259 replies to this topic

[knackers]

my 1st 4" shell, " my 1st mortar fired device"
it needs a little work, like a longer delay for starters, any criticisms will be appreciated



it did have red stars as well but they blew blind

Edited by phill 63, 16 March 2009 - 10:08 AM.

[seymour]

On friday I set off a rocket, a mine and a few shells.
http://www.youtube.c...re=channel_page

Phill, a longer burning fuse would certainly be an improvement, and I think that longer burning stars would be too. Once you get all the reds lighting it should be good. The few that lit looked good.

Really, it was a very good first mortar based device, and I do not think there is any criticism that you do not know about. Well done!

What size and composition were the stars? What type of time fuse was it??

[knackers]

thanks for your input seymour, as always your work is truly impressive " those bees look majestic and the gold streamers look great", quite a portfolio you have "with the new years as well ".... is your lift just wrapped up in the cone shape losely ? and how long are your 4" mortars, ( if you don't mind me asking ) my mortar is 20" long but i was thinking of cutting another about 26" long, i my be wrong but i think it may give it more of a ploomp sound instead of a scattering shot gun sound,

my Ti glitter stars were cut about 10mm , as were the reds but they were rolled and primed with milled Bp,

i have always had trouble with my glitter stars burning out to quick, but will try a few charcoal streamers. i used 3mm chinese visco and am sure as soon as the fuse went in to the shell it quick matched up the pipet to and with the black match cross match, it burns at 2 sec/ per inch so next time i'll leave 2" hanging out the shell,

the red was... Kp...44,
Sr nitrate...40
red gum...15
pvc...........10
dextrin.......5.............. i can't remember of the top of my head whether i added 5% MgAl,,,, i think i did, " can't find my notes at the moment,
primed.....75-15-10

[seymour]

The Black powder is wrapped with several layers of paper to form a packet. There is a final wrap of kraft for purely aesthetic reasons. Because my mill is very unpopular (due to the noise) I only mill my Black powder for a short period of time and need to give it some confinement. However with this done, it is both consistent, and can easily achieve the height of faster powder with the same weight charge.

My mortar is 27" long, which I think is slightly longer than average.

Do you inhibit the sides of the visco when you use it for timefuse, for example by wrapping it in tape as is commonly done? Not doing this could result in the problems you are experiencing.

[knackers]

No, i never wrapped the visco with tape but it makes perfect sence, i'll give it a try, another thing about my stars burning out to quick is, untill now i had only made 2.5" headers on rockets and my stars were geared to fit in that shell, i will make larger stars and blow them out harder, ( 10g of flash instead of 2 or 3g,, i made some kp burst on grass seeds but my Bp seems to be faster so i'll use 18# pulverone as my burst, i have a small vid of my Bp burning,, it is about 5 grams but has dragon eggs with it,,, it was a test for the dragon eggs ( my 1st lot ) and i used the Bp to initiate it, its home made willow Bp, i think i may be using too much for lift, 10% by weight, i think i'll try 1/16 by weight, as i have seen 4" shells lifted by less on you tube, but living where i do its difficult if not impossible to team up with somebody to learn with and compere ,.. i had about 1.5 grams of dragon eggs to about 5g bp

,

thank you also for being sombody whom is doing vey well and willing to say ,, "this is how i do it"

regards..phill

[seymour]

That Black powder seems fine to me, and on the video of your shell it lifted well. Those dragons eggs are nice too! Are they homemade?

Making larger stars is not the only way of getting them to burn for longer. If you want to keep the burst dense by keeping lots of stars there, but also have them burn longer you could easily modify the formula. For an extreme example, the brocade stars in my last video were ten millimeters, yet they had a burn time in excess of fifteen seconds. I would guess they contained almost the same chemicals as your Titanium glitter, but with more charcoal, and some Sodium bicarbonate to slow things farther (even with more Charcoal than Potassium nitrate they burned too fast for my liking!). Extra sulfur is also good for getting it slower, and making the metal sparks twinkle.

While your KP on grass seeds might burn slower than Black powder at atmospheric pressure, it will react well to pressure, so in side a well pasted shell it will be considerably more powerful.

May I ask, What was the formula for the Titanium streamer you used?

[knackers]

yes seymour, the dragon eggs are home made,
lead tetraoxide......10
copper(11)oxide.... 7
MgAl......................4
kno3......................1.5
Sulphur.................1, you can bind with sgrs or Nc laquer,

i will play around abit with the constituents and find a longer burning star, thanks for the pointers,

the glitter stars were Bright silver,
kno3.......64
charcoal..13. Airfloat
Ti.............9
S..............9
Dextrin......5, bound with 50/50, i think i will prefer a longer mortar and yours fire superbly at 27"

Edited by phill 63, 24 March 2009 - 10:53 AM.

[knackers]

here's a few shells i fired tonight,
2 x 3" and 1 x 4"

3 inch tigertail

3 inch golden streamer

4 inch spider web

always in a hurry and forgot my bloody cam corder, so my bro inlaw used his digi cam, watchable but could have been a better vid with the 4 incher,
using an old clique " ya had to be there"

Edited by phill 63, 12 April 2009 - 02:50 PM.

[knackers]

i fired another 2 shells tonight, one was a 4 inch Ap blue, but the shell didn't take fire from the lift, " i cross matched it the same as the others" what a horrible sight, seeing nothing and worse still was the kaplunk sound of it hitting the water,, but the other was a gold streamer, 4" matched the same.. i made a heap of streamer, spider web and tigertail stars, so thats what i'll be using mostly in the near future,

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMCpUdzBh5M""][/url]]


edit :- the praising voice is my young son, its amazing what they'll say for 5 bucks

Edited by phill 63, 15 April 2009 - 02:12 PM.

[Pyrogeorge]

My videos.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH9VovWMmBw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUmjLXVDHjY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFCm_vLUTj4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrfjVHKiTfw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqY0AdBehq0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVKmaU_1WIY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qB5VxLf5Bs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUjW1ZC3xVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmgyf82Z0yU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOdNGLUTC4

Edited by pipipi, 23 April 2009 - 02:02 PM.

[phildunford]

Those at Saturday's event may be interested...

Youtube

(Sorry the sound breaks up a bit in one or two places - My edit computer is playing up - will re-do sometime)

(Sorry also to those whose stuff I missed - If I put it all in it would be about half an hour long!)

Edited by phildunford, 29 April 2009 - 02:45 PM.

[Arthur Brown]

Great piece of filming, thanks for posting it.

Do keep the final edit as Youtube have started pulling fireworks vids and blocking the posters

[phildunford]

Great piece of filming, thanks for posting it.

Do keep the final edit as Youtube have started pulling fireworks vids and blocking the posters

Thanks Arthur.

I always keep everything - ask my wife! Come to think of it, I've probably got enough of this type of stuff to make a DVD now. Maybe I will...

[digger]

Smashing stuff Phil.

Thanks for that, the footage the misses got was a little shaky.

[fruitfulsteve]

music too, GREAT STUFF