12 replies to this topic

[OxCid]

ok, as i sed in my first post i do quite a lot of electronics as such i have bits lying around my house. i just came across some wire sleeving(thin insulating tubing) and the thought occured, what if i fill this with a comp such as BP? the resulting "fuse" would be totaly waterproof and as it has a fairly wide diameter about (3mm ID) i think it would burn quite slowly and reliably. the only down point would be that the tube is plastic and therefore would melt as the fuse burns, posibly causing problems. anyone got any thoughts on the idea?

[adamw]

Suck it and see! Although I predict that the melted plastic may cause problems...
Also, you dont mean heat-shrink sleeving do you? Because it wont work with that.

People have been known to use a straw filled with a delay comp sucessfully, so, depending on the type of tube you are using, you may be successful.

[OxCid]

no its not heats shrink, its just earth insulating sleeve. have u tried heat shrink for it?, i can imagine it would squeese the powder out as it shrank.

another advantage if it did work would be that the fuse created would be incredibly flexible

Edited by OxCid, 11 August 2003 - 08:27 PM.

[OxCid]

OMG, i just tried it and it was brilliant! i filled about 7inches of sleeving with an NaCl+sugar mix (crude. i know but it did the job) i sealed the ends by carefully melting the plastic and then crimping it together. i first cut a 2" piece and lit it, it was quite easy to light as i had just cut it and the powder was exposed. this piece burned for about 30 seconds and left me with a blackened strip of plastic. i then cut another 2" piece and sealed one end. i lit it and droped it into a bowl of water, it continued burning! but went out near the end of the fuse (i think the powder may not have been distributed evenly throught the sleeve) i took it out and lit the other end it lit easily and burned for a further 10 seconds or so. im going to do some more tests tomorow. i think i mught have something here

[BigG]

Very interesting. Time fuse is the only fuse that is very hard to make at home. Plastic sleeves tend to be unreliable. The problems are that they are very hard to dry load without having the powder leak during storage. The other option is to mix with dextrin and wet load, so as the powder dries it become quite solid and does not crumble easily. Unfortunately, upon draying ? the black powder shrinks, allowing a thin space of air between the powder and the sleeve, turning the match into a quick match?

Using techniques that are common in the industry, one can make time fuse at home, but it?s lots of work?

BigG

[Pyromaster2003]

ahh i wondered about filling some 3-4 inch thick plastic tube like OxCid with black powder and dextrin(wheat flour :-) ). i didnt try this out as a thought it would be imposible for the BP to dry in a plastic tube ,wouldnt it just keep it moist and never let it dry out?

[Matt]

Goodness gracious me, havent any of you kids heard of spolettes? Crikey!

[adamw]

I dont think a spollette would be much good for lighting a fountain... thats why they are experimenting with thinner and possibly flexible fuses...

[Matt]

Yea, wouldnt exactly be water-proof either. I was just a tad confused that its considered to be an amazing super dooper new concept. My thinnest spolettes are 3mm ID 4.5mm OD. I might go see how tiny Ican get them before they fail. If you want another quicky way of making fuse you could cut a small strip of al-foil and run a meal powder train in te midde and roll it up, gets annoying after a while, it burns good and bright though, I might step out of this one.

-Matt

[bernie]

Why not just make some tissue fuse. It has it's problems but should do the trick in most cases.

[OxCid]

hi, been away for a while, i must say the only reason i was so excited was because iv never made anything burn under water before. i found that making this of any great length was quite unreliable as the sheeth melted and interfered with the burning, it also made it create a fair bit of smoke. although the fact that a short length burned for a quite a long time might make the idea stil usable for certain aplications. maybe il use them for lighting camp fires, lol

[mrpyromx]

tisue fuse with nc laquer on it maby?

[bernie]

maybe