DrDerekDoctors

While I've made a few film cannister salutes, I decided I should do things properly and make a proper banger.

So I made a wood-glue bound parcel paper tube using some 18mm dowel as a guide, with 1cm wooden end-plugs and probably measuring about 12cm in total length. I used the thicker green safety fuse as I didn't have a thinner drill bit for the end and because I don't have a corning press the contents is very nicely milled meal powder rather than the proper stuff, which was merely settled by tapping the sides of the tube as I filled it rather than tamped down (as it's the spare room which makes a banger bang, right?).

Anyhoo, I tried it today with the footage ably captured by my mum.

http://www.drderekdo...irst_banger.avi

Sadly there's no sound because the conversion tool I used only kept the audio if I converted the entire sequence, which would mean you'd be treated to footage of me burning my thumb and then the grotesque motion of my gut as I leg it away to safety. But tbh, you ain't missing much as while the banger produced a VERY satisfying thump (and split the flower pot it was on in twain), the camera only caught a little "bang" instead.

I'd take a picture of the ruptured casing (which split down the side instead of ejecting the end-plugs - which I was very happy about) but it landed in the neighbours garden.

Well, I just joined the ranks of serious amateurs as I splashed out on a CR2 tumbler from Manchester Minerals. Anyhoo, the lead media I have is plain old gun bullet's which are between 0.4" and 0.45" in size (two different lots - cleared out the gunstore). So I was wondering how long I'm likely to get out of them assuming fairly irregular use and <6 hour milling sessions. Is it something I need to start planning for now or could they last years and years?

The only reason I ask is that I'm finally making preparations to try some small pyrotechnic projects but I live in a street so I'm understandably retiscent to do anything like ball-milling of significant quantities of green meal (though I'd be happy to separately mill the constituents) because even if I stick the ball mill at the very bottom of the garden it's still only about 15-20 meters from the house and only a few meters from the neighbour's gardens. Even if I sandbagged it up the wazoo I suspect that if a jar full of BP and brass media went off there would be more than just raised eyebrows to answer to.

So do any of you other people live in fairly suburban areas and what precautions do you take in respect of this fact? Or am I best just not bothering?

If you're interested then an okay quality video of this years Sydney fireworks has been posted on alt.binaries.multimedia. I assume it was a TV broadcast which has been captured off of VHS. It's a 510Mb file if you want to download it, but you'll need to grab the PARS as well if you have any missing bits as inexplicably they've been included in the PAR2 set. Bah!

Is this kind of post okay, btw?

I'm thinking of placing an order with Labpak for oxidising agents and other chemicals and was wondering what legal obligations I had with regards to storing them? For instance, is it okay to store a half kilo of Potassium Chlorate in a shed? I shouldn't think there were any limitations on the raw materials, but I thought I'd better check before going ahead with purchasing anything.

Btw, I did a search but it seems all the topics on this subject refer to storage of fireworks or compositions.

Thanks,

Graham