49 replies to this topic

[Sparkler]

Sorry , I was trying to stop what I thought was somebody trying to steal your work and claim it as thier own.

[alany]

Your formula is deadly! Not only is it likely to be somewhat shock and friction sensitive to start with, it will be prone to spontaneous combustion. The copper sulfate is hygroscopic and will develop sulfuric acid slowly over time.

Fortunately it is rather over oxidised and I am quite suprised to learn that it burns at all! The Dextrin is basically the only fuel. Davis had something similar, which is considered too dangerous to use:

51 Potassium Chlorate
17 Sulfur
26 Copper Sulfate
4 Lead Chloride
2 Dextrin

NEVER TRY TO MAKE THIS!!!

It uses sulfur as the majority fuel. (Read what Phoenix posted to see how bad that is) The toxic chlorine source isn't such a great idea either. There is a similar one that uses redgum in place of the sulfur that is still considered somewhat suicidial! About the only thing worse is that ancient one that used ammonia water as the neturaliser/binder leaving free ammonium chlorate in there to explode at any moment.

A safer newbie blue would be Conkling KP #1:

65 Potassium Perchlorate
14 Copper Oxide (black)
9 Parlon
7 Red Gum
5 Dextrin

Most chlorate based blues use paris green and aren't very newbie friendly.

[Yugen-biki]

This is a picture of a "Conkling KP #1" star burning. Nice deep blue, and OK as stars in peony shells. But not very good in color changeing stars because the flame isn't very large. A quite large star has to burn to produce a large enough flame. About 10mm stars is good for 3-4 inch shells. Heavy primeing is needed.

[BigG]

--Back to the original topic, as BigG is bound to say very soon; Is my formula safe? I have not subjected it to any friction or impact tests, and have gotten rid of all of my stars that had that formula in it, for safety purposes.

As already mentioned ? no, it is not safe.

My views on chlorates in general are well known. Since most amateurs do not have the space to maintain separation from chlorate working areas to the rest of the workshop, they really should try to find formulas without them. Of course, Ofca showed if is within the means of the amateur to work safely with chlorates, but generally today there are so many good formulation without them that I fail to see the need.

Interestingly enough, the new legislation that comes out soon have some very tough laws about chlorates ? guess they done the research

Edited by BigG, 15 September 2004 - 10:29 PM.

[al93535]

I found an extremely nice pure blue!! It was relatively bright and very blue. I only tried a loose pile so far, but it looks very nice. Potassium perchlorate 55%, Any copper salt( I used copper chloride) 14%, Any chlorine donor ( I used saran resin) 14%, Hexamine 14% and sugar 3%. I may try without the sugar too. There is a really nice big flame, which makes the blue brighter.

[BigG]

I found an extremely nice pure blue!! It was relatively bright and very blue. I only tried a loose pile so far, but it looks very nice. Potassium perchlorate 55%, Any copper salt( I used copper chloride) 14%,  Any chlorine donor ( I used saran resin) 14%, Hexamine 14% and sugar 3%. I may try without the sugar too. There is a really nice big flame, which makes the blue brighter.

And how does this have ANYTHING to do with the topic of this thread?

[BigG]

Well I got my hands on another 600g of Copper oxichloride to do some more experimenting. I couldn't seem to get a constant blue! I got a few with various ratio's of Zn/COC/KNO3 but the problem is which I hope you can help me with is that when I blow on the comp (give it extra oxygen) it starts the flame and then sort of blows it out and the mix burns with no flame. I just don't know what to do!

I found when I stuck a lit match to the COC it gave a green colour. When you first strike a match for about a second it is the chlorate on the end burning. Well when I stuck this into the oxichloride it was a very deep blue and sometimes if I had a few matches together it went white. I a making the assumption that this was the extra heat which gave the desired colour.

On this hypothesis I tried to up the temperature of the mix. I started with small portions of aluminium which didn't seem to do much. But as I increased it to around the same amount as the zinc it smouldered a lot however when I tried a larger pile it started to smoulder with no flame and it eventually heated up after a few seconds glowing red and then whoosh! A blinding white sort of yellow flame occured. Then it stopped and glowed a bit and started again. It basicly blew itself out, IIRC a stobe composition does the same sort of thing.

One last thing I tried was based on Weingarts' granite comp. I substituted the KNO3 for copper oxichloride and left out the charcoal because I have never seen a blue comp with charcoal and it give undesirable orange sparks. This burnt almost the same as the normal granite comp but nto as fast and it did not leave that yellow/green residue but rather a reddy/brown residue.

Well that was my experimentation. If you have any ideas for me to try I am willing to do some experimenting. If you don't have anything to help me please don't post things like "why don't you just buy some chlorates or perchlorates" Because I can't!

Daniel I don't understand why you think that adding oxychloride will help. You have a low temp composition - the oxychloride is not going to do anything. The blue colour you obtained in the past had to do with the zinc burning - adding KNO3, colour donors of chlorine are not going to change a thing. The only way you might get something is if you will give magnesium or magnelium a go - they might elevate temp to a high enough level.

[adamw]

And how does this have ANYTHING to do with the topic of this thread?

BigG - Have you lost leave of your senses? This topic is about blue stars!!

[BigG]

BigG - Have you lost leave of your senses? This topic is about blue stars!!

Adam - we will have to talk about those glasses again I suspected something was wrong when you aimed the stick at the Djinn and hit me. The topic is blue stars using KNO3... We have another thread for star formulas in general.

[adamw]

Now that is just being picky!

[Old1953]

A blue star without a hot composition? Uh, unless you want to add copper or zinc powder to the mix, I don't think that's possible. And you'd have to coat the copper with something, else it will corrode. I suppose parafin would work for a coating, but I've never tried.

Copper powder is available just about anywhere they sell marine expoxies, its a top coat additive. It is supposed to keep the crud off the hull.

http://www.epoxyprod...m/copper4u.html

Edited by Old1953, 06 March 2005 - 11:02 PM.

[Yugen-biki]

About the subject of blue stars with KNO3...

I found an old book with some even older compositions.
When reading it I found many recepies with S and KClO3, and others with "sulfur copper" and similar trivial names...

To the subject. I found a star named "Blueish" or similar translated in to english. It contains 2 parts "powder BP" and 2 parts "granulated zink".

I have not tried it, but might be interesting for anyone without access to proper chemicals to make more modern blue stars.

[paul]

These type of stars burn more green than blue but often have a blue tip.

The light output is also a bit weak. But as you stated

might be interesting for anyone without access to proper chemicals to make more modern blue stars

They look like zincspreaders without the "spreader - component"