11 replies to this topic

[Mcadamania]

I made my first smoke b**bs today and they worked very well
thing is i used caster sugar instead of cane sugar - does that make a difference cos it looked a little lighter brown than in the tutorials?


[Edited on 27-6-2003 by Richard H]

[Stuart]

Hi
I make smoke b**bs in a number of ways using Sodium Chlorate and Sugar. I dont know if caster sugar is a lighter brown but one idea is that the sugar is burning in the reaction and because you used caster, it was ground fine meaning a larger surface area and more sugar burning in a shorter period of time. Duno if it is correct but could be right, have to see what one of the other members say

Stuart

[Mcadamania]

You say you used potassium chlorate?
I thought it was Potassium nitrate that you were to use? I bought cane sugar today anyway so ill give that a try

[Steve]

The finer ground sugar would burn better as it has better contact and mixing with the nitrate. To get best resutls add some hot water to the mix so the ions can dissolve and mix up, don't make a solution cos they will seperate out on evaporation as the solubilites are diffenet. Lots of sugars have diffferent properties and a corse ground hight quaility could outburn a fine ground low quality. The thing to do is to experiment lots with different fuels. Do you have a pestle and motar? - very handy device. If you are mixing KNO3 and sugar its okay to grind the two together as they are a low sensitivity mix, however that would not be recocmended with a chlorate, especially not sodium. In fact its a bad idea to grind sodium chlorate with anything at all.

[Mcadamania]

So while i am heating the potassium nitrate and sugar, i should add hot water?
How much roughly for a 50grams batch?

Incase you thought i am just mixing them and lighting the powder, im not, im heating them in a beaker on low heat until it turns into a brownish paste - should i still add water to that?

[Edited on 27-6-2003 by Mcadamania]

[Steve]

Heating?,is this a melt together thing? I though this was just a grind components and mix thing. Why are you heating?

Nobody expects a spanish inquisition:D

[maca134]

Well, firstly, caster sugar is a fine suger (not as fine as icing sugar)

Yes, to make a smoke charge, u can place KNO3 and Sugar together and heat VERY SLOWLY, but i found that it doesnt work as well as using powder mixture.

I placed about 500g of [2:6 (KNO3:sugar) by weight]
into a plastic container and then some match heads on the top to set the mixture off. it worked gr8. This was my 4th of 5th version of a smoke charge.

My first was same mixture wrapped up in 3 or 4 layers of toliet paper, it was by far the easiest to light and worked like a charm.

Thats all for now

-MaCCa

[Edited on 27-6-2003 by Richard H]

[Mcadamania]

Im just up from the kitchen with a 100g smoke charge, it turned out a lot darker this time with the cane sugar ! i got some fuses off my fireworks i found under the bed

Yeh, on all the tutorials i have looked at, it says heat the mixture because it will give a muh greater effect

[Pyromaster2003]

yes, i found that by melting the smoke comp it gives off more smoke and feel more profecianol some how, also you can put in a tube and smear some chlorate black powder paste on top of the solid brown paste when dry. be careful with the chlorate bp though, i made 2 and stupidly left them to dry in my house, under a lamp:rolleyes:felt very stupid as i sat at my computer and all of a sudden seen these huge flare things setting fire to my house:o

also DO NOT try and melt suagr and a chlorate! i have tryed this around 5 times, 2 time inside and 3 outside, everytime on a very low heat....guess what happend.....FSHHHHHHHHHHHH and my house was a thick cloud of white smoke and i learnt a good lesson:)

[maca134]

Right, yesterday i was trying to make a smoke charge from Sodium Chlorate.
I put NaClO3 + Sugar + Saw Dust and tried it out in different ratios (still havnt got it perfect)

I had some left last nite so i stored it in a container (i though it was air tight but wasnt)

So i made a smoke charge out of the mixture i had left last nite, but i found it had gone damp (only a bit) so i still used it.

Too my amazment it worked better the ever...

I dont know wot happened but it did.

So that

NaClO3 + Sugar + Saw Dust + a little water

worth a shot

[adamw]

It went a little damp because the sodium chlorate is hydroscopic (attracts water). Take the advice others have given on using NaClO3 in smokes - be careful!. Also please note that one chemical cannot be substitued directly for another. If a formula specifies KNO3, thats what you should use.

[Salut151]

Hello,
I would like to do better smoke than the one with Kno3 and sugar. I planned to buy the video: Smoke the how & the why from Mr. Domanico. Does it worth the money ? (25$US) And do the smoke with titanium works great ?
Thanks

Salut151