Prometheus

Just seen these  http://www.oliverbro.../copy_of_1.html

 

By the way I prefer 4oz core burners as they take much less comp  (about 16 grams) they still lift a nice header and are much lighter in terms of fallout.

 

Rod

 

I bought a load of the 7 1/2" x 3/4" tubes from oliverbrown but they turned out to be spiral wound, completely useless for core burners, even if they're nozzle-less... these are more expensive: http://www.pyrosuppl...ubes/4520679386 but they are parallel wound and much stronger, I've had good results with 60/30/10: .

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Nice video! Is that your own composition, I'd love to know how you got such a solid clean strobe.

I presume it as a formula was something like this:?


Ammonium Perchlorate 60 parts
Magnalium -80 mesh 25 parts
Barium Sulfate 15 parts
Potassium Dichromate 5 parts

I'm not a bug fan of handling really hazardous chemicals like Potassium Dichromate so I'd be keen to know how vital it is in a dry composition that is being lightly pressed into paper tubes.

Yes, the composition used was Shimizu's White Twinkler and is in the video description, but I used 60 mesh magnalium.

I don't think you can avoid using the potassium dichromate altogether, even if you think your chemicals are completely dry and you press it into the tubes without any binder, the magnallium would still react with the ammonium perchlorate over time if it's not coated. The additional 5% may also act to control the strobe rate, but I'm not certain about that. In Pyrotechnica VII Shimizu states that it enhances the regularity and sharpness of the flashes, but I've never seen a copy of it myself.

If you can be careful and take simple steps to minimize your exposure, then there's no reason why you're not capable of handling dichromate safely. Unless you are working with the stuff on a daily basis, I think you'd have to be extremely careless in order to accidentally poison yourself. It's bright orange, which makes even minute amounts easy to spot.