, burst pattern, delay etc correct, I can then replace them with more advanced bright coloured, rolled primed stars that I have spent ages making.

Colour is not not important, just ease of making and easy ignition properties. Im guessing somthing probably black powder based.

I have searched the star formula thread, and looked at many formulas, but I haven't found any that fill the above requirements exactly.

Any advice would be appriciated

Why don't you just use chrysanthemum #6 or some other quick and easy charcoal based star? They need no priming, and you can speed them up by reducing charcoal % and increasing the kno3 if you are not after the willow type effect.

Maybe I havent quite got the hang of it yet, but I seem to think cut stars and pumped stars are a lot easier and faster than rolled ones, so it might make it easier while you get your burst/delay/lift sorted.

Hope this helps. (I know its 'cheating' but I like to use effects fuse instead of coloured stars)

[Maineiac]

Two formulas you will get many miles out of are:
Shimizus Ascending Tiger Tail
D1 Glitter

Both are dead simple to make and contain no fancy ingredients. Both light very easily and can take a very hard break. They are also both well suited for experimentation as well. Add some 100 mesh Ti flake to the ATT and you have a whole new star. The D1 calls for -325 mesh spherical AL but by using 50% -325 and the other 50% 200 mesh, you get a very delayed flashing reminiscent of a strobe. The possibilities are endless.

[paul]

Maybe one should add that the good glitter effect of the D1 composition is destroyed when you attempt to roll round stars from it. If the comp. gets more than 8% water in it it turns into a silver streamer with no blinking effect.

[Maineiac]

I deal mostly with pressed stars which never even approach 8%, but yes, you are quite correct. In fact, I was told by the creator of D1 that one should never go above 5%-6%. I have found 4%-5% to be quite sufficient.

[matthew]

hello

i am interested for making coloured stars but i did not know how to primed them.could somebody helps me?

thanks
matthew

[BrightStar]

Hi Matthew, maybe you could let us know what star formula you are trying, or what chems you have, so we can help you with the specifics.

To start off with though, for most stars (not containing chlorates), just set aside 10% of your star comp and mix it with an equal weight of black powder and a little dextrin binder (say 5%) to make a 'step prime' mix. Mist your starts with water from a sprayer and roll them in this mixture. Dry them, mist again and roll the stars in black powder alone to make the outer layer of prime.

This 'step prime' method worked well for me with a wide range of star comps when I was getting started - Lancaster Red, Conkling Blue, Veline Orange, Nitrate White Flash and others.

Charcoal based stars - Tiger Tail, Chrysanthemum 6, D1 glitter are even simpler - just mist them and roll them in black powder.

EDIT: Looking at BigG's post below, he is quite right. Search first, then read everything you can find for at least 4 months!

Edited by BrightStar, 10 September 2006 - 12:50 PM.

[BigG]

hello

i am interested for making coloured stars but i did not know how to primed them.could somebody helps me?

thanks
matthew

Matthew. We are trying to avoid duplicate posts and stick to the topic. Your question has been asked many time before. Please search before posting.