mleech

The pot holder you see it in is one of those giant plant pots. About 1 and a half foot wide. I never expected it to go so high and never got the whole thing in shot. It went higher than the pine tree which is an easy 20 foot. It also only lasted about 2 seconds.
I dont think any other firework I have made has impressed me as much as this did and certainly i've never had a garden firework be as impressive as this massive column of fire and sparks with its roar.  When I watch it frame by frame it kinda looks similar to a flash salute going off. The straight white lines. Would the 60 micron aluminum dramatically increase the rate of burn like this? I need to know if this was the aluminum or I just had an air pocket in the powder which caused it all to go up at once. Either way I am going to be making a bunch of these for fireworks night

Has anyone else got any cool fountains? I'm going to experiment more with the above fountain only make it a longer tube. This was only about 7 cm long.

 

My experience is that mill meal will burn at *about* 25mm/sec when used in fountains, so
a roughly-2-second burn is what you can expect.

I've been making fountains using a 15mm ID tube, and about 150mm long. I get about
6-7 seconds, and a plume that is about 3m high. I use 40 mesh steel, extra charcoal, and
spherical aluminum. They're quite lovely!

I wear a respirator, gloves, safety goggles, and cover-alls that I wash (separately)
after nearly every session in my spacious (1800 sq ft) workshop. I have water,
electricity, and I tend to work with the door open--so that I can escape in a hurry
if necessary.

Depending on the compositions, the chemicals aren't all that toxic. BP compositions
aren't particularly toxic, but they're dusty, which can lead to lung problems if you don't
wear appropriate respiratory protection.

KNO3 and KClO4 are only slightly more toxic than table salt. SrCO3 is roughly as toxic
as limestone, while Copper Carbonate and Barium Carbonate are moderately to very toxic.
Paris Green (Copper Acetoarsenate) is so toxic that its use in consumer fireworks is
banned in many countries.

NaClO3 and KClO3 are both used as herbicides and soil sterilants. You should steer clear
of them in general for other reasons related to their sensitivity.

Dextrin is edible (just not very pleasant), Shellac is also non-toxic. Sulfur is mildly toxic, but
it has traditionally been used in various folk remedies without any serious health effects.
Charcoal isn't particularly toxic, except that if you end up breathing the dust in every day
for the next 20 years, you're likely to end up with black lung disease, and die a horrible
gasping death.

Aluminum dust is not good for you, and aluminum has been implicated as a contributing
factor in Alzheimers disease. The original "tin man" in the Wizard of Oz had to be replaced
because the aluminum dust they were using on his face nearly killed him. Daily aspiration
of small amounts of the dust during production coated his lungs with aluminum, causing
major pulmonary distress.

Injestion of metallic iron can cause iron toxicity (liver, I think), but it's likely that you'll
barf before injesting enough to cause problems. And we typically use fairly large
particle sizes, so it's unlikely to form significant dusts.

The Benzoates and Salicylates are toxic--benozates are used as fungicides and preservatives
in foods, however. So small quantities aren't likely to be a problem. Don't go eating them.

Organic solvents aren't particularly good for you, so make sure that your space is well
ventillated, and try to avoid Acetone, Toluene, Xylene, and Methanol whenever practical.
Isopropyl is still toxic, but less so than Methanol, and prolonged breathing of Methanol
vapour is almost as dangerous as drinking the stuff.

My biggest concern is lead toxicity--since we nearly all mill our BP with lead balls, we're
all getting exposed to metallic lead, and small amounts of lead compounds whenever
we work with homemade BP. It might be instructive to test homemade BPs for degree
of lead contamination. Anyone have the ability to do that?

Hm, United Nuclear's 3 pound ball mills look a lot like the one chim-chim just mentioned...But as for me, I found that a cheap little rock tumbler, and some fishing weights (I believe they mostly stopped making them out of lead, since fish eat  them and get fairly sick  ) milled up my Potassium Chlorate 80 % and red wood charcoal 20 %, came up with some plenty fine gun powder. I suppose I may be needing a larger-sized rock tumbler later, or perhaps I'll make one. That formula up above works fine despite it not having any sulfur in it, since it's not a good idea to have sulfur and chlorate getting mashed together.
mini

 

With the possible exception of carbonate colouring compounds, it's not a good idea to
mill Chlorates with *ANYTHING*. While H3 (Chlorate and Charcoal) is relatively
tame in use, the proper method for making it is to screen the two ingredients together,
having milled them separately.

Milling Chlorate/Fuel mixtures is asking for a large and possibly-lethal explosion at some point.

In fact, milling any oxidizer/fuel combination OTHER THAN BLACKPOWDER in a ball mill
is extremely hazardous. Don't do it!

Ah ha!

I mill my sulphur and charcoal at the same time for about 60h. I mill about 100-150g at once.
Then later I add the KNO3, as in the method discribed in Best of AFN II (super pulverone).

60 hours? SIXTY? Are you sure you meant that? Six hours seems more than adequate
(particularly for only 150g of BP!).

I pre-mill my charcoal blend for about 2 hours, then throw in the KNO3 + Sulphur and
mill for a further 3-5 hours. I find that pre-milling the charcoal (first by busting it up
into little pieces, then milling in the ball mill) helps quite a bit with producing an
overall short milling time.

I had previously tried simply throwing the dry ingredients (including chunky charcoal)
into the mill, and letting it go. Even after 10 hours, there were significant chunks in the
mill (constituting perhaps 3% of the total mass of composition).

My latest batch is an experiment. Based on what I heard here, and reading some BP
history material, my latest batch is:

o 75% KNO3 (98.75% pure)
o 7.5% Trembling Aspen Charcoal
o 7.5% Field Hay Charcoal
o 10% Acid Control Sulphur (agro grade)

The mill dust came out after 5 hours, and testing just the mill output indicates that it's
faster than any of the other batches I've made (using just Aspen or Willow). I've
got one 60g pressed puck drying at the moment, which I'll corn tonight.

I live on a farm, and raise a few sheep. I have ready access to old field hay to use
as a feedstock for my charcoal habit, along with a goodly stand of Trembling Aspen.