bogsulphur

Did you have any luck with this? Im in the SW too, in Farnborough, looking to get some pyrotechnic experience.

I've got a fair bit of heavy industrial engineering experience on chemical plants which might help as its very safety-oriented and obviously you need to know about electricity, chemistry and mechanics.

Just started putting out feelers to see what the options are. Does anyone know of any companies who are likely to take on apprentices or run training? In the UK, not just the SW.

TIA

Michael.

I've been selling kno3 on ebay for 2 1/2 years now without any problems. And before you start, yes, I do all the stuff everybody loves to believe ebay sellers ignore. Anyway I got a phone call from west yorkshire police a month ago (i live in glasgow) saying they wanted to meet me. I had no idea why, or how they got my number or anything so I was pretty worried.

When they eventually came up (they drove 3 hundred miles from w.yorkshire instead of telling strathclyde police to get me so I realised it must be serious) they met me in central station and took me into an absolutely tiny room in the transport police office, and shone an incredibly bright light on me. They said 'do you know what this is about' and I said no and they said 'we're from counter-terrorism,' as in government agents. Then they told me some asian guy had bought kno3 off me on ebay and used it to make a b**b to use against the bnp in leeds.

As you can imagine I was getting kind of worried by this point. What happened was they took a massive 9 page statement, told me to come to court next year sometime to give a witness statement and let me go. BUT read this - this is the story, or the bare bones of it anyway.

http://www.yorkshire...t-on.3214623.jp

Update on this: They were acquitted on all charges a couple of days ago. Sounds like a couple of teenagers were just messing around and unfortunately happened to be Muslims at the same time. Here's the link: http://news.bbc.co.u...ord/7685636.stm

Couple of points from that article; the Anarchists Cookbook and potassium nitrate are not what one would use if one wanted to actually do some structural damage. Also, the 'significant amounts' referred to are the 500g KNO3 he bought from me. Why calcium chloride is mentioned I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought it was merely a dessicant.

thats pretty out of order by those people, david and meggsy. i'd have to agree and say that anyone who walks or even worse, drives! into a specially designated area where clearly several fireworks are being launched is breaking the law, not to mention extremely stupid.

its on a par with you walking across a firing range and complaining about the noise, i.e. completely oblivious to the fact that your life is in danger. you would get arrested for that. I suppose its probably because of the coverage in the media that people have pre-conceived ideas about pyrotechnicians and decide to 'have a go' and stop the 'hoodies', whereas in real life nothing could be further from the truth.

Seems like the industry's changing from running on common sense to running on a set of rules designed for complete morons. The trouble is the law can't look at each case individually and decide the punishment - that would be unbelievably expensive in time and money. so they need rules which will cover everyone which unfortunately means the guidelines are set out with the lowest common denominator in mind.

I went to a supplier in Carlisle a few years ago - good guy, helpful, easy to talk to and with plenty of experience. I asked if he had any visco and he said he couldn't sell me it as that would come under 'modifying explosives' and it wasn't worth the risk to him.

Bogsulphur, you do have to pay tax. You need to pay company tax because you are making a profit. You may not have to pay tax on your earnings. You are selling illegally, I'm telling you this as a fact. You say you do things propperly, do you know what CHIP and COSHH mean, and your resposibilites as a seller under these legislations?
Don't take too much offence, I'm just narked off that Inoxia has to compete with people that have zero overheads because they are selling illegally.

However much people compalin about the law, it is there for the good of the nation as a whole. We should really consider ourselves luck that there is a way we can operate legally, because it would be far easier just to ban any pyrotecnic experimentation whatsoever, it won't harm the vote, hardly anyone (as a percentage of the population) will care, and the country WILL be a safer place. (Personally I would not be happy with, nor would I recommend this drastic solution to legilsating the country, but it would cerntainly be easer from the government's point of view)

No worries, theres a limit on tax free earnings for private individuals which is about £5000, I make about £3000 every summer from factory work and nowhere near £2000 profit from ebay. But I'm a student so I just fill out a form and tax doesn't get taken off at all. I used to work in a rubber factory handling sulphur and peroxides by the tonne which involved a (albeit incredibly simple)coshh lecture and test every month. I asked the police who interviewed me if I was under suspicion or anything and they specifically told me they had checked and what I was doing is in no way illegal.