sfxdan3

Apologies for my ignorance in advance. But I'm new to the process of getting an acquite licence.

Firstly, how much does the cert cost? Do you need to renew the cert both with an application or monetary wise every few years?

The 100g rule that many people have cited in this thread. Does it include all substances combined? Or can you have several substances all below 100g each?

It's amazing what a grinder and a bit of bull sh*t black paint can do

Getting a welder or fabricator is the way to go. Motor pots are a great stock item that every sfx guy has. There's hundreds of designs out there. And they all have there benefits.

It's good to build up a collection, from 4" squared up to anything like 24".

Here's a few pointers when dealing with motar pots. (Sorry if this is teaching you to suck eggs)

Make sure the corners and bottom are reinforced. (I've seen lots of pots bulge out and crack due to no reinforcement)
Put handles on the sides, as pots are bloody heavy and a 2 man lift
It's handy to drill a 3mm in the base so twin flex can be passed through (or feed the line from the front and tie it of to the handle, as strung bounds and flex have a habit of flying out with the debris)
It's also a great idea to weld some half backs (scaffold fittings) to the side of the pot. That way it's easy to tube it off and help to stop any "bounce" when it goes off
When you place the pot, always put some sand bags down first, and surround the sides and top of the pot with the bags.

As far as guarantees go, the only thing you could do it get a coded welder to make them. But saying that, I know many very good welders who aren't coded. And also, many coded welders who are terrible.

If you use the same mesh size, does titanium sponge have a different effect from normal titanium powder?

We got it looking really good yesterday just using charcoal dust made from BBQ charcoal. We made a venturie system using a road compressor running at 120psi which was generating 80mph of suction through the venturie. We had a bit of fine tuning moving the air supply up and down the chamber to opternise the air flow without cooling the burnings down. And with the help of a scoop on the front we managed to get the embers to fly about 20-30 feet.

Now we need to try different ideas for floaty bits. I out forward the idea of impregnating different materials with nitrates. So just waiting for the ok on that test. We found burning a roll of paper in a metal bin gives a really good ash effect and if you agitate it a bit with an airline and have some other material (charcoal, dust, wood clippings) in the bottom you can get some floaty bits. But still look like floaty burning bits of ash and not floaty embers. We've got some rolls of paper soaked in diesel and smoke fluid trying to see why that gives us tomorrow.

One last question. Would there be much difference with using postassium nitrate aposed to sodium nitrate for this gag?

Thanks for all the ideas and help