mnementh

Hi guys,
I have posted very little, being content to glean as much knowledge as possible.

I have a couple of questions and hope you can assist me;

1) Given that Guy Fawkes night is almost here and most pyro stock gets used. Does everyone immediately start buying up all the Nitrate that suppliers have (Gardendirect, for example), or do you wait a few weeks?

I bought some concentrated Sulphuric acid the other week to set up an anodizing bath and given the grief I got, you'd think I tried to buy Nitroglycerine.

2) the host that PYROTEKNIX was on, appears to have gone belly up. Does PYROTEKNIX have another site yet and if so, would someone post the URL, please.

Adam Hart Davies, who does the "Local Heroes" program on discovery has been on for the last couple of days, doing a Guy Fawkes special and one of the bits got me thinking about ball milling black powder.

He had some powder, made as per Roger Bacon's formula of 7:5:5 (KNO3:C:S). This proved very difficult to ignite and burned very slowly, compared to modern powder, made to the optimal formula.

As, if I read things correctly, ball milling black powder is mainly to get some of the Nitrate particles into the porous Charcoal, thus favouring fast reaction. However, a number of posts have commented on the possibility (albeit small) of the ball mill exploding, while milling.

Given the difficulty of ignition and the very slow burn of the incorrect mix, would it not be feasible to use a very Oxygen reduced mix (but with SOME Nitrate), to get the same intimate mix of Nitrate and Charcoal but hugely reducing the likelihood of an explosion. Simple mixing of the rest of the Nitrate, in a drum, would be good enough at a later point???

Also on this program, he showed a simple machine for making safety fuse. Visco, here we come?

Thanks, in advance,
Sandy
Oops. just had a quick look and the prog is on UKTVHistory. It's just finished but will almost certainly be back on again.

Hi guys,
I've just had 4 "bottles" of toner carbon given to me for disposal, each having 750g of material. The "ingredients" consist of 98%+ carbon and a few other binder chemicals, none of whic are particularlly reactive (under normal circumstances).

The material is incredibly fine and I would say it equates to airfloat carbon.

Has anyone tried toner carbon in a composition? If so, what do you think opf it?

Sandy

Hi guys,
I've been searching for information on Visco, etc. and found a post referencing theatrical suppliers.

I've had a swift google search and found only one, so far, that lists fuse.

http://www.hfmgroup....esandfuses.html

From the tone of the article, they appear to be pretty strict on Visco type fuse but ordering Plastic Igniter Cord seems a straightforward "Add to shopping cart" affair.

Don't know if anyones tried them but looks worth a look.

Sandy